El ciclista loco

11-12 Miles
29 Degrees

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays this cyclist from the swift completion of his appointed (or chosen) rounds.

It was snowing this morning and coming down hard.  Not much stuck because the ground has thawed but it was definately not what I wanted to see on my morning commute to work.  Maybe I've been spoiled after two weeks of short sleeve weather but I really griped this morning about the cold and snow.  A month ago, 30 degree weather and only a light dusting of snow on the roads would have been eagerly welcomed.

Anyway, lunch time rolled around and I really wanted to go for a ride but liked the comfort of my nice, warm sweater inside the office.  I finally decided to man up and give it a go.  I gear up with base layer, jogging pants and my nylon jacket.   This would be my coldest and longest "for fun" ride to date and although I know how to dress while commuting in this kind of weather, I had no idea how to dress for a real ride.  I think I pegged it.  I didn't get too cold and I did not  sweat profusely.  My fingers and toes went numb but they did not freeze.  I debated weather to take the nylon jacket or just use the base layer.  I ended up taking it thinking I could dump it at home if I was too hot by the time I passed the house.  I was glad I had it even though it crinkled with the cold.

I decided to go to Riverfront Park for the first time this year.  I expected it to be a little muddy but no ice and snow.  I was almost right.  There was still some lingering ice and snow but it didn't slow me too much.  I stayed to the main trails thinking they'd be in better condition.  It was a good ride.  I only got lost once.

Road Work

16.25 Miles
49 degrees
Destination:  North of Lockwood

Yeah, I should probably quit telling the temperature.  If I'm out in shorts and a short sleeve shirt, well, who cares.

I decided to go for an easy ride to rack up some mileage since I'm tired and ol' Skippy isn't working right.  I headed out toward Lockwood and took the turn going North of the town.  As I approached North Frontage Road, I found that the road was closed and I'd have to take the detour leading into the Exxon Mobile refinery.  Limited on my options, I decided to take the detour.  It was all smooth sailing until I hit the refinery where the road turned into alligator scales and pot holes but it eventually lead back to the frontage road.  Honestly, I didn't even think the road was going to be paved the whole way so I felt lucky.

I traveled on doing a loop north of town around the I-90 and 1-94 junction.  Sounds lovely right!  I hardly noticed the freeways.   As I was coming back, I hit the headwind and Skippy started acting up again.  Then the road turned to a gravely mess.  I don't know what they were doing but there was a good layer of gravel over the entire paved road, only the tire ruts showed the asphalt below.  I stuck to the ruts as best I could and eventually made it to an intersection where I could catch the frontage road and head back to work.

Off the map

I just finished a book called Off the map : bicycling across Siberia by Mark Jenkins.  The literary style, or lack thereof, made it brutally painful to read but the content was rather intriguing.  A team of American and Soviet cyclists were put together to ride from Kamchatka to Leningrad during the cold war in the late 1980's.  This expedition was documented by a film maker who assembled the team.  Evidently this was new territory.  No American cyclist had ever been permitted to take this journey and no American film maker had been able to film Siberia at all.  I think the author brought back too much of the Soviet Union with him and wrote this book masked behind smoke and mirrors.  The book left a lot of questions and unknowns about their actual experiences, maybe because they didn't quite understand themselves.  I was amazed with the secrecy and  bureaucracy involved with the simplest of tasks, even just dining at a restaurant or purchasing food.  Nothing is ever available although it might be right in front of your face.  I wish the author would have ditched his annoying, forced poetic style and just wrote about his experiences, maybe explaining a thing or two along the way.  Some things that I found interesting is that there was really only one road that went through Siberia and it was rather incomplete.  There was a stretch of 750 miles that they traveled through swamps either pushing their bikes along the railroad tracks or riding short stints on random trails they encountered taking them from village to village until the trails faded and they where forced back to the rails.  Even where there was a road, it usually wasn't paved.  They were monitored at all times by Soviet police and their interaction with the locals was limited and usually staged.  They were able to lose the police (and the KGB) in the marshlands and had true experiences with real Russians. 

It was an interesting book.  I don't think I'd actually recommend it to anyone because of the difficult writing style.  I threatened to take it back to the library several times but decided the story was interesting enough to continue.

It's a Monday

All I can really say is that it's Monday.  That's the only explanation I can come up with.  I had plans for an epic journey in the 50 minutes allotted during my lunch break.  I got the road bike, Skippy, ready this morning and even made some minor adjustments to alleviate some of the skipping of gears.  I was finally ready to go work this morning, a little late already, when I tromped through the muddy alley and hopped onto my bike.   I made it halfway to work when I noticed I didn't have my bike lock.  I turned all the way around and headed back home where I grabbed my lock and took off again.  As I rode I played around with the gears a little and found that my derailleurs still need some tweaking.  At least the chain isn't falling off anymore.

After hopping off my bike at work and reaching for the bike lock I realized it wasn't there anymore.  I retraced my path, backwards on a one way street, until I saw my coiled up bike lock sitting next to the tracks just a hundred yards or so from the point that I turned around when I realized I forgot my lock.  Coiling the lock around my wrist so I wouldn't lose it again, I rode back into work.  I commuted to work twice this morning.  Does that count for anything?

When I got to work, I looked down at my pants and realized that I somehow got grease all over my pant leg.  These are my nice corduroys too!  Then I remembered I didn't bring a towel for showering after the ride.  I should have decided then that it just wasn't meant to be.

But I didn't and my stubborness took over.  At noon, I was all ready to go.  With filled water bottle and helmet in hand, clothing in the pack on my back, I trecked down to the basement to change.  She saw me.  Yes, work called and there was an issue to handle.  By the time I finished up my business, it was too late to go for a ride.  Bummer!   Today is becoming the Monday of all Mondays.  Tuesday will be a welcomed treat.

Name my bike

I read last night that a really good bike must have a name.  Yesterday I temporarily named my road bike Skippy because of mechanical problems.  Hopefully that name won't stick long.  But I have never named my mountain bike.  Its a yellow Trek 4300 and I love it.  My friend Mike once referred to it as my Beemer because he thinks of his mountain bike as a weekend toy.  I told him my road bike was more like the Beemer and my mountain bike like an SUV or pickup.  I get to play with it off road on the weekends (or during lunch) but its primary job is getting me to and from work, even in the rain, snow or on ice.  Because of this I feel my mountain bike to be more of a faithful friend or trusty steed, always ready to go anywhere with me.

Here are some ideas:

1. Old Yeller
2. Sancho Panza
3. Tornado (Zorro's horse)
4. Lightning
5. Flash

Any other ideas?