567.1; 22.3
End of a big week (135 miles) and month (428 miles); mom visiting, so won't be riding for the next few days. Good to get a break now and then. With that in mind, in the 80 days since layoff (ending October 1), I've biked 917.4 miles for an average of 11.9 miles per day (damn--I really wanted to stay above 12!).
Interestingly enough, with previous stints of bike riding, I noticed my hands/wrists getting *number* as I logged the mileage *numbers*. I've had some of that this time, but it seems to be more from time spent on the computer than from biking--even though the new bike is much more rigid, with no front or rear suspension, and thinner, harder tires.
I think I need to buckle down and do some work now, as long as there is work to do! Third Java course, coming up.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Flattery Will Get You Nowhere
544.8; 26.9. Another flat, coincidentally (?) right after pulling off to the side of the unpaved road, in the middle of a bunch of star thistles, to let a work truck go by. I examined the tires before I started to roll again! Less than a mile later, the back wheel is floppin'. Nice to have a spare tube and tools, and to be able to repair it on the spot, but I'm considering the "thorn-proof" tubes the guy showed me today. Otherwise, nice pleasant ride, not too hot or cool.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Five Hundred
517.9; 28.6 (2hrs, 10min)
Entered dates and miles into a Facebook app, Bike City, and wondered the whole time why I was doing that when I have it all in a spreadsheet, in which I can crunch the numbers any way I like. For example, the FB app doesn't track by week, doesn't appear to be able to compare one month to another (or even show the numbers for past months), provide average miles per day (I've been tracking my avg/day and seeing how high I can get it by the end of the month (79 days since I started). Today's ride just bumped the avg up past 12 mpd...
Anyway, bored with the regularity of numbers like 31.3, 26.0, and 16.6, I extended the Forestville route a different way today and so got a different number.
I was prepared to just go to Forestville and back, and instead took off north on High School Road to make an additional loop to the unpaved section of bike path, Fulton Rd., and back.
I'm seriously concerned about my contract job--(deleted possibly incriminating content).
I think some employees just don't require feedback in their work--and some employers just don't think of it as a requirement to GIVE feedback. I, not being one of the former, have trouble dealing with the latter (and probably they with me too). (snip!)
Entered dates and miles into a Facebook app, Bike City, and wondered the whole time why I was doing that when I have it all in a spreadsheet, in which I can crunch the numbers any way I like. For example, the FB app doesn't track by week, doesn't appear to be able to compare one month to another (or even show the numbers for past months), provide average miles per day (I've been tracking my avg/day and seeing how high I can get it by the end of the month (79 days since I started). Today's ride just bumped the avg up past 12 mpd...
Anyway, bored with the regularity of numbers like 31.3, 26.0, and 16.6, I extended the Forestville route a different way today and so got a different number.
I was prepared to just go to Forestville and back, and instead took off north on High School Road to make an additional loop to the unpaved section of bike path, Fulton Rd., and back.
I'm seriously concerned about my contract job--(deleted possibly incriminating content).
I think some employees just don't require feedback in their work--and some employers just don't think of it as a requirement to GIVE feedback. I, not being one of the former, have trouble dealing with the latter (and probably they with me too). (snip!)
Monday, September 22, 2008
Tightening
489.3; 31.3
Lovely morning for grabbing some mileage, hoping to top my biggest week yet (that was 120.9 miles--I'm almost halfway there already). It dawned clear and still, and so it remained, a crisp autumn morning (now that we're officially into autumn). I got new tights that are specifically for biking--if nothing else, they won't catch on the front sprocket. I like 'em, overall...
Returned the clip-in shoes yesterday, and bought toe cages, which I'm already used to on bike 1. Anyone wanna buy a pair of Shimano SPD pedals (PD-M424)? Only about 500 miles on 'em...
People and dogs all over the paths, but I'm really not that bothered by it, and I would like to bothered by it even less. Let it go, move on, etc....
Lovely morning for grabbing some mileage, hoping to top my biggest week yet (that was 120.9 miles--I'm almost halfway there already). It dawned clear and still, and so it remained, a crisp autumn morning (now that we're officially into autumn). I got new tights that are specifically for biking--if nothing else, they won't catch on the front sprocket. I like 'em, overall...
Returned the clip-in shoes yesterday, and bought toe cages, which I'm already used to on bike 1. Anyone wanna buy a pair of Shimano SPD pedals (PD-M424)? Only about 500 miles on 'em...
People and dogs all over the paths, but I'm really not that bothered by it, and I would like to bothered by it even less. Let it go, move on, etc....
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Mister Early
458.0; 26.0
Not THAT early--it was after nine when I left--but seeming early because of the low mist (hence the "Mister" part of the title) hanging around through the first half of the ride, causing poor visibility not only via moisture in the air but also via moisture on my glasses. Also, wearing full-on sweats rather than the usual shorts and t-shirt made everything more muffled.
Tough pedaling early, when it seemed like all I could do to keep up a 15mph pace, then it was easier on the return trip, especially when I got behind a pair of guys on racing bikes who I expected to leave me in their dust, but I actually had to slow down at times to stay behind them until Wright Rd., where I shortcut the corner and left them behind.
