New Tire Thursday

Rode the Schwinn to work as the rear tire on Jamis, as I mentioned, is rather thread-bare. Put the red LED blinkie on the rear rack, but scofflawed the front as there is no reflector or mount there anymore.

Stopped by Performance on the way home and picked up a new tire, on sale, for $8.59. I aim to mount it this weekend.

By the way, I accidentally didn't have a problem putting the long-stem Presta tube in the other day, so I must have unconsciously done whatever it was that Geoffrey was trying to explain to me that time.

Here we see a reenactment of me riding home with the tire around my shoulders a la olde timey Tour de France riders.

Flat Tire!

I hopped on Jamis after work, and it went CLUNK!

The rear tire was VERY low on air pressure. The Big Swede had been teasing me, saying he had let the air out, but he wouldn't DARE!

I pumped it back up and it was ok till I got home, but it obviously has a slow leak, as it was a bit softer when I put it up on the repair stand.



It is TOTALLY worn, how did it get THAT bad?

I have been negligent in record-keeping, I found. There was no mention in the Jamis log book of when I put this tire on. I had to go back in the blog to find that I mounted this tire, a Performance GT2, on December 30, 2006, at about 2,273 miles. So it has lasted about 2,313 miles. I guess that is not TOO bad.

Riding home I saw this model for sale, on Dallas St., sitting with some table and chairs. At first I thought it was a Cutty Sark, like mine, but it is actually the good ship Thermopylae.



Looks like he didn't get any father than I have with my Cutty Sark, see below. Do not know how much he is asking for it.

Flat Tuesday x2

Hit a pothole and some speed this morning on the way to work, and, sure enough, the tube went flat a few hundred yards down the road.

Front wheel, for a change. The one which requires one to un-screw the skewer a couple inches (some sort of safety feature), then battle one's way past the low-rider racks (which I never use, so why don't I take them off? (Because I'm going to bike Denmark, some day!)).

Replaced the tube with one that Steve the M. gave me the other week.

Pumped it up. Hiss, hiss, it goes flat.

>Insert your favorite curse words here<

Replace the tube with one of MINE, pumped it up, no problemo.

Only took twenty minutes. Probably some kind of record!

Later I thanked Steve the M. for the tube. He INSISTED I give it back, he is going to return it. I said, your lady friend FOUND that tube on the side of the road. Just because it was rolled up and LOOKED new, does not mean you can return it. He is going to return it. I accede.

Sat. Sun

Let us recap the week:

Monday: Holiday, rode bike.
Tuesday: Work, rode bike.
Wednesday: Work, rained midday, could have, but, no ride bike.
Thursday: Work, dentist, no ride bike.
Friday: Work, chauffeured, rain, no ride bike.
Saturday: Blessed mostly sunny, rode bike.
Sunday: It's gonna rain!

We are at above normal rain totals for the season, from barely to quite-a-lot, depending on where in the county one is. There is the normal flash flood warning for the next 24 hours as the next storm moves in. But I got my ride in for the day!

Picked up 7 cans today, not NEARLY as many as I saw the other day. Picked up 3 can earlier in the week, commuting, for a total of 10 cans for the week.

Rode up and over the Mission Gorge Hump instead of going on the Fr. J. Serra Dogwalking Trail. Good thing, too, as I found two can at the crest of the hump!

Lots of bikers out today, exchanged "Hi!" with a couple. Later on a cyclist going the other way on a frontage road yelled something to me, but with the 21 mph wind blast in my ears I could hear nothing but static.

So I smiled and headed home.

Week Stats

Schwinn:     20.51 miles
Jamis:       32.61 miles

Week Total:  53.12 miles

Odometers

Schwinn:   6,893 miles    YTD     97 miles  (YStart 6,796)
Jamis:     4,555 miles    YTD    342 miles  (YStart 4,213)
                        YTD  Total  439 miles

Somebody's Birthday

It's some president's birthday today, or something, anyway, I've the day off.

