My wife gets to come home tomorrow! I left work early to go out to the hospital she's been staying at since Thursday (near the Kauffman stadium complex). Looks like the lady who's been biking in took one of her kids' bikes or got an upgrade. This Trek 820 has a lot better components, although the front QR was tightened incorrectly. I fixed it for her, without permission. Hopefully the bike gods forgive me.
I wasn't sure how to get out to the stadiums by bike from downtown KC, so I bussed it with the help of Google Transit.
People in KC know where "The K" is in relationship to Lenexa, where I live. I did have an idea how to get home. Blue Ridge Cutoff connects to 63rd street, which I'm familiar with when I have to ride home from a Data Center that I occasionally have to visit. I wasn't counting on a huge death slog, though. It wasn't so much steep as it was two miles of obdurate 8% climbing.
You just don't take pictures on 63rd street. It was insane, and I usually feel pretty confident in traffic. You also don't take pictures slogging through Swope Park, either. Meyer Blvd, however, is beautiful. I love riding this road. It's one lane that's more than 20 feet wide. Even when I pass parked cars, it's like having my own lane down the center of the road. To make it better, there's a long downhill stretch that's not too hard to climb going the other way, but homeward offers me 20 miles per hour coasting with no hands, just chilling on the bike.
Further along, Meyer becomes Tomahawk and you start to see some pretty nice homes. I can't remember if I took this on Meyer or Tomahawk. It doesn't matter. I was just along for the ride.
With my wife being discharged tomorrow, I'll have to drive to work. This will be my first car commute of 2008 -- my first car commute, in fact, since September 14, 2007. That's okay. This is sooo worth it. Bringing my wife is one of the few things that will make me drive to work. I've missed her greatly these past few days.
Random Tunage:
INOJ - Time After Time
Way Out West - Don't Forget Me
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Out by the stadiums...
I can beat this storm... or not! Bonus: Lego Bicycle
I woke up this morning to find ominous skies to the west. The radar was showing storms passing through Topeka headed roughly toward Kansas City. I figured if I got my act together and hit the road a bit early, I should be okay.
As you might imagine, I was wrong. The intersection of Merriam Lane and Johnson Drive marks the last place I can catch a Johnson County bus without deviating from my usual workbound route. With lightning growing ever closer (some strikes were within 3/4 mile), I decided to stop here and check the bus schedule (which I keep stored in my phone's photos). I was about 5 minutes ahead of the Dreaded bus. I threw the raincovers on the panniers and waited.
With my wife gone this week, I'm getting pretty bored. After the Monday night ride, I finished working on a Lego bicycle I'd started the night before. The end result is a full-suspension fixed-gear mountain bike with a kickstand.
The "chainring" is actually on the inside of the frame. Not terribly realistic.
The rear "cogs" - The rubber "chain" has enough stretch that I can use either of these two "gears"
The fully functional rear suspension actually works quite well. It borrows from the suspension design used in some of the Lego RoboRider kits. I wish I could say I was clever enough to have engineered it myself.
It uses a worm gear inside the housing. The housing has lots of slack for the worm gear to move back and forth. A rod is placed through the housing, the worm gear, and another bracket. The bracket is then held with a rubber band to supply tension. Finally, a round gear meshes with the worm and the rear stay assembly is mounted to the gear. When pressure is applied, the stays rotate the gear, which pushes the worm gear forward, and it springs back thanks to the rubber band.
The front "suspension" is just for looks and does not actually work. It's just some LEGO tubing threaded over a bar that's been beefed up by wide pulleys.
A kickstand on the back looks pretty ridiculous, but this baby won't stand up in my cubicle at work all by itself, so it stays.
Bike inverted with me "pedaling"
Another angle of the finished product.
This evening, I've got some serious running around to do. I'll probably do it by bus and bike. Should be fun.
Random Tunage:
Orbital - Impact USA (The Earth Is Burning)
Dynamix II - Begin Bombing
Begin Bombing is a techno track built around a quote by Ronald Reagan that was meant to be humorous. Unfortunately, the microphone was on, and the sound byte was captured forever.
