your daily bicycle log

what kind of layers are they?

http://www.kitchenlink.com/ch/2000/august/desserts1.jpg

thin wikking base/fairly thin mid/wind & waterproof.

kkck

I am gonna need something long-sleeved soon for when it does get cold and i don't wanna wear my waterproof all the time cos then it will get stinky

i was looking at long sleeved jerseys but i can't afford to buy like 6 of them or whatever

are they worth it?

maybe i should just go and get a bunch of long-sleeved ts from the charity shop...

There's always arm warmers as a stop gap measure. Or wear a warm base layer under your short sleeved jersey.

If you get the wicky cycling jersey,s emsk, you can rinse them out every night and they will be dry by morning. check eBay, there are normally loads of cheap ones there.

Tom I was fine in a regular long sleeve t-shirt yesterday. Waterproof? It wasn't even raining!

I kinda wish I'd cycled today - yesterday I just had so much energy (and my combined commute time was 56 mins - never done it below 57 before), and today the weather's nicer. But, I don't read scripts when I cycle and they're piling up (non WGA, I promise!!), so I took the train. However, I am wearing my Condor cycling jersey :)

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2345/1580010955_3360df0efc_m.jpg

(weird, I img-ed that okay I thought. Anyway, it's a pic of my sweater)

I can see it. Con D'or eh?

There's always arm warmers as a stop gap measure. Or wear a warm base layer under your short sleeved jersey.

-- NickB, Tuesday, November 6, 2007 12:18 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

arm warmers! what? i have never seen these! i think 2 layers will be too many for me, even in coldest january after 15 minutes i'm having to stop to pull my top layer off. i think it's cos i always use a backpack in winter so it keeps my back warm.

If you get the wicky cycling jersey,s emsk, you can rinse them out every night and they will be dry by morning. check eBay, there are normally loads of cheap ones there.

-- Ed, Tuesday, November 6, 2007 12:20 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

cool thanks! sizing is all weird though..

Snood is definitely the way forward for me I think. Handy for snowboarding too.

Race-gimp arm warmers:

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Images/Models/Full/18090.jpg

Those pictures spook me a bit, cos there is obviously an arm in there, but never any body or hand attached. Gah!

raining here in NYC. roller session while watching heroes and curb your enthusiasm.

Mens sizing is 1-5 and I am a 3 or a 4. I'm not sure about women's, go and try something on in evans and buy it somewhere cheap. Emsk, I wouldn't advise you trying to squeeze into a men's.

so i never wrote that log. oh well.

heading to work in fifteen. "high around 45F, 20% of precip, winds could gust to over 40mph"

yikes!

Maybe I need more layers than you hardy souls because I have zero body fat. Actually my flatmate has some of those fancy scales that measure/estimate/guess yr fat ratio etc. Apparently I have 5% body fat and my physique or health "age" is 12!

i've never quite understood how those things are supposed to work, but isn't the only truly accurate measure of body fat obtained if you do the submersion tank thing?

Out of the house at 6.30 for an hour or so of modest pottering around the country lanes north of the Downs before the abrupt hoik up to the top of mean old Ditchling Beacon. Would have preferred to go and get muddy offroad instead really, but some heavy-handed fettling with the big spanner bolloxed up the rear brake on the Voodoo, oops.

xpost they mostly make it up i reckon. supposedly they put a current through you and work out yr fat from yr conductance; but they have tables of body types built in, and you tell them your height, so it's not too hard for them to go "6 foot and 135 pounds? you'd be a bit skinny then".

first truly COLD morning. felt great. 90 mins.

So cold last night, too! I really really didn't want to leave the warm shop & get back on bike but by the time I got home I was toasty.

Dammit, I need a longer ride into work.

I wish there was a nice accessible stretch that I could use for riding to work, but between Manhattan traffic and the bridge workout I think I'd always arrive disheveled, sweaty, and late. Not a good outcome.

Dammit, I need a longer ride into work.

Do what I do and just start off in the wrong direction.

I should. The problem is I don't really want to do that on the Ralleigh and I don't want to lock the merckx outside.

lock the frame and bring the wheels in?

i go for a ride as soon as i wake up, then come home all sweaty and gross and then off to the shower to start my day. i don't have a shower at work unfortunately, it's one thing i wish we had.

I'd worry about component harvesting then. This area seems to be pretty bad for thieving, my boss had his motorbike nicked and there is always broken glass from car theft.

component harvesting! im glad i live in flyover country.

*leaves to go check the IR8*

Mad weather last night, with really cold raindrops being driven into my eyes like bullets by the wind. I hate it when you realise that drivers can also probably see just about bugger all too, makes you feel so vulnerable. Two minutes into my commute, already cold and soaked I went past a cottage with wood smoke coming out of the chimney. What an amazing smell that is in the when you're stuck outside in a storm.

My rear brakes collapsed on the way home last night and I did not have my multi tool only an spanner so wasn't able to do a good job fixing them. Rod pulls are really rubbish.

Pro of last night: I'm really liking rides in the "cold" so far. I know it's going to get much worse, but so far it's a blast -- I can get all the way home and barely have broken a sweat over 3-5 miles. Brilliant!

