your daily bicycle log

How is walking only 15 minutes longer than public transit?? I am not understanding something about SF transit, maybe?

Biked with my GF for the first time she has let me. Was good then sped off into the city on errands. Still need to get her a lighter bike but she has gone cold on the idea. Looks like I am schwinn polishing tomorrow.

"schwinn polishing"

According to my computery thing my commute this morning was 29 mins, about 28 of those actually in motion. Now I did have a pretty good run but that's crazy, I demand a recount.

From where to where do you commute? There is a decent SW breeze today - I can get into Soho (7.2 miles) in under 27 (moving) minutes with a helping hand from the wind, and I'm not particularly fit.

(And there is hell of traffic/lights on the Fulham Road/Kings Road)

waterloo > hamersmith. 9k aka under 6 miles. I go at top whack for my singlespeed (about 30 kph) all the way except for a couple of "hills", traffic usually isn't too bad, it's just the lights which slow me down.

Biked with my GF for the first time she has let me.

Don't understand this...? Does she bike on her own in NYC?

i want to bike in london!

You know how narrow our roads are, right?

Scary moment on the ride back. There's quite a sharp 90 degree corner that I always take at speed because otherwise you always get overtaken by a taxi just before, which then slows down for the bend and cuts you up. And whenever I go round I think "I really have no idea how fast I could take this before skidding out". So I did it again today, didn't really consider that the road was wet... and then my front tyre skittered out from under me... and then came back under control. Phew.

Still at least I know now how fast to take it. No I don't! I still have no clue! How are you meant to figure that out?

How is walking only 15 minutes longer than public transit?? I am not understanding something about SF transit, maybe?

good point, half of that commute is walking because my office is pretty remote.

drifting yr front and recovering is like impossible ime, so good on you ledge

Don't understand this...? Does she bike on her own in NYC?

Yeah she does, since she moved here we had to find a happy way of doing this as there is such a mismatch of speeds. She bikes fine on her own but initially wanted to build confidence without having to watch me nearly getting doored etc.

drifting yr front and recovering is like impossible

I know! Fuck knows how I managed it. Sheer fluke probably.

i want to bike in london!

-- cutty, Thursday, 21 February 2008 18:45 (4 hours ago) Link

sooooooooooooo fun. esp busy roundabouts!

Off to the park later for the first time since doing my shoulder (8 days ago). It still aches but the sharp agonising pains have pretty much gone unless I try something over-ambitious. Is this dumb? I guess I'll find out within a few minutes if it's a bad idea.

First time on the bike, I mean. I have a hangover too so it's not going to be big laughs I guess.

Btw, thanks porkpie for lending me this book - it's great and very funny.

http://www.bookreporter.com/art/covers/140w/0312316127.jpg http://www.lovereading.co.uk/gardimg/00/0097b956.jpg

Last night rode with username sleep to noise show in Bushwick. First night time + snow riding on a road bike! On the way home stopped short to avoid running a light in front of a cop and vaulted the handlebars. Got laughed at by a bodega full of fat asses, but got home fine. Wrists sore but feeling ok.

20 miles today around the North Downs and M25. We never get the route quite right, this time we saw a sign saying "Steep hill, cyclists are recommended to dismount" and thought wahey! 100 vertical metres of fun and indeed steep descent later, and a couple of miles of cycling along the road in denial, we realised that yup that was actually the wrong way, and we would have to go all the way back up it.

oh lord jon. be careful.

rode 3 hours today in prospect park. majority of the ride was with a group of 20 or so riders--by the end our tempo was fast and only 4 of us were left.

race season starts next week. i am going to kill!

I should have just run the red instead of trying to stop on a wet road.

Had a short ride around the neighbourhood - lost my back wheel big time on a hill (rear braking? on a corner? In the rain? Well done Mark) but managed not to fall off. The arm was aching after 20 mins but the action of riding is pushing the joint the right way, if you see what I mean). Did a bit of vague interval work on the little local hills. Was fun.

i spent 4 hours putting a new rim on my rear wheel (1.25 hours) and fucking endlessly with a diabolical chain and messed up chain tool that put me on the edge of insanity.

dint even get to ride on the nicest day since october so sad

dawdled around for about an hour in the new neighbourhood, looking for decent takeaway places; came back empty-handed. DISAPPOINTING.

so i was heading down market street behind this other guy this morning into this intersection:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2203/2110710455_0c2cd83ce1_b.jpg

and this dipshit in a brand new black bmw makes... a sudden right hand turn! cyclist in front of me (later found out his name was Zach) smashes into front door of the car and goes over the hood. i hit the back of the car and superman over the trunk.

