Fire, Brimstone, Carnage, and Bicycle Commuting

Last night, the air was full of sulfur, sparks, and smoke. If there's a rule of threes for pyromaniacs, those are the ones! You can see some of the annihilation and aftermath on my flickr uploads. I had to take an extra-long shower when I got home, because I reeked of explosives. Even though our budget this year was less than half of what it'd been in recent years, it was still awesome. I'm thinking of budgeting a line-item every month for fireworks. I'm thinking of transferring $20 or $25 a month into my PayPal account, then taking the PayPal card out of storage on July 4th next year. Keep in mind that other people pitch in for the display, too. An extra $200 from me for next year would probably be welcome, though.

Anyhow, I had a nice ride in this morning. I ran into Karen again about a mile from my apartment. The first and only other time I've seen her was on Day 3 of B2WW. We took turns setting the pace, which was an upbeat but not painful 17 MPH average.

It looks like I'm in for a heck of a ride this evening. My weather widget says there's a high of 92 degrees predicted today. This morning, it was a humid 71 degrees with light fog... or was it smoke? :)

2 hours of riding for 4 hours of work

What a great day to spend 2 hours on the road!

My homeward commute is slightly more uphill than my trip to work. Also, the typical summer breeze out of the southwest usually gives me a headwind to deal with in the afternoon, but it's a boon on the way to work!

My homeward commute is almost always slower, or at least it requires a lot more effort to keep a good average clip. Today was no exception, but it went a lot smoother than yesterday's attempted full round-trip. My ride home was about 57 minutes rolling time and about 1 hour 7 minutes ET. I didn't reset my computer before the trip home, but my 16.7 MPH average as I pulled into the parking garage at work this morning had dropped to 15.1 average for the day by the time I got back home. We're 3 days into July and I already have 50 miles racked up. I can tell this is going to be a great month for riding!

Tomorrow, as you can imagine, I don't work. Instead, I'm going to be causing a lot of destruction. I don't make a huge deal out of being a pyromaniac, but I am definitely one. July 4th is basically my flagship holiday -- the yardstick by which all others are measured. Nothing can trump the fun associated with not only watching stuff blow up, burn, and explode but also MAKING stuff blow up, burn, and explode.

I'll try not to lose any limbs tomorrow, but I'll make no promises.

Nice ride in

It's a little warmer and a little stickier outside this morning than it was yesterday, but I felt really fast. Before I started the slog into the downtown loop, I was averaging 18.1 MPH over the first 11 miles or so of my trip. Overall, I'm at about 17 MPH average after the climb into the heart of downtown, which is still pretty quick for me.

Today's a short day. The stock market closes early, which means that my employer's services are not going to be required for the whole business day as usual. We're being released at 1:00 today, and the company is issuing 4 hours of holiday pay to most employees. Instead of making it to work by 7:00 or so, I'm just going to kick it here at Starbucks and get to work at 8:00.

While I was waiting in line for my mocha, I saw another bicycle pull up and park alongside mine (shown above). It's Lorin, who is another bike/bus commuter that gets on the bus at Oak Park Mall, where I've started riding to on the days that I ride the bus. I've shared the bike rack with his bike a few times

I left at about 5:45 this morning and got downtown at about 6:35 with a rolling time of 46 minutes.

In what seems like just a few hours, I'll be homeward :)

Gremlins: The Redux

I got another flat on my way home. This was my own fault. I couldn't find my Take-A-Look mirror when I left my office, so I was hurried and left late for starters. Leaving my office after 4:00 is a bad idea. You might as well wait until 7:00 PM or take a bus if you get out after 4:00.

With no mirror, I found myself looking over my shoulder a lot. Through Wyandotte county, Merriam Lane/Southwest Boulevard turns into a moonscape of craters and potholes. As I took a glance over my left shoulder, my arms felt a sudden jostle as I impacted a huge pothole. I didn't hear any tire deflation, so I kept rolling. About half a mile later, my front end went squishy and I begun to hear the telltale whisper of a pinch flat. Out of intact tubes and afraid to put any faith in patches, I called my wife to pick me up. We had errands to run anyways, so it wasn't a wasted trip.

