224 miles for March! woot!

Yesterday, I was planning today's miles to wrap up my goal of 200 for March. I decided on riding around for a few miles on-road. Perhaps after dropping my wife off, ride to Daily Dose, hang out there for a few hours and ride back before my wife got off work. There were some mega storms so my usual paths would be far too muddy, as they all run next to various streamways.

Well around 10:00 last night, my buddy Tim e-mails me, wondering if I'm going to ride today. I told him to call me around 7:00AM to discuss plans. As it turns out, he had a route in mind that would take us from JCCC out to Olathe Lake and back for a total of over 20 miles.

It was a great time, and I still got to kick it at the Dose for a little bit before it was time to take my wife home. Click the image to go to my gallery of photos from today. There's only six or so.

Grimy Lunch

Yep, it's still grimy outside! I took a spin to Minsky's Pizza in city market for lunch and kept the speed really low since I was riding in my work clothes.

I'm going straight home after work, which will add another 3 miles to my day, bringing my monthly total to about 197 miles. All I need to do is put 3-4 miles on tomorrow and I'll have my 200 miles in for March! You'd better believe I'll ride more than 4 miles, though! I'll try to get some more photos tomorrow while I'm riding.

I'm not expecting anything exciting to happen on my way home, so this is probably all you'll hear from me today.

Grimy commute

This is the first time I've ridden wet roads in shorts since I was 17. I'm happy to report that bike shorts DO dry faster than jeans. I'm sad to report that my calves and shins are caked in a thin layer of dried, gritty road grime. Now I know how my bike chain feels after I ride in this stuff!

I took it kind of easy on the way to the bus to keep the road grime to a minimum. It's days like this when I think a front fender would be a really good idea. A few things stop me, though. One is price, the other is the fact that I have no clue how I'll put it on the bus with fenders, as there's a spring-loaded arm that snaps over the front wheel. That arm would bend, deform or otherwise ruin my fender.

Despite the wet roads, I already have seen two other bicycle commuters downtown today, and it's not even 7:00AM. Yesterday, I saw the bike/bus commuter who uses the Revive recumbent again. Still no sign of the bike commuter who shared my route back in the Fall. I haven't seen his bike since September or so. My guess is he's a two-season and/or fair-weather bike commuter. Either that, or he switched jobs.

Evil death wind!

The ride home was really windy. The first leg was straight into the headwind, in rush-hour traffic on Strang Line Road, which is the road I was on when I got in the accident a few weeks ago. I was strong and as fast as I could be going into the wind like I was. Yesterday's riding had me a little tired this morning, but I felt pretty good on my way home.

The skies were bulging with storms, but it stayed dry and windy for the whole return trip. The middle of my route provided a diabolical crosswind on the 127th street viaduct, but the last leg was with the wind, and I was scooting right along!

Right now, as I type this, there's rain, thunder and lightning outside. There's a flash flood warning in my county, and from the look of the radar, stuff just keeps building southwest of us. I'm in for a messy commute tomorrow morning.

My wife is at Olathe Medical Center for a sleep study tonight. She had good news on her lung function test, and the effects of her lung disease are fading. They're checking her out for sleep apnea and other sleep disorders tonight. Normally, she'd just be getting home about now, but I'm going to go to bed soon so I can try to weasel in 7 hours or so of sleep, which is about twice my usual nightly average.

Tis the season...

...to get lip from co-workers for coming into the office in shorts.

I'm not a moron. I know I'm fugly. It's way too warm to be wearing jeans on the bike in the morning, though. Two separate people mentioned my attire (a black t-shirt and black loose-in-the-legs mountain bike shorts that look like swim trunks) this morning. I threatened to start coming in wearing a racing lycra get-up if they didn't back off. I'm so bad!