Zach was cohherent, legs looked bloody and gnarly though. paramedics and cops called and show up, take Zach away to SFGH. i give my report to cops/traffic investigator. apparently the driver claimed that we were riding on the sidewalk and ran a red light while traffic was congested and he had no other choice but to make an illegal right turn. LOLZ0RZ. Traffic investigator actually laughing when recalling his account of the story which was nice touch.

i'm pretty banged up (cheek bump/abrasions), wrenched back, and sore/bloody left knee.

zach's front end is totalled. i have pics. i got zach's bike at my place, took pics. i have never seen handlebars in this position.

my damage: fork got super bent back. hopefully my front tube is not out of round so that i can salvage the frame. front brake was pretty ugly and twisted up. amazingly the deep v's and phil hubs are still true...

be careful out there folx.

sorry to hear it steve. good luck w yr bike.

race season starts this sunday. also just got my powertap wheelset this week. WATCH OUUUUUUT.

Riding on the sidewalk? When there's a delightfully clear bike lane RIGHT THERE?

Sorry, Shasta. RIP your perfect complexion. ;_;

Steve, fuck the BMW driver. I hope he gets what's coming to him. Can you and Zach get compensation?

ILX bikers hella accident prone.

either that or you live in BFE.

my guess is the latter.

Get a lawyer!!!

btw me upthread not being sympathetic to shasta = we already spoke about it on IM

let's all wish cutty best of luck on his first race. godspeed.

i was in the front of the field killing it until my chain jumped! pulled off and put it back on but could never catch back up to the pack. next time that won't happen cause i'm not going to shift out of my 53.

That is sucky. What were your opponents like?

I did 24 miles earlier, including my fastest 2-laps of Richmond Park. It felt great, though according to my heart rate monitor (on its debut outing), I spent most of the time at about 90-95% of my max. Is this bad? I never felt like I was at absolute full stretch.

This afternoon, I cleaned my bike.

cutty was that yr first first race? tough luck. you probly know but unless the chain gets seriously f'd up you can often downshift yr front and slow pedal it back on. its nice if, when you put your hand up and start to drift back, you have a teammate to push you along while you sort it out. oh yes, you WILL scatch up those beautiful cranks. same technique with dropping the chain to the inside, but sometimes that problem is more resistant to getting back up on the rings. course, sometimes yr just fucked.

75 degrees yesterday, i did my first leisure ride in yonks, 45 miles, about 3000 feet of climbing straight shot. i was so ill afterwards i had to lie down for half an hour ;_;

today-snowing 3"-6", back to the couch/desk.

I'm about to go riding in the snow for the first time ever (meeting some folks at the park for brosnowdown). Wish me luck!

Had a great time riding back in the neighborhood but I got on the road and hit one slippery patch and got scared and rode straight home (then went right back outside on foot).

Love the give of fresh snow under tire though.

New chainring (now running 44x15, was running 48x15 which was a bit much). I had to take the bike by the shop, because the chain became too long and the bolts were way back on the track ends. They took out a link and charged me $10. Also put on some Powergrips on my MKS Touring pedals, which are great so far. I've heard some bad things about the hardware, but it seems pretty sturdy. Finally, I removed the ugly looking metal collar thing on the TT. See picture for ugly metal collar reference:

http://www.raleighusa.com/images/items/Road/main/2008/RAL08-RushHour_Blue.jpg

I now consider my bike officially awesome.

What is the ugly metal collar for, in theory?

I believe it's to prevent the handlebars from dinging the tube. The bike has no decals, which is great, so the metal collar thing also included a Raleigh 'r' and the model name "Rush Hour." It wasn't all that ugly really, but I'm glad it's gone.

Here's a nice looking top tube protector:

http://us.st11.yimg.com/us.st.yimg.com/I/yhst-84224226242177_1990_5689786

Swinley Forest, 16k in 1.5 hours actual riding time, muddy and slidy, rode like old granny all the way round terrified of slipping on tree roots or in the mud, and we were all exhausted, which doesn't bode well for a whole weekend in wales at easter.

Oh. God. I lost the tiny locking clip from the master link on my 3-spd's chain. Now it's overhauled, clean and re-tensioned and GRATE but I cannot ride it until I get a) a used, salvaged replacement clip (miraculously) or b) a new chain (dammit).

I think it went down the drain when I poured out the cleaning sl'n. I are an idiot.

My fucking cog is slipping. Not happy.

it was a coldish morning (24 deg), but supposed to be beautiful and 65 this afternoon for the ride home hurrah. plus i wont need my lights.

64 here and bright cloudless skies today. This morning I took my bike out to this lake/park and halfway around the bike trail I bumped into a buddy...we got high and rode around the lake singing damn it feels good to be a gangsta. And giggling. I hadn't ridden high for a long time. It was fun!

Next time I'm there though I'm renting a paddleboat.

wow, I miss that kind of thing. I go to work - work hard - go home and play with my baby boy and talk with the wife. No going to the park on a workday. No getting high.

It is 75-90 degress year round and almost always sunny though.

So today I discovered that being on a bike doesn't really make canvassing a town with flyers go that much quicker than on foot.