Monday, June 23, 2008
Dogstacle Course and photo ops
It was a nonstop dog-dodging homeward commute. Yikes! It's a miracle I even made it, what with all the canines on half-mile long strands of nearly invisible yarn. Luckily, the XC Wheels I put on Hybridzilla make the brakes squeal something horrid (just ask the June Moon Riders) so I have an improvised "out of my f'n way!" horn, which blasts automagically upon slowing.
The workers were busy continuing their destruction of the grain silo. I calmly rode up and asked a few workers if I could photograph things from where they were standing, which I assumed was a safe distance. They granted me permission.
One cool thing about my cheapo point-n-shoot camera is that between having 4x optical zoom and running 5 megapixels (not really that high res), I can still manage to zoom in and use cropping to get decent zoom shots at web-friendly sizes. This was cropped from the above image:
Meanwhile, back on the MUP, I couldn't resist taking a few photo ops.
Man-made concrete waterfall:
My bike, parked while I hike around.
Thorny vine with cottonwood strands tangled up in it.
A fallen tree.
A spider's web catches cottonwood seeds as well
This firefly landed on my hand
And took off, just as quick as it landed. I can't believe this shot turned out.
Cottonwood.
What a knotty, knotty tree.
This is the kind of tree every kid wishes for in the backyard.
Oh, and I took a lunch break to grab some Lulu's Thai Noodles. I can't stress enough how practical this bike is, whether I'm hammering out 80 miles with padded bike shorts, making my 30-mile round trip to and from work, or just making a two-mile jaunt for lunch in my work clothes -- shoes included.
Well, I'm off to the Monday night recovery ride. I'll see you all tomorrow.
June Moon Ride Report Round-up
Some others that went on the June Moon Ride had things to say as well.
Also, welcome Jason to my blogroll. I hadn't seen his blog before. His missives are often quite clever. Check it out.
Solo
Solo in more than one way. First and foremost, my wife is -- for all intents and purposes -- out of town. This weekend was lonely and somewhat boring, alleviated only by the fact that the apartment's a bit of a mess (so I have some cleaning up to do before my wife comes home) and that I had quite a few miles planned for the weekend.
This morning, I was riding solo because no one joined me on the Commuter Convoy. This was expected. Chris landed a part time job that makes bike commuting on Mondays a non-option and Karen's on vacation. As for where John and Lorin are? No idea. I didn't even see Lorin this morning, so I have no idea if he even took the bus. He might still be at home. I had a nice talk with JR over coffee once I got downtown.
On my way in, I totally dropped this street sweeper. Who's awesome now? Huh?!
Shortly thereafter, I got what might possibly be my second most interesting road find EVER. A hand-made slim jim -- used for unlocking automobile doors without keys (as if I need to explain a slim jim to my readers, but just in case). Finder's keepers! My most interesting is still The Nintendo DS (with Spongebob cartridge... ugh).
Dark skies overhead ended abruptly just above the horizon. For a while, the sun was glaring straight at me, but it didn't last long, as the sun rose into the clouds. I couldn't get a clear shot of the sky before the sun came up, but it looked quite splendid.
"Urban" tennis shoes flung over the power line where Southwest Blvd ends and turns into 19th St.
My buddies over a BikeCommuters.com hooked me up with some of their sweet new stickers. If you've ever thought of writing about a tip or trick that you discovered while bike commuting but don't want to commit to starting your own blog and writing something several times per week, they are looking for guest writers. If your post gets published, they'll send you stickers, too! Same thing goes for commuter profiles. 
Random Tunage:
Orbital - Lush 3-3 (Underworld Mix)
16B - Inbetween Your Choice
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Fun weekend
I have gotten back into the habit of weighing in weekly on Saturday mornings. I'm not riding specifically to lose weight anymore, but I am losing it again and I finally slipped back out of the clydesdale club. Barely.
