So we’ve had a couple of big storms here in the last month or two. After today though, I can certainly say I’ve been through a Nor’Easter and survived. The weather forecast for today said 10-15″ of the white stuff. Out to shovel this morning and we had about 7 inches or so already and it’s supposed to keep on snowing clear through the next rush hour. A nice powdery 4 inches on top of a wet and heavy bottom layer. Sure makes shoveling a good workout.
Last Friday I ended up getting a bum foot somehow. The muscle on top of the foot just below the ankle area is really swollen and red and the tendons or ligaments or whatever the cables are that run down through the middle of your ankle and into your foot are tender to the touch. Tender meaning it hurts like F when you simply touch it. So I got a bit of a limp and I look a little gimpy, but other than that I’m hoping it will fade away fast. Hoping it was just from doing a lot of walking in my trainers (British enough for you Fletcher!) that are pretty old and used up.
Mounted up Aretha this morning and made a beeline for work. Only a few cars out there, which was nice. With some heavy snow still coming down I got to work with that nice covered in white look, but luckily I remembered the sun glasses to keep it out of my eyes and the scarf was a nice touch. Too bad that after I got to work I found out that both of the labs I needed to do some work in were off-line and closed until further notice. Right….nobody could send an email about that before this morning?
Hm, if I can figure out how to duct tape the camera to my head, maybe I’ll get some commuting video, ha.
Kristin’s parents made it into town this weekend. We had planned on heading over to Walden Pond and checking it out, since neither of us has been there yet. Instead we ended up playing Wii most of the day. It would have been nice to get outside, but it’s really hard to pull people away from the Wii the first time they end up playing. Bet they were sore yesterday!
I did manage to get two starters going. A smackpack of Wyeast 3787 Trappist ale yeast I had smacked a few days ago was now nice and swollen, figured I should step it up a little more, so it’s in the flask and showing signs of fermentation this morning. Hopefully I can quadruple the yeast by the end of the week. Also made a starter of Brettanomyces Bruxellensis. This is supposed to be a more mellow strain of Brett and it’s supposedly what is used in Orval. Hoping to do some experimenting as I also have a tube of Brettanomyces Lambicus, which is supposed to be much more funky. As the name says, this is the strain most often found in Lambic beers and is much more intense. I think it will be interesting to try and make two of the same beers and only change up the Brett strain that I use. Guess I’ll see if Brett can be stepped up in a starter like a regular packet of yeast…hope so!
After seeing the snow covered trail conditions this morning while walking Buster, I decided it would be a nice break this morning to cut through the woods and ride some snow before making my way to work. The packed snow and ice made for some nice riding, but proved to be a little too much when breaking off the main trail to get out of the woods. It was the sort of tenuous crust that could break at any moment and off the beaten path it broke quite often. Often enough that it was easier to just walk it out. A few more hikes on that exit and it’ll be good to go. For now though, if I want to get out on the trails, I’ll need to contain the ride to the main loop around the reservoir and enter/exit from the same spot. No worries, a static snow loop is still better than a strict diet of pavement and slush.
Again, I’m already behind on keeping track of my mileage. The magnet on my wheel got turned around and didn’t keep track until I noticed near the end of the ride. So I’m already back to guesstimating. Oh well, there’s always next year, ha.
Anyway, I think I’ve got a name for the Tricross fixie…she shall now and forever be known as Aretha. Why? Well just like the Queen of Soul, she commands R-E-S-P-E-C-T and is big in all the right places.
Yesterday was a fun day. Did my normal commute and after work had a little mini photo shoot. The newsletter people at my work were doing an article on alternate commuting and they wanted to get some photos of the bike commuters. I was the only one who showed up, although I know there are several people who ride in. Oh well, my thought was with the shoot at 4:00 PM, I might as well leave work a little early and get some exploring in. It turned out to be a good decision with a little bit of road, a little bit of paved path, and some newly discovered dirt trails. We’ve got a month before we move again, which is just enough time to explore the area and get familiar with it, so when we finally move I’ll know where all the singletrack is hidden.
