Well, I'll Be Darned!

At the very least, I'll be darned.

It rained today! I even had to turn the windshield wipers on!



Paddington Bear advises us to keep our books dry.

Needless to say, I did NOT ride the bike today!

I ran across a very interesting site about lacing shoes. It had a method of lacing bicycle shoes so that the bow came out on the side, away from the crankarm. I found this VERY exciting. I could not wait to get home and do it to my biking shoes. Imagine my disappointment when I discovered that my shoes do not have the required eyelets, but instead have tubular loops, if you can picture that.

Bagel Day

In my hurry to get ready for work I inadvertently put on my sneakers instead of my bike shoes. I noticed the difference as soon as I tried to "clip in", but I was in too much of a hurry to go back and change.

Live with it, is my motto.

As well as "gadzooks!"

It felt really weird and unsecure. It felt like there was about an inch hanging over the pedal.

I took a couple pictures when I got home to illustrate this:

 The sneakers...   The bike shoes...

Not that much difference, I was surprised to see!

On reflection, I bet it's the stiffening in the sole of the bike shoes that makes all the difference.

Ran over some broken glass Christmas decorations this afternoon. Did not get a flat.

So far I've 45 or so miles commuting this week, but the rumour is, it just might rain tomorrow.

We shall see...

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Fooled around with the new Macs at work with the built-in camera.

This is how people at work see me:

Wednesday?

Absolutely not much to say today.

Rode to work, rode home, it was a little chilly, done deal.

Stopped by the dentist to discuss the TREMENDOUS amount of money the insurance is taking tremendously long time to pay. Hope I don't get stuck with it!

There were three, count'em THREE, security guards, in differently uniforms, guarding the strip mall and medical building. Something going on?

The ribald sitcom Two And A Half Men had a bit with the brother Alan in Full Bike Regalia. Check out the pics at the show's site. In case the pictures move into the gallery or something, the episode as title "Kinda Like Necrophilia".

Not Flat Yet Tuesday

The patch is holding.

I raised the seatpost 3/8 of an inch. I feel like I am on top of the world, baby!

I might be rolling, but I'm not rocking. On the seat, that is!

Using a plumb bob (Well, a big nut on a string...) hanging off the bump under my knee, I have determined that the seat is probably where it should, fore and aft wise.

So after riding the Jamis for two years, I just MIGHT have the seat dialed in...

Five Steps to Perfect Seat Adjustment, part of an article titled "Bicycle Seats Explained by Jim Langley.

Flat Monday

I got up early, skipped a shower (Hey, I just had one YESTERDAY), put on slight used (20 miles from Saturday) shorts, and headed out.

I dropped off a book at the library, then headed to work. Since I had such a jump on the day, I did eight miles before I got there. Going forth and back, back and forth, on parallel residential streets. Tedious, but distance-building.

Going home I ran across some glass in the bike lane, natch, and a hundred yards later, in the left-hand turn lane, with several automobiles behind me, just as the turn arrow lit up and I started pedaling...I realized the rear was RAPIDLY going flat.

Pedaled through the turn, then hopped off. Remarked to first pedestrian, "Nice place to get a flat, eh?" Second pedestrian remarked to ME, "Only twenty miles to go!"

Well, fortunately not. And not feeling much like changing a rear flat so close to home, I walked it the ten or fifteen minutes.

I decided to try and fix the tube without taking the wheel off.



The chalk outline marks the spot, just like on CSI!

Worked out ok!

At least, so far, the moment of truth will be TOMORROW MORNING!

Here is a pic of some number thingies from past rides.



There are two for the America's Finest City Ride because my son and I did it together. We came in last. He was seven and rode a little Schwinn Gremlin. It was the last year of the ride, I think.

Day 7

Actually, it is Day 9 of the accursed and mostly unpaid Thanksgiving Vacation. Whose silly idea was that, anyway?

Tomorrow, WORK! Yay!