I'll be back out on the road tomorrow, though. I made a stop by the LBS and got more inner tubes and Boeshield T9. I'm still ready to rock. Anyhow, time to hit the sack.

Laters!

Oh Noes!!

Photo: About 3 miles from work, I get my first-ever front flat on the 1200. Cause: Glass in the road. Easily fixed on the sidewalk and I continued in. I didn't beat the bus, though.

No one rode with me today, which was just fine with me. In fact, I didn't see a single bicycle on the road at all today, which is a little strange for a 70 degree morning.

Not much to say about this morning's ride.

Last night, I made my first grocery store run since moving. The nearest grocery store is almost a perfect mile away, so I netted 2.1 miles while picking up some basic groceries.

June Wrap-Up

Photo: So Fresh and So Clean! The 1200's ready to rock for tomorrow's Commuter Convoy. Don't forget to sign up if you plan on meeting me there.

What a month! My wife and I are almost completely settled in at the new place, although we still have an Explorer that's been completely packed with stuff since the 29th, or about 3 days. Once we get the remainder of the boxes situated that are already up here in our apartment, I'll go unload the Explorer.

This month, I did have fun on my bike and I am reliably under 200 pounds. June's goals were met without a problem. I used my mountain bike quite a bit, both for some of my recreational riding and for commuting on wet days. I used my hybrid for a few days, too. So, I used all my bikes this month.

Days Driven to work in June: 0
Car-Free commute days in June: 17
Days I used my bike instead of my car for errands outside work in June: 14
Total Miles ridden in June: 295

2007 Cumulative Bike/Drive commute ratio: 3.83:1
2007 Cumulative Transportation/Recreation miles ratio: 2.92:1
2007 Cumulative miles ridden: 1,577
2007 Cumulative Commutes by bike: 92 round trips

July Goals:
July is going to be a scorcher from the looks of things. It will be a challenge of my will to meet my goals for July.

Ride a full round trip on average at least twice a week, without the bus or car.
Get my 2007 Cumulative Bike/Drive ratio up over 4.0:1.
July will be another 400+ mile month.

Well, I was going to ride all the way...

I found out that our company's data center is only a few miles further away from my apartment than my office. Yesterday, the forecast looked like it was going to be dry, but it's still soggy. In fact, I don't think it's stopped drizzling since it started earlier this week.

If it dried out, I was going to attempt a ride all the way to our data center, where I'll be testing a new product my company is thinking of using. Since it didn't stop, I am back on the bus. It's a little more difficult to get down to the data center in the morning just via bus. I have to go downtown on a Johnson County bus, then transfer to the Metro Area Express, take that way down south on the MO side of state line, then transfer off of the express route onto a local route that will drop me off within a mile of our data center.

Basically, I start at 87th street 6 miles from state line, go up to 10th street in downtown KCMO, then go back down to 63rd street right near state line. I probably put 60 miles on 3 different buses to travel 16 miles to the data center.

Anyhow, I'm on the MAX now, patiently waiting to get back down south to 63rd street.

The entire country must be "soggy"

... because I posted that it was soggy today. So did Apertome. So did Dan. I'm sure a few others out there in the blogosphere did the same. I just thought it was funny.

Oh yes, everyone welcome another local yokel, Jason to the list of gotta-read blogs. He hasn't written about how darned soggy it is yet, but I'm sure he'll get around to it.

Language rant

I don't usually rant about non-bicycling stuff, but this kind of thing really bakes my noodle. What is up with otherwise intelligent people who have no command of their native language?

I know I'm not perfect. I've let a few misspellings, mis-punctuations, run-ons and other grammar blunders slip through the cracks. If I find them on my initial proofread of the post, I'll go back and fix them. Even still, I'm certain there are a few problems here on my own blog.