A mocha and a little bowl of Malt-O-Meal is fueling my morning, post-commute. I had a nice ride this morning, although my legs are a bit tired from all the riding yesterday. I beat the 6:15 bus to the bus stop but I left at 5:50. I wasn't blazingly fast, I just left early. The bus usually gets to my usual bus stop at about 6:07 or so. I could see it coming up the road south of the viaduct that I take. I could have just pulled over onto the sidewalk, waited, and flagged it down. There'd be no point in that, though. I like riding my bike!

I forgot to mention yesterday that I had another mechanical nuisance while riding the trail. My Outlook is a cheapish bike, a notch above the $150 bikes on the bottom rack at your favorite discount warehouse (Target, K-Mart, Wal*Mart, etc) not to mention that it's 9 years old (with under 1000 miles on it). Original retail price was somewhere in the $200-$250 range, placing it below "entry level" at most bike shops, which don't often sell a single new adult bike model under $300 or $350. That said, it's not exactly built like a tank. You can view the specs and components here and clearly see that it probably wasn't built for the daily (ab)use of a 200+ pound guy using it for commuter duty. I upgraded the brakes (Jagwire), Pedals (Shimano PD-M505), Bottom bracket (had my bike shop put stronger bearings in), Wheels (including a Freehub rear) and cassette (SRAM 8-Speed 11/30). For the most part, it's finally a sturdy ride.

So, back to last night's mechanical problem... I started to get another bizarre noise every pedal rotation. I look down and about 3 links of my chain are hopping up and off the chainring. I shift to the granny ring and it goes away. I shift to the big ring and it also goes away. Back to the middle ring and it starts acting wierd again. I figured I had a bent or broken tooth, so I pulled over.

One of the screws had come out of the cheapo plastic bash guard, and jammed in between my middle and outer chainrings. I tried to screw it back into place, but it wouldn't stay. I removed the faulty screw, and all was well again. I checked the other screws to make sure they were still snug.

This morning, another one started coming loose. I am going to super-glue them into their holes tonight. If it continues to happen, I'll probably have to remove the bash guard, which I only keep on because it also keeps my pant legs out of the chain.

So, that was my morning commute!

What a flippin' wonderful day for a ride

Photo: I'm sneaking up on a herd of deer that are blocking my path.

I left home at about 6:00, figuring I'd ride to the 127th street trailhead of Indian Creek Trail, and ride it as far as I could by 7:00, turn around, and ride home, hopefully getting home around 8:00 which is about the time the sun is down around here.

I ended up winding through Warren T's stomping grounds. I think I got lost right around 7:00. I recall the trail is supposed to go a few miles into Missouri but shortly after crossing Nall (2 miles from the MO state line) I ran into a soccer park, where the trail made a big loop and turned me right back around. It was almost time to turn back anyways, so I just went with the flow, flipped my GPS over to the "Tracks" screen so I could follow my breadcrumbs back home.

Some guy on a mountain bike dropped me on the trail. Rule one of dropping someone is to make sure if you are going to cop an attitude, ride next to someone, give them 'the look' and then try to power off into the distance, make sure you can actually stay ahead. I didn't go into attack mode. I was already 16 miles deep in a 26-mile journey. I just kept my pace (about 14 mph). This guy stopped gaining ground on me about 200 yards ahead. Another 1/4 mile and he was losing ground on me and really sucking wind but we were on a flat stretch! I eventually caught up with him, and casually sauntered by with the industry standard "on your left". How delightfully childish of him.

Then... THEN!! These bugs -- I don't know what they were, baby mosquitoes perhaps -- they were EVERYWHERE by the time 7:30 rolled around. I had to squint my eyes, breathe only through my nose, and frequently blow what one might call "snot rockets" except there was more insect mass than mucous. I foraged onward with my head facing slightly down. My arms became engulfed in these critters and they sounded like light rain on my helmet as I breezed through clouds of swarming, gnat-like organisms.

I finished my ride out back on 127th street, just as I'd come to the trailhead. Back over the viaduct that is the middle leg of my morning commute. Back up Ridgeview. Back home.

