Category: Bike Friday

Incoming!!!

All good things must come to an end, but they sure started out nice. It was in the 50s this morning when I left the house so that meant only one thing: SHORTS!  Few things make a bike commuter’s day like shorts in January, unless, of course, you’re bike commuting in Auckland. 

Rain was forecasted for the evening rush so Little Nellie got the call. The strong southerly wind meant that we’d get a nice assist all the way to the office.  With such good conditions, I hit the road ten minutes early. 

Whenever I ride I first squeeze my tires to make sure they have proper pressure. The rear tire on Little Nellie apparently has a very slow leak. When I started bike commuting I only had one bike. Flats were a total hassle. Now, with three bikes, I can always switch in the event of a problem and fix it later. No worries though; this rear tire seems to hold air for several days.

Loverly ride, all the way in. The scary evening forecast kept the scardy cats off the trail. No bald eagles. No prehistoric garbage trucks. No idiot drivers. Nothing to get hung about. Strawberry fields forever.

Begining about two p.m. my officemates and I started obsessing about the approaching storms. The line of storms ran from central PA to the Gulf of Mexico. It was only a couple hundred miles wide and the doppler radar showed a long line of severe weather. It resembled the derecho that came through last summer except that it wasn’t tracking west to east. Instead it seemed to be drifting to the northwest.

My boss is a bike commuter. He bailed out at 4. He drops off and picks up his daughter during his commute. About 15 minutes later I decided to roll. The skies looked threatening. There was an intermittent drizzle fallling. 

I turned onto the Mount Vernon Trail and began the slog into the gusting wind.  The drizzle stopped after about 20 minutes. I unzipped my jacket and plodded along.  It wasn’t a lot of fun but at least that nasty storm was staying away. It was all very anticlimatic. I’ve ridden in much worse weather than this including a couple of tornado warnings. (In both cases I didn’t know at the time.)

As I turned off the trail and headed due west for home, the nasty storm was laid out before me.  Ten minutes later I had stashed Little Nellie in the shed and was inside. I checked the radar; the storm got hung up about 50 miles northwest of DC.

It’s a comin’.

As I type this we are under a tornado watch.

Send lawyers, guns and money. The shit’s about to hit the fan. 

Five and Nine

Last night, just as I finished writing my blog, my head started flopping around like a bobblehead. I was sooo tired. I went to sleep. I started to count sheep. I got to two. Eight and half hours later the alarm went off. It was as if I had been under anesthesia.

The weather reports yesterday at one point were calling for five inches of snow today. I went outside to get the paper. It was well over 40 degrees out and there was no precipitation. I somehow managed not to scream “We’re screwed!!” and run down the street waving my hands over my head in my jammies.

I headed out the door ready to ride to work with gusto, except that about 200 yards from home I realized that I forgot to put pants in my panniers. Fail. So I went back home. Sheepishly. (Two sheep references in one blog post is my limit so don’t go looking for more.)

The ride to work aboard Little Nellie was loverly. No rain. No mighty headwinds. And I was dressed for success. The holey sweater is my meterological salvation once more. I’ve got this 40 degree thing down to a science.two miles in, the plunge down the hill at Park Terrace woke my ass right up. A few minutes later on the MVT I saw the hoppy runner. He’s the regular who runs with a skip in his step. It looks like he has knee issues in one leg. He’s still seems to be doing a decent pace, maybe 8:30 a mile. He can whup me with one knee tied behind his back. (This is because I have two bad knees, a bad back and mini-keg abs.)

I rode with the Catholic SUVs this morning at Saint Mary’s School for the Environmentally Ignorant in Old Town. It’s a bit like the running of the bulls in Pamploma except beautiful Spanish women in low cut dresses are not leaning out of their townhouse windows along the route cheering me on. I do wish Old Town would up its game. Think how popular bike commuting would be.  (Heterosexual women and gay men can insert your favorite hot guy in the previous sentence. This blog is inclusive, except you can’t ride on South Royal Street because that’s where all my Hispanistas will be.)

Back on the MVT north of Old Town, I turned on my autocycle program and magically appeared opposite DC and the monuments, 30 minutes later. This happens a lot to me. I have bike commutimng black outs like some skid row drunk.

(I do recall one thing. The National Park Service has once again breeched the beaver dam north of Slaters Lane. Those poor beavers work their asses off for weeks and finally get a decent pond going and thugs from the NPS come and ruin it.)

Near the Memorial Bridge I heard a fanfare of horns. I stopped and looked at Little Nellie’s odometer.

Little Nellie Turns 9

9000 miles.

Little Nellie done good.

We rode into Rosslyn nodding to our admiring fans. (Make that “fan” and disregard his tin cup, please.)

Instead of riding home in a raging storm, I experienced only a couple of not-so-raging sprinkles. I took some of my disappointment out on a driver who blocked the curb cut to the MVT at the I-66 offramp. I simpathize with these drivers. They want to take a right on red but there’s a railing on the bridge that obstructs their view. So they inch out into the crosswalk. This sort of thing can easily be fixed. Either move the railing or put up a No Turn on Red sign. Dream on.

One advantage to riding Little Nellie is that I can easily use the blinder on my helmet to shield my eyes from the headlights of the cars on the Parkway. It’s just a whole lot more pleasant than when I ride my recumbent. (Don’t tell Big Nellie.)

Tomorrow morning is the first anniversary of the Friday Coffee Club. Mrs. Folger and Juan Valdez will be there and every one will sing the Chock Full O’Nuts song. Or not. Better coffee bike commuters’ money can’t buy.