The occasional linguistic offense is forgivable. I don't mind those.

I'm talking about people who don't understand certain basic rules of the American English language. "Apostrophe S", for example, is to be used to show possession or as a contraction of "is" or "has" added to a word. This isn't rocket, science, folks! Here are some examples of how to use 's in a sentence. The car's paint glistens in the sun. There's an alligator in our swimming pool!

How can one use 's incorrectly? Let me count the ways! Usually, it's a problem of using 's for pluralization. "There are 15 car's in the parking lot." "My wife has pretty eye's." Or in the case of the monthly e-mail at work, I got a list of "July Birthday's" today.

Mis-use of it's and its also drives me nuts. Although "The cat cleans its fur while laying in the sun." (correct) sounds like a possessive, you have to use "its" in this case. "It's" is reserved only for times when you can say "it is" or "it has" in the sentence.

Along the same line as "its", there's the entire topic of homonyms. "Your welcome." "I am to tired." "My kids finally finished there homework." I see stuff like this every day. These monstrosities cause gnashing of teeth and clenching of fists whenever I see them.

Keep in mind that I forgive the occasional typo. I see these errors on signs in businesses, though. I don't think I could ever bring myself to become a patron of a business that can't take enough pride in their own language to get things right.

This is stuff I probably learned in first or second grade. It was bludgeoned into my mind every year thereafter until I graduated from high school. If anyone wonders why I seemed bored in school, it's because for the sake of the many, they had to teach and re-teach us everything we'd ever learned since kindergarten. Somehow, people make it out into the wild lacking comprehension of these simple rules after a decade or more of reinforcement.

If all of the offenders were under-educated, it would be one thing. I'm seeing managers, secretaries, and some of the brightest technical people I know that are just as guilty, though.

I just don't get it. This concludes today's English lesson.

Mmmmm! Soggy!

Another fun-filled day of slogging the Diamondback Sorrento out to the Mall. The deluge that was trying to push through finally came yesterday evening. This whole time, it's still been sprinkling and spitting when it's not dumping buckets of water on us.

My wife and my mother got to the old apartment about an hour before I did. With them, I spent about 3 hours scraping, scrubbing, wiping, abrading, packing, and piling. I couldn't get the explorer loaded up last night because the rain was coming down too hard and there's almost a 100 yard hike just go get to the closest parking spot from our front door. I wasn't going to get everything soaked.

I'm hoping that the rain holds off a little this afternoon so that we can get everything loaded up. I'm hoping beyond hope that we can get everything squared away tonight. We have to turn the keys in tomorrow sometime, and it would be really crappy if I had go go back out there to load more stuff up tomorrow, too.

This morning's ride was definitely soggier than yesterday's. Also, I don't know what it is, but my upper legs just HURT this morning. I only put on 6 miles yesterday, and maybe another 2.5 to 3 this morning (I haven't checked the computer yet). Perhaps it's the inefficiency of the mountain bike. Different geometry? Using a few different muscles than I do on my road bike? Platform pedals vs. the clipless I'm used to? At any rate, it's one of those things that hurts so good, it's not really uncomfortable, just present. I'll try stretching a little more before and after riding to see if that helps, but I don't plan on using the Sorrento that often.

Raining today. L route, then my old B route bus

Last night, I spent literally three hours at the old apartment arranging the last of the things we're keeping, and throwing out most of what we're not. I couldn't quite load everything onto the Explorer, even with stuff lashed down to the hitch-mounted 5' x 2' rack on the back of it. Today, I am going back out there, and with the help of my wife and parents, cleaning the place thoroughly. I plan on it being a two-afternoon task, so I'll probably be back out there tomorrow evening as well.