Aside from the bizarre creatures I encountered (including the 200 pound variety that attempts to prove his superiority in vain) it was a very pleasant ride. Oh yes, and the trail detour through corporate woods, while paved, might as well be made of boulders. What a disaster!

Woke up late - drove in

Well, it finally caught up to me. I've been averaging less than four hours of sleep per night over the last week. I went to bed as early as possible last night (about midnight) and it still wasn't enough. My sleep deficit chose this morning to cash in. My alarm went off, and I hit snooze a few times. Eventually I managed to sit up, shut it all the way off, then passed out again right after that. The next time my eyes opened, it was 7:17am, precisely two minutes after the last bus leaves for downtown.

Anyhow, I'm probably still going to ride once I get home.

For those of you who are wondering how on earth MIDNIGHT is the earliest possible bed time I can muster up, my wife usually gets home at about 10:30pm. By the time we've made something light to eat, spent a little splinter of time together, and I've gotten ready for sleep, it's about midnight. She stays up until 4:00 or 5:00am before coming to bed, and I try to wake up between 5:30 and 6:00 to leave for work.

I have beaten last month's miles!

This evening, I was feeling really tired at work. I worked over lunch and got in at 7:00, so I didn't feel too bad about leaving a little before 4:00. I decided to rush to the bus, so I went to my bike in my work clothes, only to be greeted by torrential downpour. Speaking of which, I need to re-wipe my drivetrain off again tonight. So where was I again?

Oh yah, So I hopped on the first possible bus back to JCCC, which got me to the college a lot earlier than normal. I went up and said hi to some old colleagues that I used to work with until about a year and a half ago. I got some grub for the wife and I, changed out of my work clothes into my shorts and t-shirt, topped off my water bottle, and started my journey homeward, GPS mounted and recording my route and stats.

I decided to ride PAST Daily Dose, but I didn't have the time nor the desire to stop for a drink. I had to get home before 8:00 and it was already nearing 7:30. Supper provided plenty of fuel for the ride home, so an extra punch of carbs wasn't in the plan this evening. I kept riding the route I'd ride as if I were going home from Daily Dose. After all, I was there, pretty much at Daily Dose, and I was, in fact, going home from that location.

All in all I packed on a little more than 10 miles from the time I left work to the time I got home. The only rainy part was the half mile or so from my office to the bus stop. I'm officially at 154.4 miles for the month, 3.9 more than last month, and I plan on riding plenty more this week. Friday will probably be the weak day for me, but I might see if my dad wants to hit Indian Creek trail on Saturday to help me wrap up my miles for the month. I'll have about a 3-hour window to ride in, weather permitting. Sneaking 25-30 more miles in on the last day of the month sounds perfectly viable to me. We'll just have to see if myself and maybe my dad are up to the task.

Doing the math, if I ride the same circuit I did today for tomorrow and Thursday's commutes and put in an embarrassing 6 miles on Friday, 200 miles is amazingly a reasonable goal. I know it sounds like I'm obsessing over this silly 200 mile thing, but I'm very goal-oriented, almost to a fault. I was focusing on my commute-to-driving ratio before this, and I can't change that number drastically over a short period of time. There are only so many work days in a month. I can, however, control how many miles I put on, within reason.

If I can go 200 miles with only 19 days in the saddle, I may need to shoot for 300 miles in April :)

On Starbucks and coffee

I never thought I'd say this, but I guess I've come to actually respect Starbucks just a little.

I mean, yes, it's a gigantic corporate chain. Yes, they use quick push-button machines that make the same mix every time, requiring less skill to operate than more traditional ways of making espresso-mixed drinks. No, their stuff isn't the BEST I've ever had. All of these are very good reasons to stay away from the place, especially if there's an independent coffee shop nearby that makes consistantly tastier drinks.