Ran across this today while looking up how to aspell "humourous". It is a list of stuff to take while bike touring, with accompanying humorous notes, and including pointless (IMHO (I always wanted to use that!)) links to eBay for the items mentioned.

Since I haven't ridden today, I suppose the weeks mileage will be whatever it was yesterday.

I modified the picture I took yesterday to make it slightly less unsafe...



What say you?

Sunny Saturday Morning

It was a bit chilly, and very sunny, this morning as I headed out. I decided to call this "El Tour de los Cinco Cities." I thought it might be nice to take a picture of each "city" sign I came across. First border I crossed was into El Cajon on Fletcher Parkway.


You may have to right-click image and choose "view image" to see all of it.

There was a bit of a wind blowing as I got nearer to the crest. Old Glory was flying proud! Hey, that might make a good photo essay -- The Ride Of Flags!


You may have to right-click image and choose "view image" to see all of it.

From the top of Swallow Drive we can gaze into "The Box". No fog today!


You may have to right-click image and choose "view image" to see all of it.

I rode forth and back on Cuyamaca St. but I couldn't find a welcoming sign for Santee. El Cajon has one on THEIR side of the road. I DID find this...


You may have to right-click image and choose "view image" to see all of it.

I had been finding cans along the way, I ended up with around 10 individual cans, and one bag with and emptied six pack inside. Leaking.

Climbing Mission Gorge Road heading south, we enter San Diego. No, it's not the same image as last week. Same sign, different day!


You may have to right-click image and choose "view image" to see all of it.

Oh, and I thought San Diego was "America's Finest City"? What's with THAT slogan? Seems faintly apologetic.

At the top of the hill a very relaxed-looking guy passed me, commenting that it looked like I had a flat. Hey, was that a cut?

Circumventing Lake Murray by going by way of the newly-paved (at least, the San Diego part) Baltimore Drive, we come across the pretty nearly always classy La Mesa.


You may have to right-click image and choose "view image" to see all of it.

That's it, a tour of five cities: La Mesa, El Cajon, Santee, San Diego...whoopsie, that's only four! Crud!

Trips Stats

Trip Mileage: 21.27 miles
Trip Average: 10.79 mph
Trip Maximum: 36.02

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You may have to right-click image and choose "view image" to see all of it. but why would you?

Sign Says: "No Parking On Pavement" and "No Parking On Parkway".

Sunday Mornng

Got out of the house and went for a ride today!

It was very foggy. Looking to the west from Fletcher Parkway, it appears someone made off with
Cowles Mountain!



You will note a streetlight is still on, and look at the birdies!

It was still foggy, of course, on the Fletcher Hills ridge heading over to Swallow.



Didn't fog up my glasses, though, strangely. Not too many dog walkers out today.

Saw this Lost Cat sign in Santee, wish I knew where that cat was, I could use the money!



Cowles Mt. is still missing...



Oh, there it is!



I'm going to trim this tree for the city of Santee if I ever remember to bring my clippers!



Instead of subjecting the pedestrians on the bike path to my presence, I rode up Mission Gorge Road heading south. I don't know who Bonnie Lou is, but apparantly she is welcome in San Diego!



Looking north from the Jackson Drive Hill we see the Mission Gorge Road pass.



Sure looks steep! Bet I could get a work out going the OTHER way!

Skipped the Lake Murray trip and headed over and down Fletcher Parkway to La Mesa to add a few miles, as I felt so not-bad. Work is progressing on the new temporary library building.



I collected some rocks and cans along the way. Notice that BIG rock. Heavy rock! Carried it nearly the entire way! It did not help the over-15-MPH-handlebar-wobble much.



I was looking at my leg while typing this, and was struck by the juxtaposition of the grease marks and the scars from the chain ring.



Weekly Stats:

Week Trip Mileage: 90.08 miles
Week Average Speed: 11.37 MPH
Week Max Speed: 34.47 MPJ

Odometer Reading (Jamis): 3,905 miles

Saturday Misc.

Did not ride the bike, but I did earl the chain.