We had a gullywasher pop up out of nowhere yesterday late afternoon, and ever since, it's been sprinkling and threatening to unleash another deluge. I shelved the Trek this morning and dug out my trusty mountain bike to ride to the L bus again. Tonight, to get to my old apartment, I'll take the B route out of downtown. As I run out of obligations and if the weather stays nice, I'll be riding the whole trip a lot more often. I think it's kind of lame that I was so gung-ho to ditch the bus, but just ended up ditching the slow D route and I haven't actually stopped using the bus except for Monday's full trip by bike.

Mark my words, though. I am not falling back on the bus on nice days unless I'm simply too wiped out to do it. Even on the "nice" L route, people were shoulder-to-shoulder this morning, just like on the B route. I was practically sitting in someone's lap as it was quite literally the only seat open on the bus. Thanks to time spent loading my bike onto the rack, I was the last person on board, too. Seats are first come, first served, and I was the LAST one.

Riding to the mall, waiting for the bus, and riding the bus downtown takes 40 minutes. That instead of 50-60 minutes on bike still doesn't seem beneficial. On my bike, I am free. I don't have to listen to other people gossip. I don't have to smell what they had for breakfast... or what they are STILL having for breakfast if you count SEEING stuff stuck in their teeth. I don't have sick people hacking, grunting, choking, sneezing, or sniffling around me. Sure, I get a lung full of hydro-carbo-nitro-sulfate-whatever on occasion, but it pales in comparison to what I have to put up with on the bus on a bad day.

Going to check out the L

After work today, I need to go old apartment to finish loading up any little things that are left, and to start hauling junk out to the dumpster. In the name of having some semblance of energy left when I get home, I'm going to make the ride to Oak Park Mall to check out the L route. There's a huge viaduct that spans Interstate 35. This stretch of road would probably be pretty harsh in rush hour, so we'll see what it's like coming back home.

Last night's group ride got cut a little short because of some computer problems at home that I had to figure out. I still managed to squeeze more than 32 miles out of the day, though. The heat and humidity from yesterday morning were even more pronounced in the evening with ambient temperatures between 85 and 90 degrees and a heat index even higher than that. Don't forget the obdurate sun, relentlessly infusing everything with its scorching rays. Despite wearing sunscreen, my neck still got charbroiled. My arms, ears, and face fared a little better, bronzing nicely since they had already become a little tan from being outside a lot recently.

No bus today :)

Only one of the KC Bike Commuters showed up to ride this morning. I'm not really expecting this to gain momentum too fast, though. Eric posted about it on his site, though. We'll see if that helps.

The ride in was nice and easy, despite 70 degree temps and humidity that made me think about using a scuba tank. It did make me sweat quite a bit more than usual. I can definitely see this being a daily ride. The only think freaking me out is what the ride home will be like in the thick of the late July/early August heat waves. 4:00 PM can bring ambient temps up over 100 degrees. Pavement temperatures can exceed 140 degrees and cook you from underneath, too. I may end up needing to invest in a hydration pack, as I'm not sure two water bottles will cut it.

I also found out that there are some good bus options (Route L and Route E in addition to my current Route D) that stop at Oak Park mall, less than 2 miles from my apartment via some really treacherous arterial roadways. (edit: scratch route E, they dropped OP Mall) The roads will probably be okay at 6am though. The L route is tempting as Oak Park Mall is the last stop, so it could probably get me to work pretty quick.

I'm going to stick with the bike for a while, though. I'm digging this.

Distance: 14.2 miles
Rolling time: 53 minutes
Avg Speed: 15.8 MPH

Johnson County to KCMO Commuter Convoy

I'm going to be taking my bike a lot more often, and so I'm working with the KC Bike Commuters Group (put together by Eric from kcbike.info) to find people interested in a regular bike commute convoy. There are a lot of people who live in Johnson County but work downtown. There are also a lot of people who live in Johnson County that own bikes.

After talking to some cyclists, it seems like the biggest thing holding them back from commuting on their bike is fear of getting hit. Some of these people have no problem going on group rides, though. Why not organize a group ride with the goal of getting somewhere?