Somewhat depressed, I forced myself, finally, at 8:30, to get on the bike.

I meandered all over San Carlos, and once around the lake. It took me 3 hours to do 20 miles, so you can tell I was going pretty slow.

It was chilly. My baggy warmers were in the wash, and, the wash being what it is, I didn't care to pull them out. So it was a little chillier than it might have been.

I couldn't find the glove liners, so I was sans those. Turned out they were hiding in the jacket back pocket. Huh.

The helmet liner did its usual fabulous job.

The lycra shorts, however, did not. The liner is totally ripped, it is painfull to ride on, they are going in the trash!

Toodles!

Dam Sunday

Like I said, it's getting hard to think of titles for these postings...

Pretty much did the exact same ride as yesterday, with the same results.

It was kinds foggy in parts of the Santee/El Cajohn valley. The demolition of the cement plant next to the bike path is nearly complete.



Over at the Fr. J. Serra Multi-use Dogwalking & Bike Trail it nice to be able to actually SEE the river since they cleaned out a lot of the obscuring foliage.

Establishing shot:


Zoomed in!


Let us see if we can make a link here... seems to work, goes to larger version.

The trick seems to be to find something interesting each time I travel the same old route...Oh, did I mentioned the cans? There were LOTS of cans out there, I truly need to make a can run with Jamis!

Toodles!

Week Stats

Schwinn:     50.26 miles
Jamis:       34.29 miles

Week Total:  84.54 miles

Odometers

Schwinn:   6,872 miles    YTD     76 miles  (YStart 6,796)
Jamis:     4,522 miles    YTD    309 miles  (YStart 4,213)

Total                     YTD    385 miles

Sunny Day

FORCED myself to get up and go for a Dam bike Ride this morning. It was 39° (Fahrenheit) this morning. Not the coldest of colds, but chilly. I put on the saggy warmers, the Gore-tex gloves that don't breathe, and the fabulous helmet liner, and took off down the road.

To sum up the whole ride, nothing untoward happened.

No flats, no bike rage, no panic attacks. Passed a couple of teens on BMX bikes on the Father J. Serra Dog Walking Path. They were bundled up all grunge-like, while I was all Tour de Commute-like, which they found somewhat amusing.

And, it warmed up after a bit. I changed into my regular retro bike gloves about half way of the Jackson Drive hill, which I climbed in not-granny, thank you very much!

Back over on Fletcher Parkway, I mentioned I thought they would cut the trees down, and they have, which I also mentioned, and here's a pic:"



If Zooomr gets themselves fully up on their new server, you might be able to compare this pic with the "before" pic in the Keyed post.

I also mentioned the other day something about the "ants" on Cowles Mountain. Well, pretend I posted this pic there.

(I bet you people on dial-up hate me!)

So I got around 25 miles on this Dam Ride, and 30-some miles commuting, so this week is doing ok, so far. One more day!

Oh, I found another cell phone this week, I not sure if I can get it working or not.



Toodles!

Warm Enough For You?

While my electronic weather thingie says it is 77° (Fahrenheit) outside, with a humidity of 55% inside, the Weather Underground reports it is 80° (Fahrenheit) and the humidity is 12%. Seems low.

Which perhaps explains why my nose hurt while I was riding a little ride this afternoon. Twelve miles on the Schwinn, kitted out in the pink Fat Cyclist jersey. Lots of traffic this sunny day, and the usual gang of idiots are out in force. I took the camera, but didn't take any pictures, I'm sure you are relieved to know.

Of idiots, or anything else.

I SHOULD have taken one of the people hiking Cowles Mountain. They looked like a line of little ants. Multi-colored ants. Maybe they WERE ants!

Not having read any bicycle blogs all week, I missed hearing that Sheldon Brown had passed away last weekend. I enjoyed reading all the web pages he created about bicycling, so full of information, and humour. He seems to have spent time the last day of his life answering questions about bicycling on Bike Forum, helping someone. I guess that's pretty good way to end up.