Did a little research to find out if this chain, Jamis's chain, a Shimano HG-73 to be precise, is a bushingless chain, or a bushing chain. Near as i can figure, it is a bushing chain.

You say, who cares? Well, it apparently matters how you earl them. Bushing chains need earl between the side plates, while bushingless don't. One is supposed to earl the center and it let is flow down around the rolley thingie on each link.

Looks like that chain needs a bit more cleaning, though.

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Non-Bicycling Stuff That I'm Too Lazy To Put In The Other Blogs

On quite another note, I see the Johnson Smith catalog has a carbide cannon listed for sale! I can't remember who I was telling about this wonderful item, but who ever it was, there it is!

The plumaria still has leaves, that is, it's not dead (again) yet! I have high hopes for a flower. Someday...

I finished Pictures Of Hollis Woods (Patricia Reilly Giff) this morning, and finished Black Mirror (Nancy Werlin) this afternoon.

The Other Day

Even with the headlight, yellow jacket, and big strobe going, it's important to remember that people are people, and people are just human. Pretty much.

A picture!

• We see my path in red heading from right to left (duh!) in the bike lane.
• We see the truck's path in green, heading down the frontage road.
• We the purple line of vision (w/eye!) showing the point he SURELY noticed me in the bike lane as he turned onto the frontage road.
• We see where the truck stopped for the stop sign. BTW, I once saw a guy go through that stop at probably 50 mph. I think he musta thought he was on the main road, not the frontage. Yikes!
• We see where I turned right, now signaling as I was going fairly rapidly.
• We see, in orange, where the truck started up from the stop and came with a foot of hitting me.

I said, loudly, and I quote, "WTF?" He honked about five seconds later. But I was gone.

What, you say, is that yellow line with an "X"?

That "X" marks the spot in 1969 or so where I was hit by a car on my BUTT, bruising said butt, destroying the back wheel of my beautiful Schwinn Stingray.

What have we learned from this? Well, I learned, or rather re-learned, that I should never assume the other guy sees me, even with a screaming yellow jacket, big strobe, and 15 watt headlight.

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Today I observed a schoolboy bicycling up the street towards me on my side of the street. As he approached he swung over to the proper side of the street. After he passed he swung back to my side of the street. Okkkkkkkk...

Garbage Day?

I don't know if today is Garbage Day, or if it's been knocked into the next day because of Vet's Day. I just don't KNOW!!!

Anyway, I didn't put the trash out today.

The sky was completely not cloudy, so when I got to work the sun was shining quite brightly, quite a shocker after all the cloudy mornings we've had for a couple weeks.

Some guy passed me on the way home. He was wearing one of those hydration bags on his back. I really don't see the point of those on a ride of 20 miles or less, of course I have no idea how far he had been riding. He was wearing blue shorts, not Lycra, not baggies, just plain shorts. I DO know he didn't care much about stop lights. He kinda fudged the stop light when he passed me (stopped), but it was a T intersection, so I'll give him that. But the next light, a full-on RED LIGHTer, he pulled the old lame-o turn-right, make a U, turn right, routine. Without even slowing down.

Almost caught him when he had to wait to jay-walk across the four-lanes-with-landscaped-divider parkway to get to his apartment complex.

Day Of The Vet

What started out as a Dam crappy ride, melded into a fairly pleasant experience.

First, two oncoming cars ON MY STREET decided they should pass a stopped garbage truck. I, of course, made aggressive moves at them to show I was not impressed.

Second, I was P.O.ed because I was heading east and not west. Don't ask me to explain it.

Third, a Sharp Rees-SteAly bus decided to turn right, after sitting at the stop light for a minute, the both of us, mind you, as soon as it turned green, thus cutting me off. It occurs to me now, on reflection, that maybe he didn't see me sitting there on the curb. Well, I hope he saw my finger in his mirror!

It had been cool up to that point, so a mile later I took off the yellow jacket to reveal the (unwarshed from yesterday) pink jersey. I continued down into El Cajon, collecting cans along the way.



The rattling cans make a nice warning noise to people on the bike path, by the way!