I'm not planning on seeing a lot of people participating yet, but it would be nice to have one or two other cyclists to ride with. It would be an awesome sight to behold if we could get 10 people together, like a train of bicycles heading downtown every morning. That will come later. If you want to join in the fun, e-mail me with the contact form on the right side of my Blog, or better yet, join the KC Bike Commuters Group and participate in the discussions already going on.

Almost moved

Photo: My computer desk set-up. The illuminated Sun Ultra 5 and Solaris are obvious. Lurking in the shadows: A SparcStation 5, MacBook, AirPort Express, and M-Audio MIDI keyboard. The blue crescent is the yoga ball that is the cheapest and best office chair I've ever owned.

So yesterday, Frogman came over in his pick-up truck to help me ferry the remaining large items at the old apartment. We ended up only needing the pickup for the dresser, then made a few more trips in the Explorer. It was nice having some extra hands. Yesterday, we basically completed the bedroom. I'll get pictures of that soon enough. The kitchen, dining room, and living room will take a while, as we have new furniture coming in a few weeks.

Except for getting to and from work, I haven't been riding much at all during the transplant between apartments. I miss it a lot. I haven't looked at my spreadsheet, but if I recall correctly, I haven't gotten on my bike "just to ride" in almost 2 weeks. Hopefully as the madness winds down, that will change.

My first return trip

Elapsed Time: 1:05
Rolling Time: 1:01
Trip: 13.9 Mi
Rolling Average: 13.5
Bike: Trek 1200 with panniers, medium load with laptop.

I had a hellacious headwind of death coming back into town. I didn't feel like hassling with the bus, and I've been slacking on miles this month.

Not much to say other than the fact that southbound always seems harder and that this time of year, the wind coming out of the southwest probably has quite a bit to do with it.

Riding on the short bus

I know, most of you probably think that I should be no stranger to riding the short bus. I've never tried to actually shoe-horn a bicycle into one though. The short buses don't have bicycle carriers, so I got hosed today. I still don't know why they sent a short bus today.

I left the apartment this morning a few minutes later than I wanted to. While riding to the "official" bus stop, I pondered riding all the way in. As I rode along, though, a thought manifested itself. My parents are coming over to see the new apartment tonight, and I still have a bunch of boxes in the Explorer to bring up. Furthermore, there are many boxes already in the apartment that I need to either put somewhere or unpack. I figured I'd better save my energy. I thought this was my old friend "better judgment" speaking to me. Boy was I wrong.

First off, I've acclimated to the bus running a little ahead of schedule. Today it was late. Then, when it shows up, it's a short bus that's already pretty full, and now I have to figure out a way to load my bike inside. There's room for it in the handicap spot, but getting it ONTO the bus was the chore. I ended up opening up the emergency door on the back and lifting the bike into the bus that way.

Since I was on the short bus, I left my bike helmet on. :P

I do believe I'm sick of my new bus route. Monday begins the new deal. Unless the weather's bad or I'm too tired to use my bike, I'm not using the bus anymore. It's a hassle. It's slow to get me between my destinations. It's unpredictable. I'm done.

I finally got my Delta Vincent bike rack set up last night. Since it's hiding in the storage closet, I'm also using it to hold most of my bicycle tools and supplies. The rack is light and functional. It took me a while to get accustomed to getting the bikes on and off the rack. As you can tell, the bikes hang a little close together, so the handlebars kind of interfere with each other a little. It would probably work better with a pair of road bikes. All in all, though, it provides some much-needed storage room for my bikes and other stuff. I couldn't beat the price, either, as it was a dirt-cheap Craigslist find.

The shelving and hooks give me a place to put my toolbox, bungees, and cleaning supplies. It keeps them out of the way, and still looks pretty good, not like anyone will see any of this stuff hanging in my locked storage room.