But, I'll give them this... Their employees are usually friendly, the place is always clean, they use Fair Trade certified products, and their drinks are (because of methods mentioned above) consistently the same, every time, unless the operator (whom I still kinda refuse to call a 'barista') isn't paying attention. And you know what? Their mocha is a wee bit on the bland side, but every time, it almost hits the spot. Starbucks' Sumatra is a very tasty brewed coffee. They're not all bad, but some blends of their brewed coffee are flat-out rancid. I feel the same way about some of the local roasters, though, so I can't complain too much.

In the end, I don't know why I had as much hostility against Starbucks as I did. I can tell you that I really, really miss working at JCCC and getting the most mind-bogglingly-tasty quad-shot venti Mocha in the western hemisphere when Sandy was on the clock. I can also tell you that I'd still rather kick it at The Daily Dose, or Broadway Cafe than Starbucks any time.

Oh yeah. This is a blog about bicycle commuting, too.
I woke up later than I wanted to. My alarm went off at 5:30 and I didn't snap out of my coma until close to 6:00. I was up way too late playing a rematch of Monopoly with my wife, who finally got her revenge against me.

I was weak as hell this morning, pulling off about 12 MPH average. I didn't put on that many miles yesterday, so it must have been the lack of sleep. As you can imagine, I went to Starbucks on my way to work this morning, where I was able to ponder my almost daily routine.

One last thing. Not that any of you noticed, but I had been getting pretty lazy about tagging and categorizing my blog posts lately. I went through and labeled all of my old posts. Last night's post was my 150th post! This darned blog is getting to be quite the bizarre autobiography.

The monday night flat tire

What the heck is going on?! I ended up with a goat-head thorn slow leak from some point in my trip today. I didn't notice it until I was unloading the bike when I got home and the rear tire didn't have as much spring as usual as I set it down.

This is really grating on me. Day in and day out for the last 6 months, I've had one flat with these tires until last Monday. 2 flats in two weeks. Grr!

I used my new Park Tool pre-glued patch kit that I got last week. It looks like it'll hold well. It's worth mentioning that this was a brand new tube. Instead of swapping it out like I would if I was on the road when I noticed it, I just patched it and put it all back together.

The grime on the wet roads was also going to take its toll on my drivetrain, so I took the opportunity to wipe everything down and re-lube the chain. I should be ready to face whatever tomorrow throws at me.

Wakey wakey!

So, I took two naps Sunday, one right after I got home around 4:00am until 8:00am when it was time to leave for church (I run any or all of video, slides, sound, and lights on any given Sunday morning). After that, I went to lunch with my parental units, then went home and took another nap for a while. I got to bed around 1:00am this morning, was awake off and on, and finally got out of bed at 5:30.

I tossed on my new bike shorts, loaded up the bike, and hit the road at about 5:50, landing me at the bus stop just in time to see the 6:00 bus heading on down the road. So then I stood around the bus stop for about 10 minutes waiting for it to show up. It's tradition for someone to bring goodies in on Monday for our staff meeting, so I'm bringing bagels to work for pretty much my entire floor. To facilitate this, I moved the rear rack off my mountain bike onto the Outlook, and loaded up the duffel sack I usually take with me for groceries, packed with bagels (in bags!), cream cheese, and plastic knives galore. The duffel is strapped down sideways to my rear rack. It's quite a sight, and must look a little odd, as I left it strapped securely to my bike as I loaded it onto the front of the bus.

Weather permitting, I plan on hitting the monday night recovery ride yet again. I doubt I'll be able to get 200 miles in this month, which was my semi-official goal for myself going into March before the wreck. But, I'm less than 30 miles away from beating February's miles, which I still thought wouldn't be possible. If I just pull off another 5-day commute week, I'll match last month's 150 miles. If I do the ride tonight, and ride a little more this week, I stand a good chance of getting close to 180 miles. Heck, maybe even 200 if I really push it.

I know 200 miles in a month is small potatoes to some people, but I'm trying to set realistic goals for myself.

