your daily bicycle log

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

barbaric

Clif bars, num. There's a thread for them already, isn't there? I want to talk about how good the cranberry-almond one is.

pear apple strudel is still kicking my ass

its all about chocolate peanut crunch.

I gotta try me some.

Whoo cold! The body warms up after about ten minutes, but sadly the feet do not. I'm going to need heavier socks.

5 minutes down the road, front tyre goes flat. 10 minute walk home. Fit spare inner. Cycle to work in horrible traffic and even horribler low-angle winter sun. I can hardly see a thing most of the way in. I could wear sunglasses, but I feel a bit funny doing that in autumn.

on @ 9.30pm, rode for about an hour post-dinner. tried to keep steady rhythm on capital trail (counter-clockwise) for a while, then got on quiet but wide roads and went hard for about 20 mins. thought i'd fucked up chain with downshift as i pulled up to a light, but false alarm. cruised around for another 10 minutes after that then went home. might've gone 12, 13 km? beautiful clear night.

i am getting quite a taste for this with the good weather. i may ride to work tomorrow.

sup cutty!

36 deg and intermittent drizzle. perfizzle!

Totally awesome weather here today. Good day at work, kept fairly busy.

Two bummers, however, one minor and one not-so-minor-at-all:

(1) keep getting told by "old hands" that my company blows and doesn't pay all that well, which is bad news, esp considering

(2) i took off someone's mirror today. before you guys get jumping down my throat, however, let me say this: riding across a wet grated bridge, SLOWLY lacing through cars in gridlock (ie - not recklessly, just doing it like any old person making their way to the light), i over correct my front wheel and start going down. brace my hand against a van (good), but this just tips me into the car next to me, and i brace against it's mirror (BAD). off goes the mirror. i felt fucking terrible, and had the guy meet me at the corner. gave him my number, etc., and he calls me like 30 minutes later. estimate: $500 for a fucking color-matched Toyota Camry mirror. there goes my first paycheck. barf-city.

Oh no, what a pisser! You did a good thing sorting it out though I think, hope yr repaid you with better breaks today.

hope yr repaid you (frozen fingers, broken-down brain)

Unpleasantly cold, hungover ride in today. Tailgated a bus to enjoy the heat of its exhaust. Does anyone else do this?

We've got buses that run on old cooking oil in Brighton. If you do that here you end up smelling like burnt fish.

fantastic ride home starting midnight last night from shepherds bush to homerton... 10 and a bit miles of deserted streets, freezing, still air and me and the bike FLYING... i'd forgotten how much fun that journey can be

gbx does your company not have insurance for this kind of thing???

If courier companies don't insure their riders my opinion of them is going even further down...

insurance, HA!!

90 mins on the fluid 2 trainer today, my first time using it--OUCH! they were serious when they said resistance.

How do you not go mad spending 90 minutes on that thing?

i watched curb your enthusiasm... then i watched the news

then i was my power animal

no, really, i don't have a power animal (yet)

it's called mental stamina! come on!

Why would courier companies INSURE anyone? Insurance is expensive, yo! As far as their employers are concerned, the people riding the bikes are prob only a step or two above the guys delivering Chinese food.

I'd love to do a ten-mile night ride that started at midnight. NYCers: any one ever been on one of the moonlight rides in either Central or Prospect Park?

Mark's assignment this week is to watch the entirety of Quicksilver from the comfort of his trainer.

gbx youre tops, i'm really sorry to hear that.

my sister stepped off a curb on Beacon St and got knocked into next week by a courier. the courier stopped, said "you alright?" she said "uhhhhh..." and he replied "lady, id stick around, but i dont' have insurance. i gotta go." and off he went. (she was alright)

last night i flatted my rear. fixing a tire on an internal with fenders kinda sucks, thank god it was like 50 degrees and pleasant. if the makers want internals to sell broadly, i think they're gonna need to solve the 'bolt-on' issue. no way a normal person wants to deal with that.

dont know if you remember steve larsen the mtb pro, but he did like 90% of his training one year on his trainer to save time-he said it doubled his efficiency. so count every minute on the trainer double and you can probly just ride 6 to 8 hrs on the trainer every week.

xpost that last bit to cutty obv.

Hahah all my wheels have bolted on, internal or no. Is it too much trouble to just snag out the part of the tube with the hole in it? Oh, I guess that only works when there's a nail or glass or something stuck in and you can see where it is. Still....

dont know if you remember steve larsen the mtb pro, but he did like 90% of his training one year on his trainer to save time-he said it doubled his efficiency. so count every minute on the trainer double and you can probly just ride 6 to 8 hrs on the trainer every week.

this might happen this winter depending on snowfall. cold won't stop me, but snow will.

Hunter that's very interesting - how is the trainer more efficient? fewer stops and starts, complete control over the speed/cadence/resistance etc?

Laurel I don't know what Quicksilver is. I feel like ILTRMB's Tuomas.

Well, my recollection is hazy as to the exact assertion, but larsens point was that he was his whole team and mgmt, and wearing that many hats meant he couldn't lollygag, even on the bike.

exacty mark. dont know if its really 2x as efficient, but if you look at power meter readings of a long ride, esp group ride, or one without very structured format, eg. intervals, hill repeats, a lot of time is spent coasting or soft pedalling. big group rides, if you dont hit the front, you can do like, nothing. (even this has big benefits over say, drinking the afternoon away of course)

depends on the group tho. ride the bus stop out of boulder in january when the national pros are home, and you might still get blown out just trying to sit on.

laurel i'll have to try that. but itd be hard to pull out just the cut bit as the bike is super unwieldy-tight bead, heavy, bell wouldn't allow bike to three point cleanly, and rack and fenders make access worse. i'll try though, yall are the bolt on experts. i have move that bell, but drops have so little space and i have two lamps in addition.

Only if by "expert" you mean the fact that I keep a cheap 6" adjustable wrench in my bike bag. Which isn't very experty or specific, really, but more a requirement of circumstances. Anyway, yeah, you pretty much HAVE to 3-point it, that bell is a problem. I admit I'm protective of my Brooks, so I keep some shop rags in the bag too, so I can put one under the saddle point and not scratch it. Haha.

One I go to QR hubs, I'll probably never go back, I know. But right now, bolt-ons don't seem like a big deal since it's all I've got.

complete control over the speed/cadence/resistance etc?

this is the key. no external factors influencing your targets and goals for the session.

NO FUN