Not unlike a snake.

The entire rest of the ride was pleasant. Not too many people on the FST, not too many people at the lake, not too warm. Pleasant.

The view from the Mission Trails Regional Park Visitors Centers struck me as awesome, so I took TWO pics!





And the flags, for this Veteran's Day.



The sky, so blue! And to think it was raining a bit this morning!

A dog, in an SUV, of course, barkeded at me as it passed. I noticed a lady at a bus stop staring at the dog, so I remarked, "That dog sure looked hungry!" She chuckled.

Did I mention I did the Jackson Drive hill in the Jamis 42/26 combination, standing up when necessary. W00t!!

Today's Stats:

Trip Mileage: 23.79
Riding Time: 1:56:44
Avg. Speed: 12.23
Max. Speed: 34.47

Sunny Sunday

Went for a wittle wandering wride awround the neighborhood this morning. It was sunny and cool. I wore the pink jersey under the yellow jacket. I picked up rocks and cans.



The two FULL cans of "Natural Light" were sitting on a bridge over Interstate 8 near the Kingdom Hall, near Grossmont High School. No, I'm not going to drink them, they're SNAIL FOOD!

I took of the yellow jacket near GHS, so every passerby could bask in the radiance of the pink jersey, but left the blue glove liners on, which must have been a discord.

An uneventful ride, for the most part, except for one small incident of which I don't care to speak, as it's too much effort to compose a coherent sentence.

And thus, you are spared.

Mileage for the week: 52.87 miles
Odometer To Date: 3,815

Doggies

I believe failed to mention that the other day as I was cycling to work in the DARK DARK DARK, I was VICIOUSLY barked at by a barkie little dog, one of four that I see being walked nearly every morning by an older gentleman. I was so STARTLED that I let loose with two curse words surrounded by a blasphemy.

In today's lighter light, I saw the gentleman walking his four little doggies. Not being startled, I said , "Ohhhh, doggies!" One (doggie) managed a pathetic little growl, but that was the sum.

After work I journeyed up to the the clinic's pharmacy to pick up some supplies, not having the sense to transfer the prescriptions to a pharmacy that has actual, free, parking. If I drive, I park at the mall to avoid paying the fees in the medical building parking structure, not being able to figure out where the free parking is that the pharmacy insists is there. Somewhere.

I've the Cancer Clinic parking permit, but it would not be ethical to use it for an unrelated, albeit medical, reason, would it? Have we had this discussion before?

It took longer to secure the bike than to pick up the medical supplies, interestingly enough.

Steve the L. sez I need to go for a bike ride this weekend.

We shall see.

Very cool picture of the San Diego Recyclers Bicycle Club posing in front of the big fires of 2007. If I was to join a club, I believe I would apply to them. They look like they have a lot of fun.

Mathefication

I wouldn't even bother reading this if I wuz you. Go away, come back another day.


Ok, then.

On to the calculization of the odometer!

But first, let us clear up one thing: The Measured Rollout Circumference Distance™, stated as 110.5 centimeters yesterday, was wrong. Because I fail at arithmetic.

MRCD™ at work: 82.9 inches (2106 millimeters (210.6 centimeters)/25.4)

MRCD™ at home: 83.25 inches Let us just say 83 inches, ok?

Jamis has 700 x 28c tires.

The Axiom odometer manual says should be 84.6 inches. And that is what the odometer was set to at the shop. But as you can plainly see, the circumference is closer to 83 inches than 84. That is a whole inch difference!! An inch and a half!!

In a mile (63,360 inches) of riding the error would be 14 inches, approximately. That's just over a foot (12 inches)! So in 3,710 miles (Last odometer reading recorded) that's an error of 309 miles!

And Axiom says a difference of two inches doesn't matter. And I quote:

"discrepancies of as much as 50mm (2") will not have a significant effect on the accuracy of the unit for most normal rides"

An inch here, an inch there, pretty soon you're talking about real mileage!

So the upshot is, just mentally subtract 309 miles from all my Jamis odometer readings.