Another fun weekend

I needed a haircut badly. I decided to burn some calories on my bike in this wonderful weather (72 Degrees, mostly sunny but very windy). I also needed to hose off my Outlook in the worst way. I rode it to the coin-op carwash and used the no-pressure setting to get it cleaned up, then off to get my mop chopped.

After I got my hair cut, I decided to swing by Dick's Sporting Goods to see if their cycling apparel section has gotten any better since spring is back. Lo and behold I find a lone pair of Cannondale mountain bike shorts with a padded liner in my size (Ginormous). I picked them up. I'm still not big on the "road cyclist" look, but I don't have any decent shorts for riding in, and with the weather warming up, it's about time I stop wearing jeans.

So, 5 miles of errands. Not bad. As I ride past Renner (a mile from home) though, something calls me northbound. I think it was the wind, as it was coming out of the southwest. Regardless, I veered north because I really wasn't ready to stop pedaling in one mile. So I rode, and rode, and rode some more. I got a new top speed record for the Outlook, too: 41.0 MPH! I kept going, up to 95th street, then west, into the blistering wind once again. Down a long hill, up another long hill, all the way to the new Falcon Ridge area, where I stopped at a convenience store on Woodland for a water refill.

Riding south on Woodland was such a pain in the butt. The wind was even stronger out of the south than from the west, and Woodland is basically stretches of 6-8% uphill separated by 2-3% downhill runs. With the wind, though, it was like riding a 3-mile solid stretch of 3-15% uphill.

My 5 mile errand run turned into almost 19 miles of pain and suffering, but it hurts so good!

More fun this weekend: I go in tonight at 11pm till 4am for server maintenance again. This is the 3rd weekend of this crap in a row, but at least I'm being compensated well for my job. Such is the life of an IT geek. Then, I get to go to church in the morning to run video and sound. I'm gonna be such a zombie on Monday.

Also, I'd like to welcome Sirrus Rider to the blogosphere, who's fighting the good fight, bicycle commuting and blogging out of Houston. Bicycle Commute Houston. It's cool to see the differences and similarities that my commute has to others across the USA (which is arguably one of the most cyclist-hostile of all developed, civilized nations).

Recap:
18.6 miles instead of 5.
Got my hair cut
New bike shorts (woot!)
New lard speed record (41.0 MPH)
Long work week, lots of stuff to do
A new friend in the blogosphere.

Mac Luv

Over lunch, I took some pictures and ended up liking how this one came out. I actually turned it into a MacBook-resolution (1200x800) wallpaper that you can download here:

MacBook Wallpaper

Well, I made it!

My first five-day bike commute week, probably ever, but at least for 2007.

As I suspected, the roads were moist and my wheels were flinging water on me most of the way. I made it in 11 minutes again, too, leaving shortly after 6 and making it in plenty of time for the 6:15 bus.

I have weekend server maintenance tomorrow from 11pm until 4am Sunday but I'm going to try to VPN it if my boss lets me. If not, I probably won't count it as a "drive" day because it's not my usual shift. Matter of fact, one of my neighbors might be working too, so I may see if he'd like to car pool. It's kind of odd, I live almost 30 miles away from work, but about 7% of the people that work on my floor live within a few miles of me. Their schedules are radically different, however, and aren't usually conducive to car pooling.

Fun evening!

I started by grabbing some Greek for my wife and I, then headed off to Daily Dose for some coffee, a game of scrabble with Bible Study friends, a nice dry martini and a cinnamon roll.

Total, about 8 miles tonight. Sprinkles kicked back up again, but no serious rain tonight either. Lightning is in the air, but the radar looks pretty much clear to the west. Hopefully I'll just have to deal with moist pavement in the morning.

No pics tonight, my camera's batteries are dead. Which reminds me, so are the batteries in one of my rear blinkies. Off to charge some cells, then off to bed! This could be my first 5-day bike commute week of the year. Hopefully, it's one of many to come.

Lime safety vest plus backpack. Impossible? NO!