Click the photo below for the gallery of pictures from yesterday’s ride.
I did around 30 miles on the day and was able to really see the area. I hit a bunch of side streets near my work, then over to Shawsheen Cemetery where we’ll likely be taking the dog for some walks. After that I headed over to where the Minuteman Bikeway ends and started searching for trails there. You gotta figure that even though the paved Bikeway ends, there’s probably some dirt trails that have popped up on the rest of the abandoned rail bed. About 3 blocks from the end of pavement I hit jackpot, the Bay Circuit Trail. It turned out to be a little of everything, some smooth singletrack, rocky gravelly dirt path, wider doubletrack, and a little service road action, but never paved. There was one section that even had tiny rollercoaster hills, almost like a mini pump track. It’s hard not to smile when you hit something like that!
I’ll definitely be back, as I didn’t finish the trail. There was still some trail up ahead and a ton of side trails to check out…all in due time. But it’s just great to know that there are dirt trails within a 5 minute ride from the house…killer!
Spearman has often described me as lucky or maybe it was damn lucky, ha. Me, I just think it’s more about keeping one’s head in a not so ideal situation. Panic only causes you to make a quick decision with no idea of the outcome and cooler heads will prevail.
My commuting has been going well, but I’ve had a few mechanical issues that have popped up along the way. First it was my ghettotastic zip ties breaking and letting my rack fall backwards…my own fault really. The real clamps that are supposed to be used came in the mail last week and I got everything reinstalled. The latest incident was having my cog come off the hub. The hub is a LeVel hub I won a few years ago for being the only one to ride the ECNASSCU fixed. The cool thing about the hub is the cog slides on and sits on what they call “knuckles”, which take all the pressure. Then 3 bolts simply hold the cog onto the hub. It works great and I’ve never had an issue with the hub since I built it up. That was until last week when somehow a couple of the bolts must have worked their way out and the third bolt sheered right off. With nothing left to hold the cog in place it quickly pulled off the hub, leaving me with no brakes on the steepest decline of my commute.
Now some people will go with the standard “well you’re an ass anyway for not at least having an emergency brake up front”, but hey, then I wouldn’t have any fun stories to tell. Now normally in this situation you can just stick your foot around to the back wheel and wedge it between the frame and tire, slowing you down. You could also do that same trick between the front wheel and the fork. Then there’s always the grabbing the wheel with a gloved hand trick (make sure you know what you’re doing on this one, otherwise you’ll end up with a hand stuck between the frame and tire). Finally, you can take your chances and ride it out until there’s a place to stop. I took the final option, hoping my chain wouldn’t fly into the wheel and cause me to pull a nice long skid. So the cog and chain go freewheeling and I’m doing about 20 mph and gaining. Over a speedbump and around the left side of the car going over said speedbump into a right turn with another speed bump, avoid the oncoming traffic coming up the hill (boy were they surprised)…down low and up front on the top tube, left foot stretched out next to the front wheel to navigate (Sidi’s hard plastic bottom not the best for stopping traction), eventually grinding to a halt at the nearest flat section. Thankfully I was able to stop before the next downward pitch which ends at a stop light with a mandatory left/right turn.
The worst part was having to hike the bike back up the hill to the apt. It’s steep enough that it’s hard to walk uphill in those Sidi shoes, ah, but I do like the shoes. So no harm, no foul. The bike is back up and running with a few water bottle bolts…that’s what I’m talking about! At some point here I’ll get all tech savvy and figure out how to copy the elevation profile to post here so you can see that the hill is actually steep.