Hoofed it today

I walked the grueling 200 yards through the parking lot to the street today, and flagged the bus down. It worked this time, but I got the second bus instead of the first. It landed me downtown after 7:00, but not by much.

*cough* SOME PEOPLE *cough* think my sleep schedule is a joke. Let me tell you about last night. I think I finally schlepped my haggard carcass to the coffin around 3:00AM. There was no way I was going to be eager and willing to skip my happy ass to the curb by 5:45. I needed at least 3 hours of sleep. At least we got our mattresses and box springs set up last night, so my slumber took place on a real bed instead of some queen size balloon.

I am capable of functioning on as few as two hours of sleep per day for a short period of time. Alternatively, I can go as many as two consecutive work days without sleep, provided I'm given the opportunity to get plenty of rest before and after such a sleep-deprivation marathon.

Some great things came from yesterday's festivities. For one, my Sun Ultra 5 is finally set back up. I packed it away several weeks ago, and have been missing it ever since. It's pictured abstractly above, in whole in this photo or you may want to read my review of it here if you like nerdy hardware talk. It's kind of slow, but it does exactly what I need a workstation to do, and does it well. Next, of course, is our big (for us) television. I don't like TV too much, but my wife and I do enjoy watching movies. The bed was a welcome addition to our apartment last night, and we finally got our fish tank and microwave moved over as well. Things are coming together quite nicely at the new pad. I hope to get my new Delta Vincent Bicycle Rack hung up tonight, although my Interior Designer suggests that it gets displayed inside the storage closet, so you won't be likely to see cool bikes hanging from a wall in my living room as shown on the product's website. Once my wife and I have everything in place, I'll snap some photos.

Finally, I have a question for my readers. I don't have the time to set up a formal poll. What should I do when accounting for walking? I have a spreadsheet where I count bike commute days and miles. Keep in mind, I already do a fair amount of walking around downtown. Do I:

A) Get some fresh batteries in my pedometer and track walking miles just like I count my bike miles?

B) Ignore walking entirely, not logging any car-free commute miles if I hoof it.

Or do you have a better suggestion? Let me know!

Wow, they sure do run this route hot!

I ducked out of the parking garage at 4:00 sharp and guess what whizzed past me? The friendly neighborhood D bus. You know, the one that's supposed to be 3 or 4 minutes away?

I had to hammer it to pass the bus to beat it to the bus stop. I rode by as he was picking up a passenger and told him to hold on a sec. I have a feeling that this bus route is going to cause me more trouble than it's worth. I'll give it a week or two before I write it off. If it keeps up like this, I'll be tempted to cancel my bus pass for the summer months and just rely on the darn bike. Sheesh.

Missed the bus...

As some of you know, the bus actually passes right by my new apartment. I got outside this morning to try to catch the bus just in time to see it whiz by the parking lot. I stepped out at 5:49. I guess I have to be out there by quarter-to-six if I want to ride the bus. Our apartment complex isn't an official bus stop, but the buses will stop if you flag them down. As such, I was just guessing what time the bus would come through, splitting the difference between the timed bus stops before and after my apartment. This morning, I failed.

In order to get to work before 7:00, I have to catch the first bus on this new route which will land me at my office at 6:41. Since I missed it, I was going to get in later than I'd wanted. Disgruntled, I decided to ride my bike in this morning. Sure, I only got about 3 hours of actual sleep. Sure, I was sleeping on a back-bending air mattress because our bed hasn't been moved yet. Sure, the cats were waking my wife and I up all night. Oh well.

I didn't quite beat the bus, but I pulled in at 6:46 after leaving home on bike at about 5:50. If I pushed it a bit harder, I might have been able to shave a few minutes off of that time, perhaps beating the bus to my destination.

I forgot to reset my bike computer this morning, so I'm not 100% sure how many miles I rode, but from what I can tell it was just about 13 miles. Needless to say, my average speed probably sucked, but I was pretty tired to begin with.