Con of last night: now that there's a protected bike lane on Bedford, everyone's using it to go THE WRONG WAY. Someone almost hit me last night (I was turning and didn't see him) and I passed another 5-6 people riding against traffic as well. It's not a poky back street, it's a MAJOR three- or four-lane artery through Brooklyn, GET THE FUCK OFF. Plus minivans EVERYWHERE parking in it oh god I was so cranky....

Still am.

i really love cycling in the cold!

they need to make a parallel bike lane on nostrand i think

Isn't Lee a totally weird street? Sometimes when I'm drunk/confused and don't take Wythe I end up on Lee, and it's so 1903 Lower East Side-ish.

generally i like riding through hasidic williamsburg because of that feeling of being somewhere truly alien

Oh, I agree, esp during holidays like Sukkot or Purim when you can see stuff going on, people partying in the streets, etc. I dislike the part where it's pedestrian Frogger, though.

seriously, the idea of riding in bkln is as exotic to me as riding in patagonia. scenic vistas crazy wildlife all that.

nice commute this morning, not as cold, in the mid 30s (weve had a few mornings in the 20s and i had to break out insulated gloves, which i dont liike). its sposed to be 75 degrees today!

i'd prefer riding in colorado.

It's stayed in the 30s-50s f and dry all this week here, my favorite riding weather.

I've been riding around in this broad swath of town I've somehow never (until I guess last weekend) been in...there are these great broad ancient tree-lined streets back there, how did I miss this? The streets don't really form any kind of logical grid and I've gotten lost back there at least 3 or 4 times already.

got out of work at 1:15
raced up to north beach to pick up coat from @l's @ttire
flirted with texan seamstress there for 15 mins., hi u r a qt.
raced up and over chinatown (seriously avg. over 25mph)
swooped down past union square into SOMA flying through traffic
picked up car from shop
drove 2 blocks to jaxon's loft at 1:50.

total ride time 20 minutes, probably covered 7 miles through hilly trafficed conditions.

NOTES FROM THIS WEEK:

* have encountered two old-timey elevators with full-time operators. after leaving one of them, a fellow passenger told me that the old guy that ran the elevator had been doing it for 58 years. (!!!)
* probably averaging at least 25-30 miles a day, maybe more. the round-trip commute is 12 miles alone.
* OVERHEARD ---- three middle-aged black women discussing turducken
* OVERHEARD ---- my dispatcher, at the end of the day, on the phone with his lady, in the tenderest voice you can imagine: "now you know all i want is the best for you, but bitch, you got to stop playing me"
* the fact that i am polite and say please and thank you when i pick-up/deliver seems to amaze most office workers. it has gotten me coffee on at least three occasions!
* most of my comrades are (a) middle-aged black or hispanic dudes on the grind, paying bills (nice guys!) (b) weird strung out/toothless middle-aged men of all ethnicities (i have encountered at least three that mutter to themselves while they work) (c) young men using messing as an excuse to have a chip on their shoulder ("those fuckers are so rude to me whenever i show up, man!" MINUTES LATER: "...yeah, i usually have my headphones in the whole time, why?") (d) soft-spoken dudes/chicks that just want to ride bikes (i knew some of these dudes before i started work...good people) (e) herbs
* i went to the Dunkin Donuts in the Thompson Center (where all the couriers on standby tend to post up) and ordered one donut and one coffee. the cute girl behind the counter gave me two! score!
* i have never had a job that offers such a wealth of opportunities for girl-watching. it is an embarrassment of riches. maybe related: couriers seem to be inveterate cat-callers, and god help me i think i might turn into one (of sorts). in the few days i've worked, i've nearly called out boring-nice-guy stuff like "you're pretty!" at like 50 cuet office girls on the sidewalk. i'm finding it very difficult not to flirt with the secretaries, who must get that shit all the time. instead i just check missed connections, like a loser.

* i need a cham, v v badly
* the guys that get paid hourly have no hustle and don't do shit
* my rear wheel is already out of true :-/
* apparently my company has an account at a few bike shops, so i can buy stuff and they deduct the cost from my paycheck in installments? this seems like a good thing and also a very, very bad thing
* there is one dude that smokes joints at the Thompson Center, in the open, and like a few hundred feet away from the cops that come and go all day
* today i spent a half hour (!!!) looking for an address, only to be told by dispatch that the destination was not actually a building, but the future site of a building, and that i should just make the drop at the trailer in the construction site.
* i think i'm gonna need a bigger bag (and i'm already lugging a BaileyWorks large)
* Dear lady that works the dock at 303 e wacker: u a bich

on bike yesterday @ 5pm, did about 2/3rds of the melbourne 'capital city trail' bike path - 20km from park up the road from my place to flinders street train station. total time around 2hrs. great weather!

I have no recollection of how I got home last night or what route I took especially round kings cross. I had to check my bag this morning to check I had actually locked my bike up. My headache has only just subsided. Damned Red Stripe.

WHERE ARE MY SHOES

HI HAITCH!

3 hours yesterday (shitty out, sun for about five minutes)

2.5 hours today (beautiful, sunny, brisk!)

ddb bitched out on me we were supposed to go to nyack

Couple of hours at Leith Hill, haven't been there often enough to find the good singletrack but did a couple of good downhills, v loose and rocky. Also pretty dry considering the recent rain, so worth going back. Perfect autumnal colours as well, and great light filtering through the trees. And tea and cakes at the top, of course.

in america it's clif bars and gatorade