I had to drive out to Kansas City yesterday morning, but after that, it was all bike.
I pedaled through Santa Fe Trail Drive to Pflumm, one of the few bike-friendly arterials around. It's quite hilly, but it lacks any highway access, reaching pretty far north and south way into the boonies. Very few places of interest are located alongside Pflumm save for a few little strip malls here and there. Mostly, it's surrounded by residential land and farmland as you travel further south.
I rode through some roadblocks and through a yet-to-be-built development of some kind. I haven't looked at the zoning, but my money is that apartments will go in. There are already 3 substantial shopping centers within a one-mile radius.
Wind, construction machinery or perhaps a rogue car has already knocked one streetlight over.
First stop on the list: Lunch at Fortune Wok -- one of the tastiest westernized Chinese joints in town that I've found.
... in bed! Eeh. It works better with some fortunes than others.
z0mg 1337n355!!1! - It was 1:37PM when I got done fooding.
Sorry, I had to.
Next was the KC PHP User's Group at Daily Dose. While there, I saw the sun reflecting some light off of a windshield in the parking lot, projecting Daily Dose's address onto the wall. I thought it was cool.
Also, while on the topic of 1337n355 I saw this, which I took in December 2005 -- 10 months before I started bike commuting. I thought I was awesome, making sure that the trip meter would read 133.7 miles at the same time that I turned over 100,000.
Why'd I upload a photo of my car's dash? Because, I just looked at it today, and I've only put 18,000 miles on it in two and a half years. Consider the fact that I was still driving the car daily for my 24-mile round trip commute at the start-up company, then daily for a month or so when I started working downtown (45 mile round trip) before I finally started driving to the bus stop instead, which led into my bike/bus commuting days. I could only wish I made note of my odometer more often. It would be interesting to put my two vehicles together and see how many miles my wife and I collectively drive. I'm betting it's somewhere between 5,000 and 8,000 miles per year (mostly my wife's driving to work), if that.
Today, I'm paying for about 100 miles in two days. I know, people who do MS-150, RAGBRAI, Biking Across Kansas not to mention those crazy Randonneur types have no problem with this. I broke a new personal record this week, piling on 248 miles in one seven-day period, and I'm more than on-target for a 750-mile month assuming I ride the full round trip for the remainder of my work days.
Forecasts are varying much between meteorologists, but it doesn't look like this coming week will present many reasons to take the bus, aside from an errand I'll be running Wednesday after work. Depending how I feel, that errand just may be an excuse to pile more miles on. Should I shoot for 800 miles this month? I know I can do it, but I don't know if I want to. I just need 237 more miles, and I have 8 days ahead of me... That would get me within 320 miles of being back on target for 5,000 miles this year, a big chunk taken from the 520-mile deficit I carried into June from miles missed in early Spring. I may actually hit 5,000 miles like I wanted to; it was looking pretty bleak 3 months ago.
Random Tunage:
POB - Boiler (Humate Remix)
Ben Folds Five - Brick
Saturday, June 21, 2008
June Moon Ride
Chris arrives (by car) to ride with Dave and I to the ride.
Chris and Dave
At the start point. Badger is mooning us?
Amnee and Jason showed up. I know both of them. Jason through classes at JCCC and Amnee through the Monday Night rides.
C'Dude's Sweet vintage Trek.
Left to right: C'Dude (almost out of frame), Dave, Al, Jason, Crowbar, Chris, Amnee (hiding behind Chris) and Badger (almost out of frame too). Counting myself, we had a crowd of nine. Awesome!
Abstractness.
Rest stop in De Soto, KS.
C'Dude needs wipers for his glasses. This is a bug splat.
It wouldn't be a June Full Moon Ride if it wasn't june or close to being a full moon, would it? Here, the moon is rising over the highway and between some trees.
More abstractness
A quick regroup before the death slog. One of many slogs, actually.
Even more abstractness.
All in all, I put 81 miles on since I woke up...errm yesterday at 5:00. Now, it's almost 1:30 and time for me to go to sleep.
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