The farther portion of this trail, the last segment of the part called the "Santa Rosa Creek Greenway," is about 2-1/2 miles of unpaved road on either side of the creek. At the very end, someone has taken to hanging a sign about how there are plans to pave this segment. Below the sign hangs an open envelope of orange slips of paper with the anti-creek trail web site address printed on them. These slips fall out of the envelope and scatter on the ground around the trailhead, and it's hard to muster much sympathy for a cause that litters the trailhead like that while professing to be in the interest of saving it.
I'm with 'em, sorta, on the need for study before putting in a paved bike path--except, bikes are ALREADY USING that path--it's among other things, a BIKE PATH.
And it's a much safer option than the parallel Hall or Guerneville roads. From my own personal viewpoint, I have no problem at all with the paving of this stretch. The other side will presumably remain unpaved (as it is still on the rest of the Greenway's south side, all the way back to Stony Point).
Since bikes are already using the trail, the arguments they're using pretty much center around the faster speed of the bikes that will ensue, added danger to peds, blah blah blah, but what I see on that trail is almost EVERYONE disregarding the leash law. Then there's a bit of a non-sequitur in the the inclusion of an endangered species list--including trout in the stream. Now, there is just NO WAY faster cycling would have ANY effect on said trout--unless indeed, it scares the illegal fishermen away.
They also don't mention the fact that this paving provides access to wheelchairs--and I DO see people in wheelchairs on the other segments.
Be that as it may, they have succeeded in at least delaying construction.
I can live with it either way, but the protest rather reeks to me of NIMBYism with which I'm not altogether unfamiliar. Something else interests me on that map, and that is all the "proposed" bike paths in the area that would make for much safer biking in a much more extended area, including, apparently, completion of this near-loop that I ride almost daily by extending the trail across Willowside Rd. and past Delta Pond, to Frei Rd (which the reader may remember) where it looks like a bike path is ALSO planned. Honestly, I'd be happy with more unpaved paths than more paving of existing ones... I suspect the thing will be paved eventually, but can't be arsed to attend a meeting about it, for all of these reasons, but mostly: BOTH sides--the NIMBYs and the racing bikers--annoy me no end.
Proud to have passed 800 total miles today, this 70th day since I started biking again.
Not THAT early--it was after nine when I left--but seeming early because of the low mist (hence the "Mister" part of the title) hanging around through the first half of the ride, causing poor visibility not only via moisture in the air but also via moisture on my glasses. Also, wearing full-on sweats rather than the usual shorts and t-shirt made everything more muffled.
Tough pedaling early, when it seemed like all I could do to keep up a 15mph pace, then it was easier on the return trip, especially when I got behind a pair of guys on racing bikes who I expected to leave me in their dust, but I actually had to slow down at times to stay behind them until Wright Rd., where I shortcut the corner and left them behind.
The farther portion of this trail, the last segment of the part called the "Santa Rosa Creek Greenway," is about 2-1/2 miles of unpaved road on either side of the creek. At the very end, someone has taken to hanging a sign about how there are plans to pave this segment. Below the sign hangs an open envelope of orange slips of paper with the anti-creek trail web site address printed on them. These slips fall out of the envelope and scatter on the ground around the trailhead, and it's hard to muster much sympathy for a cause that litters the trailhead like that while professing to be in the interest of saving it.
I'm with 'em, sorta, on the need for study before putting in a paved bike path--except, bikes are ALREADY USING that path--it's among other things, a BIKE PATH.
And it's a much safer option than the parallel Hall or Guerneville roads. From my own personal viewpoint, I have no problem at all with the paving of this stretch. The other side will presumably remain unpaved (as it is still on the rest of the Greenway's south side, all the way back to Stony Point).
Since bikes are already using the trail, the arguments they're using pretty much center around the faster speed of the bikes that will ensue, added danger to peds, blah blah blah, but what I see on that trail is almost EVERYONE disregarding the leash law. Then there's a bit of a non-sequitur in the the inclusion of an endangered species list--including trout in the stream. Now, there is just NO WAY faster cycling would have ANY effect on said trout--unless indeed, it scares the illegal fishermen away.
They also don't mention the fact that this paving provides access to wheelchairs--and I DO see people in wheelchairs on the other segments.
Be that as it may, they have succeeded in at least delaying construction.
I can live with it either way, but the protest rather reeks to me of NIMBYism with which I'm not altogether unfamiliar. Something else interests me on that map, and that is all the "proposed" bike paths in the area that would make for much safer biking in a much more extended area, including, apparently, completion of this near-loop that I ride almost daily by extending the trail across Willowside Rd. and past Delta Pond, to Frei Rd (which the reader may remember) where it looks like a bike path is ALSO planned. Honestly, I'd be happy with more unpaved paths than more paving of existing ones... I suspect the thing will be paved eventually, but can't be arsed to attend a meeting about it, for all of these reasons, but mostly: BOTH sides--the NIMBYs and the racing bikers--annoy me no end.
Proud to have passed 800 total miles today, this 70th day since I started biking again.
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