And I'm just WAITING for everyone to tell me where I messed up the math.

I going to go watch My Name Is Earl now,

So Far, So Good

Did not ride today, but I DID read this article about a woman bicyclist who was, mugged for her backpack in the La Mesa (CA) area. I am totally familiar with this area, having been hit by a car there after my making an ill-conceived move to pass on the right of a turning car. Ouch. Anyway, I would not have expected too see this kind of weirdness happening in this middle class suburban area. I shall have to start carrying my Zefal Hp pump with the spikey thingie on the end for protection!

The doc says my PSA is undetectable, so that was good news. I DID get the purple rubber glove, though... My weight is 178 with my shoes on. I don't think I'll be joining The Fat Cyclist in his quest to lose weight, I think I'll just stay where I am for a while.

Oh, and the wheel CIRCUMFERENCE (I said diameter the other day) is 110.5 centimeters, so when I get un-lazy I shall have to check the Jamis odometer and just how optimistic it is!

Music of the day, in the vehicle, was The Doors Strange Days.

The weather is so Monterey, it is just wonderful. The view from the top of the hospital parking structure looking to west, the fog rolling in, Cowles Mt. hazy in the distance, made me very happy.

Back on the bike tomorrow, if it don't rain!

You Say Clamato, I say...

Picked up FOUR cans on the way home today.



I never heard of Budweiser & Clamato Chelada, but what is left of my stomach doesn't feel comfortable. Doing a search on it brings up Ron's Log : Life in the Desert. He points the way to the Clamato website, and points out that the site is available in English, Espanol, and "Canada". Hmmmm..... But it doesn't mention Chelada. And in 50 sec0nds 0f searching, I can't find an 0fficial site, s0 I will leave t0 YOU. If you care.

It's so foggy in the morning ride that it's very like during the BIG FIRES, except more so. It's not a ground fog, so much, but it's dark and the sky is quite covered. Cowles Mt. is INVISIBLE!

Of course half the car people don't turn on their headlights, which makes them effectively invisible in the twilight, especially in a mirror. Of course I am virtuously using the BIG HEADLIGHT and the SCREAMING YELLOW STROBE. I even almost kabonged™ a bicyclist who didn't have a headlight! Last week, before the time change, I was FORCED to make a sarcastic comment to a wrong-way runner-in-the-bike-lane about lighting.

I oiled the chain on the Jamis yesterday, and sanded (deglazed?) the front brake shoes this evening.

I measured the diameter of the front wheel on the Jamis today at work so I could check the calibration of the odometer. Of course, I forgot to write it down and bring it home, what with two zillion patrons, Horizon puking the Circ Priviledges w/blink, the eMAC freaking out, and the WAY TOO MUCH coffee I drank.

Deep breath, deep breath....

Ok, so that will wait for another day.

Tomorrow I get to go to the doc and see if I'm still dying or not.

So that means I'm going to be a cager for a day!

That's The Brakes, Redux

Speeding down the hill this morning, in the dark (with lights, of course), I found myself rapidly approaching a car that was waiting to turn right, as I was going to myself. Applying the brakes, I found that I was locking up the rear wheel repeatedly, but not stopping fast enough. Not getting enough braking force from the front brakes. Finally stopped about a foot from the car. Might need to replace the front brake pads...

This kid did not fare so well in what might have been a vaguely similar incident. I guess wearing a helmet is not 100% protection. Well, that's obvious. I wonder if the driver of the truck parked in the bike lane was cited.

I saw a truck parked in a bike lane the other morning, in the dark. Fortunately I wasn't traveling but 15mph and I had little traffic and plenty of room to go around him. But I digress...

Heading UP a slight grade a mile or so later, in the bike lane, a fellow came out of his house and waited for me to pass so he could get into his car. He said, "Slow down." I said, "Say what?" He said, "Slow down, you've been warned before." I said, "Snarf??" We laughed and laughed...

Nice and foggy in the morning, coolish, and dark. Just the way I likes it!