Tag Archives: 30daysofbiking

Windy Wednesday Commute

Posted by on April 29, 2011 No comments

I don’t know what made me think it would be a good idea to ride all the way home from Perinton on Wednesday. It’s only 22 miles, but it was 22 miles south east with 15-20mph winds coming out of the south east. I think sometimes seeing other people’s stats on dailymile makes me push myself a little further. Most of the cyclists I’m friends with are on average 5-6mph faster than me and most of them average a lot more miles than me so there’s always something to aspire to.

Anyway, I decided to ride the longish way home straight into the wind on a day when we’re having a tornado watch in the Rochester/Finger Lakes area and I think the main reason is because I wanted to see my little daily mile chart look more impressive. The other reason was that I got to Palmyra 25 minutes before the bus was due & I knew that it would take me about 50 minutes to ride home from there which is about the same amount of time waiting for the bus + biking the last leg home would take.

Isn’t riding more fun than waiting for the bus? I thought so at first.

I don’t know if it’s because I’ve been riding so much more lately or if it was wrestling with the wind gusts but just a mile or two past the point of no return my shoulders, arms, and neck started to really feel unhappy. I was worrying about the time. I kept wanting to stop and see how far I’d gone, what time it was, if I was late, as though any of that would change where I was. None of that mattered because I had to ride the rest of the way. There was no alternative. It’s funny how much your mind can try to get you to quit even though you have more energy left.

It’s 7 more miles. Shut up brain. The legs are on board with this project. Just relax and watch for cracks and quit trying to talk us out of this ride. Fine. I’ll give you some peanuts and raisins. Are you happy now? Too bad. We’re riding the rest of the way.

I made it home. For a lot of that last bit I was in low gear just grinding along, plodding really. Now that it’s a day later, I’m glad I went for it. For some reason I was really struggling during the ride though.

Could Cycling Cure the Common Cold?

Posted by on April 6, 2011 No comments

Probably not but an 8 mile ride in the cold actually did make me feel better somehow. I will probably have to wash my gloves again though. Cycling in the cold makes my nose run so you can imagine what cycling in the cold with a cold is like. I got these nice summer cycling gloves that have terry cloth nose wiping panels sewed right in. I need some cold weather gloves with similar qualities. It’ll be warm soon though and won’t matter anymore.

I rode up to the fire department again because I wanted to get a closer look at the cars they were practicing jaws of life on.

After that I was going to ride to Phelps and back but wandered off in a different direction. I took some roads that I drive all the time but haven’t ridden on. I was fascinated by the little details I miss in the car.  I was trying to figure out someway to capture the color palette of the fields & the sky knowing my phone camera just wouldn’t do it. I had lots more cold addled thoughts that I was going to write about here… something about asphalt shingles and spider plants but now there is only a trace of the thoughts left. Sometimes the stuff I ponder while I’m riding disappears when I stop, kind of like waking up from a dream. You know there was something important but aside from the remembering that your boss was there wearing a chicken suit you’re not really sure what it was.

So Windy

Posted by on April 5, 2011 2 comments

After we finished eating dinner I headed out for my 30 days of biking day 5 ride. The wind was coming out of the west like at train at 25 mph. I decided the best option would be to pedal straight into it so I’d have it at my back on the way home. I headed up the steep hill past the volunteer fire department. There were a bunch of fire fighters out practicing with the hoses. They weren’t spraying anyting, but practicing getting the hose hooked to the hydrant and  just working together to move the hoses around. They look really heavy. I noticed some wrecked cars on the far corner of the parking lot. Maybe they were having jaws of life practice too. I waved as I coasted by but didn’t take a photo. I probably should have. The sky behind them was so dramatic.

As I passed them the wind picked up a bit and started flinging tiny snowballs at my face. Not quite snowflakes but not hail. They sting at that speed. I rode over to Silver Hill Industrial Park which I still call Sara Coventry because I live in the past. I took a bunch of pictures of the dramatic sky and flew home with the wind at my back.

My favorite speed hill is now covered with danger holes and scary parallel cracks so now I ride the brakes most of the way down. I don’t want to go flying over the handlebars and land in the middle of the the road which is also a blind curve.