This and That

It's hard coming up with blog entry titles, as you may have noticed. Apparently I haven't used THIS one before.

In the mid 40s this morning, Fahrenheitly-speaking, when I took off this morning. It felt cooler, though. I bet the humidity was low. John Coleman, the weather guy, said it was a SOSA, Sort Of A Santa Ana. And that mean dry, usually.

And fairly warm this afternoon.

Saw a bicyclist riding the median on Fletcher Parkway this afternoon.



One wonders how he is going to elegantly deal with traffic.

Oh, if you lost a license plate, California 7A10932, it's sitting on the side of Fletcher Parkway westbound, just past the Jackson and F.P. intersection.



Oh, and your plates are expiring soon, dude.

Got in about 32 miles commuting this week.

Hope YOU got some miles in this week, too!

Wednesday Again

Same as yesterday, it was 39° (Fahrenheit!) when I took off on Jamis this morning. Unlike yesterday, I had the foresight to bring my saggy arm'n'leg warmers into the house the night before, so I wouldn't have to change clothes out in the freezing, rather, garage.

At nearly the same point, I saw the OTHER lady-in-the-bike lane this morning. The one carrying the dry cleaning/jacket bag over her shoulder. An elderly lady. Around my age. Walking in the bike lane, WITH traffic, no lighting, but the bag was white. Pretty dark, it was. Traffic coming behind me, big pickup truck. I took the lane, yelled out to her as I passed, in my best Jerry Lewis impression, "Hay laaaaddddy! You're in the bike lane!"

The sky was rosy and enchantingly pretty as day was dawning. I hope you saw it!

After work, stopped by the cig store, a security guy jovially called me "Grandpa" and warned me against speeding.

After after work I drove up to the grocery store, saw a bus of kids from work, busted on the side of the road. Amazingly, a bunch of the kiddos recognized me, and yelled out the windows! Wonder what they wanted, me to give them a ride home?

Must drive tomorrow, meeting across town.

Chilly Garbage Day

The thermometer read 39 degrees (Fahrenheit) this morning when I headed off to work on the bike. The sky was a beautiful blue (at six a.m.), the morning star quite sharp. I had awakened to the smell, and sounds, of C. making tortillas in the kitchen. Outside, I could smell something had burned. Shades of tortillas past, I guess.

On the way home I biked to the new polling place, which is not across the street anymore, and has instead been removed to a bay at the auto body repair shop. A rather inconvenient place to bike to, and indeed, drive to. I place the blame for this squarely on the shoulders of you-know-who... They let me bring the bike in, thank you very much! And I voted.

I got a couple of catalogs in the mails today, Bike Nashbar and REI. I used to love perusing catalogs, but lately even the Walthers catalog is un-interesting. I wonder why that is. I spent a great deal of my teen years reading the Allied Radio and Lafayette catalogs, planning and drawing my dream ham radio station. Collins S-Line, baby, with a 100 foot tower topped with a 40 meter cubical quad. So much for THAT!

Friday das pick at chu

Finished the week commuting at 42.2 miles in four days. Whew!

It was 40 degrees (Fahrenheit) this morning when I took off, for what's it worth. The Large Fella On A Bike rides in the dark at -44 (chill factor) and lives to tell the tale.

No me, jack!

Averaged 12.76 mph. That's ALMOST 13 ... If it wasn't for all those stop lights, signs, and gently-sloping uphills. Although what goes up, must come down, and quite a bit faster, at that.

The Big Swede, Steve the L., today regaled me with tales of derring-do at The Tunnels in Penasquitos Canyon on his mountain bike. Sounds like a fun ride, but I can't figure out EXACTLY where it is. One would have thought SOMEONE would have marked it on Google Earth, but no can find.

It clouded up greatly this afternoon, but it's not SUPPOSED to rain until Sunday.

Oh, and the entry title refers to my misheard lyric from "Sweet Jane" by Lou Reed. The actual lyric is, I am embarrassed to say, " Ridin' in a Stutz Bear Cat, Jim", near as I can find.