The lime vest, or the backpack? It was, quite literally, an either-or deal for me.

Since I have as many as three blinking lights on the back of my bike at any given time, and loads of reflective material, I usually choose the backpack. It's got enough room for my laptop and all my work clothes. Otherwise, I have to plan strategically and take extra clothes to work ahead of time.

Well, this morning, the air was foggy and the rain was starting to come down. I wanted the versatility of a backpack even though I have a pair of "just in case" dress pants at work, next to the dress shoes I leave in my drawer, but I knew I needed the vest without question.

With two little velcro straps, I attached the shoulders of the vest to the carry strap on the "against the back" part of my backpack. I could have strapped it to the shoulder straps too, but this was a little more secure.

I'm happy to report that it worked flawlessly!

I made it to the bus stop this morning in about 11 minutes, which is basically a new record for me. I just about bonked because I was really hammering on it, even on the hills. The rain was gentle and nice. It had started sprinkling just as I left home, and was a gentle trickle by the time I got to the bus. I don't really like the rain, but this morning it wasn't bad at all.

I made a mistake today...

I rode a Trek 1200 and X0 today while waiting for Kevin at Bike America to re-assemble my Outlook. This just cemented my desire for a decent road or cyclocross bike. I'm so stupid. And hooked.

Anyhow, I need to put my new chain on my Outlook, because my original one is already toast. Most of the noise was from my chain, but they tossed some new bearings into my BB as well. I'll give it another shakedown run tonight after I swap chains. The Sorrento wasn't too bad this morning, I think all the miles I've been putting on are helping me a bit. Today I kind of wimped out on mileage, with too many things to do and no good way to transport two bikes around town. Tomorrow should be a bit better.

Old vs. New

Not that it makes me any less ugly, but here are the results from last night's dental work.









Anyhow, this morning, the sky is overcast with breaks of clear. It sounds like it's going to continue raining, but it was a really great morning for a ride. Almost 60 degrees, no fog or mist, just great riding weather. I'm kind of hoping the clear parts of the sky take over, because I had enough mud and rain yesterday to last me the week (even though it wasn't that much)

New teeth, MUP for travel, and mechanical failure...

So, a wreck on I-35 northbound set my bus back about half an hour. Actually, it set my bus back about an hour, but it delayed a bus that normally passes through before I'm off work long enough that I ended up waiting half an hour to catch that one. I was late (by minutes) to my dentist appointment but I had my wife call and let them know ahead of time.

I have teeth now. Not real ones. My two front teeth look almost the same as my original teeth, but they're thick and dull-shaped, and I still can't use them for biting off chunks of food like most normal people would. They look good, but they're still very sensitive to cold.

I decided to try something I've never done before. I hopped on the Indian Creek trail, which I've only ridden a few sections of, and used it for transportation, not recreation. I used it to get me from 135st street in Olathe, up to JCCC so I could show off my teeth for my wife. No more than a mile after I've been on the trail (about 3 miles away from the dentist), I notice some grinding going on. It's not gear or chain grinding, either. It's only when the crank is under a load, not when it's spinning slower than the bike is going.

I backed off a bit, but the noise kept getting worse and worse. I could feel it through my cleats, too. I limped the bike to JCCC (about 6 miles total after I noticed the damage) and took it to my bike shop. They think it's a bottom bracket. I think they're right. We'll see what they find tomorrow, I got my bike there just before closing time.

So, tomorrow I am back on the Sorrento. Did I mention I like spares? A spare bike is a great thing to have! I just hope they have my Outlook fixed up tomorrow. It's been spoiling me lately.

Muh teef!

Well, today's the day I got in to get work started on my teeth. I woke up pretty late, but still rode my bike and caught the 7:15 bus. On my south to east to north bike ride, I was mysteriously riding into the wind the entire time. Don't know how that happened, but it wasn't fun. Not much else this morning. My bus is almost downtown, so I've gotta keep it quick!