I feel like I’m getting back into my old groove now, like biking is a necessary part of my day. Maybe a real commute tomorrow. We’ll see. No promises.

I’m happier than I look in that photo. I’m probably just concentrating on trying to get my big stupid head in the frame.

Blue Ribbon by Bike

Posted by on April 3, 2011 No comments

I made it to day 3 of 30 days of biking. 27 to go.

I was supposed to meet some friends at The Blue Ribbon for breakfast this morning. We’ve been trying to get together every few months for breakfast now. The Blue Ribbon is a good place to catch up with old friends because they don’t seem to mind if you sit there for 2 or 3 hours. I assume if they wanted us to go they’d stop coming by to refill our coffee.

It only 5 miles from my house so it seemed like a perfect bike destination. It was about 35F and sunny when I left and great morning to be out. I was riding past a big cornfield watching some geese a little way off in the field. They were keeping and eye on me and I was so busy watching them that I completely missed the geese that were parked right next to the road. I made them nervous and they took off and startled me. I only swerved a little.

The only thing I could find to lock my bike to at the restaurant were some pipes but it wasn’t a problem. I don’t think a lot of cyclists frequent this place so there was no competition.

We hung out almost until lunch time and I took off for home. It was much warmer. A little too warm to wear my windbreaker but definitely too cold not to wear it. I was a bit faster on the way home. It must have been the six cups of coffee.

I turned on to my road and saw a muskrat in the swamp/ditch trying to be super still so I would not eat him. As soon as I passed him he disappeared under the water.

No pictures because I can’t find my camera battery charger. Where would I have put it?

Margaritas Lead to Folding Bikes

Posted by on April 2, 2011 No comments

Thursday night I left my car at work so I could attend a post-work happy hour. For me, there are no gray areas with having a drink and then driving later. If I have one drink, I won’t drive… maybe if I waited 3 hours but by then I’d be asleep. It may be overkill but there’s no room for me to make a dangerous mistake. And I was in the mood for a couple of drinks anyway. I arranged for Brian to pick me later. I would take the bus to work and retrieve my car on Friday.

My original plan had been to take the folding bike to work. Ride it or catch a ride to the restaurant and then have Brian pick me up. In the end I blew off the 5 minutes of planning required to make this happen and drove to work.

Friday morning, I dropped Brian’s car off for an oil change and caught the bus to work, where my car was waiting for me. The car place closed at 5 so I didn’t get a chance to pick it up Friday night. So this morning, I took the folding bike for what might be it’s inaugural ride. I’m not sure but I think it still had less than 10 miles on it.

It’s not fast but it’s really comfy. The wind was blowing but it was sunny out and above 40F so it felt awesome to me.

So it’s still only 3 miles for today’s 30 days of biking but it’s more than yesterday. Maybe I’ll get out again later.


This is amazingly easy to fold up. I could definitely see using this on public transportation.

Another Attempt at 30 Days of Biking

Posted by on April 1, 2011 No comments

30 days of bikingLast April and last September I failed miserably at 30 Days of Biking. There were good reasons, which I’m not going to dwell on here. But I’m giving it another shot. I nearly got off to another bad start today. I didn’t bike to work because of errands and appointments. My plan was to dash out for a quick ride around the block after dinner. By the time dinner was finished it was already getting dark. I ran upstairs and was flinging clothes around trying to assemble some appropriate ensemble for dark damp semi-chilly weather. I ran back downstairs to get some blinky lights and reflective stuff and discovered that my headlight was completely uncharged. I decided the important thing was for people to see me. What do I need to see the road for? There was still a little bit of light left.

Then I couldn’t find my gloves. Then I found my gloves.

Then I couldn’t find my helmet. Then I found my helmet.

Then it was getting a little extra dark.

Because of the lack of light (both natural and artificial) I opted for a quick hill climb up to the bmx track by the fire department. I need to learn how to climb and like it. I’m just not a good climber. I may be a bit better now that I weigh a less but I still feel like I have zero power on steep grades.