Worst episode ever! Damn, I had my first WTF was I thinking commute yesterday. First off it was a long weekend of seeing friends. We finally made it into Boston to do dinner and drinks with some friends and played some Wii late into the night…seriously addictive and my shoulder still hurts from playing bowling/tennis/baseball until 1:30 AM. Then Sunday we were up early for a trip to IKEA, since some of the things furnished in the apt. were crap. When we moved in there was one frying pan and it was aluminum and super thin so it basically burned everything. Oh, and we couldn’t eat ice cream without breaking the silverware. $40 later and we’ll be able to make it 2 months, ha. Ended up needing to throw some of M&M’s furniture purchases into the Subaru and we dropped it off after dinner. Gave us a chance to go for a dusk ride at Leominster State Park, a quick 4.5 mile jaunt on some nice rocky singletrack. Ended up back home after midnight, setting me up for a late morning.
Up late, putting my stuff together and then off to work on the bike. Get into work and realize I left my work badge at home. Go get a temporary pass and down to the gym to shower off. Oh wait, I also left my towel at home and my gym locker key. Great… So shower up, air dry with a pop into the sauna and luckily the locker room has a general use hair dryer. So work work work and then cut out to head home. Get back on the bike and push towards my big downhill, 32 mph and pop! The zip ties that I’ve been using to hold my rack to the bike had enough and gave way bringing me to a screeching halt. Break out the zip ties and everything is good. Until another mile or two goes by and I can see the zip ties stretching out about to pop. Pull over add some more. Keep going, happens again, so pull the zip ties off and redo everything, situate the load to be more balanced, etc. This setup makes it until I get home, which is all I needed. Thankfully the clamps for the rack came in the mail (accidentally were sent to my old address) and I was able to remedy the situation for good.
Ah, but it was a beautiful day!
DT
Yesterday was my first commute in real rain. Not just rain, but big droplets that pounded down and cleansed everything they hit. The rain washed away a good portion of pollen and cooled off the hot tarmac. On the 80 degree day the rain hitting the road quickly turned to a rising fog as it dissipated into the sky.
If I had stuck around at work for another 30 minutes I probably would have missed it all, but forget that, no reason a little rain should stop me from getting home. After all, it was 5:00 PM and there was an Australian wine tasting at 6:00 PM at what is now our new favorite shop, Gordon’s Wine. I had to get home and shower up so we could be on time. Let’s just say for a wine shop they carry a great selection of beer…including bombers of Rodenbach and 12 packs of Wachusett IPA (our new favorite local brew).
Happy I took Spearman’s advice and went with the full on waterproof panniers. They proved their worthiness in that one ride alone. In addition to that advice, I got me a fancy state of the art Old Man Mountain rear rack, the Red Rock. This thing is so damn light, even Kristin was said WTF! Unfortunately, the special clamps I needed didn’t arrive with the rack, but they should be here in the next day or so (hoping today). But a little ingenuity and a few almighty zip ties can go along way.
Hopefully there will be some mountain biking this weekend, as well as a visit into the city for dinner with friends. I know, all these posts are worthless without photos, ha.
DT
The sun is shining now, clearing the moisture from the streets. I was lucky this morning. The air was thick with water droplets waiting to burst, but I made it into the office with no more than a little light mist on my face. Wednesday’s seem to be my good commute day. Monday takes a little to get going after the weekend and Tuesday my legs are usually just tired, but Wednesday, oh yes, Wednesday my commute comes alive. The legs have recovered and they want to stretch out a little faster than usual, by all means stretch! It’s the rare chance I get to dance with heavy traffic at 25-30 mph on my route, but when I do I cherish it and use it to push myself, more so than even riding with other riders. I’ve finally reached the point where I know my route well enough in and out. I know where I absolutely have to let up or where I can go balls out. The more comfortable you are with your route, the more you can go without interruption. You hit the point where you can head full speed into intersections and have a plan for all the unknown situations. Power slide to right turn because traffic is too heavy, dip and dodge to avoid the car trying to sneak out, maybe you’ll get lucky with the straight through.
Hmm, gotta pull out the GPS and see what kind of tracks we can make tomorrow. Then you can see the occasional 25 mph uphill, but not the box truck thats pulling me, or maybe it’ll be the 7 mph hill that is soul crushing and liberating, all in the same moment. Maybe, if I can get on the ball tonight, I’ll sync the camera up with the GPS…should make for some extra fun.
DT
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