Once I got to the top, I rode in circles in the fire hall parking lot and watched someone zipping around the BMX track with some kind of heavy equipment. I have no idea what kind. I have a friend that can’t tell a wood-chuck from a beaver and isn’t sure what a weasel looks like. I have that affliction when it comes to many things in the heavy equipment category. I can identify a back-hoe though I will usually call it a steam shovel. I can also identify a bull-dozer, cement truck, and dump truck. If it doesn’t fall into those categories I don’t know what it’s called.

After pondering nameless heavy equipment for a few minutes, I zoomed back down the hill at almost 30mph. Patched potholes in the dark are fairly exciting over 25mph. Not so much the good kind of exciting either.

1.74 miles 10 minutes. Hey, I got out there. 29 more days to re-establish my biking habit/obsession.

Tiny Turtle Rescue

Posted by on September 4, 2010 No comments

Tiny Snapping Turtle

I was going to ride to the bank to deposit a few checks. That was a fail because the bank no longer makes the deposit envelopes available at the ATM. If they do, they are hiding them. In the end it was all worth it because I found this brand new little snapping turtle sitting in the middle of our driveway. I carried him over to the edge of the pond and put him on a mossy rock. Hopefully he found a good hiding spot somewhere because he looked like he might make a tasty morsel for somebody.

Late Ride

Posted by on September 4, 2010 No comments

I did not manage to get up early enough to ride on Thursday morning. I waited until 8 or 8:30 pm to do my ride for 30 Days of Biking. It turned out to be perfect timing to see a young red fox.* There was just a bit of eye shine in the weeds on the side of the road in the distance ahead. I was wondering if it would be a raccoon or a cat or (hopefully not) a skunk. As I rolled slowly in that direction, it emerged from the weeds and started jogging down the road directly toward me and into my headlights. It just kept moving toward me, probably blinded by my light, until I started talking to it. “Hello fox. Do you see me? You might want to run away.” It was only about 10 feet from me when it turned off the road and slipped in to the high grass in the ditch.

It was really humid and had been hot all day, but the temperature was probably down to 75 by the time I rode. It was the kind of weather that seems to draw frogs into the road for some reason. There were a lot of frogs, though not so many that I couldn’t easily avoid them. There were a couple that looked like leopard frogs, and lots of tiny green ones (maybe peepers), and one or two american toads.

It can be really nice riding at night around here. You definitely need to be well lit for the few cars that do pass but for the most part you’re out in the quiet dark without traffic. The view is simple, dark silhouettes of trees and terrain, against a dark sky. Though I spend more time keeping an eye out for frogs and potholes than I do looking at the scenery.

*I’m starting to wonder if it really was a fox. It might have been a young coyote. It was kind of tall and didn’t have a bushy tail.  It seems like it had black on the rims of its giant yoda ears. I have looked up pictures of both foxes and coyotes but I haven’t seen any perfect matches.

Early Ride

Posted by on September 2, 2010 No comments

I managed to pry myself out of bed yesterday at about 5:20. My goal was 5 am of course but the magic of snooze is a powerful thing. I so wanted to be in bed a little longer that when I accidentally turned off the alarm instead of snoozing it, I actually reset the alarm. After the alarm went off a few times I started to feel a little guilty. Brian hadn’t signed up for an annoying early awakening.

The night before I had carefully removed all the barriers to action that my powerful morning rationalizing brain could get a grip on. My lights were charged. My clothes for the ride were gathered into a heap. So I got dressed and got on my bike around 5:40. It was pretty dark. I could barely make out the vague shapes of horses as I rode past the pasture.

A car totally ran the stop sign at the corner. They always do. At this corner anyway.

As I rode around the block the sky started turning from black to red. All the scenery in the foreground was still in darkness back lit by red. Eventually the red started to fade out and was being replaced by blue toward the end of my ride. The sun still wasn’t up when I got home but it was light enough that I didn’t really need to have my headlights on anymore.

It was a perfect time of day to ride. I think it was in the high 60′s  but it was into the 90′s by mid day.

I didn’t manage to get up to ride this morning but I’ll still get out this evening. Maybe when the temperature drops down to 80.