Weather Out There

I attended the Hub Bicycle Basic Maintenance/Flat Fix Clinic on Wednesday (as employee training?), and I was really surprised by the format. I guess knowing Emily, I shouldn’t be, but the clinic was rather expansive in what it covered. There was a very thorough demo on changing a flat (I learned some things!), chain lubing, basic maintenance things to look out for, bike cleaning (hint: not this) and a general discussion of bikes and bike components. As one attendee remarked, “I wish I had known this five months ago,” which was a sentiment I can relate to.

I rode my mountain bike into work so I can pack it in the car for my trip to NYC this weekend. I also wore my clipless shoes (I have touring pedals on both my mountain and my commuter/touring bike), which made me feel really fast. It’s great riding a variety of bikes: they all behave so differently, it’s a totally different experience – this one has lower pressure tires, disc brakes, and a slightly more relaxed geometry than my other bikes. I was really tempted to ride down the stairs at City Hall Plaza, but I didn’t want to start my work day with torn up clothes, dirt, and cuts. As an aside, does anyone else feel a little miffed that the city rents out the plaza for months at a time, making it very inconvenient to cross?

Weather

Temperature: 41

Road condition: A few puddles, but otherwise dry

Clothing: Light spring jacket, clipless bike shoes.

Comfort: I started off the ride cold: for no particular reason, I rode without gloves, and then also remembered that the bike shoes are super permeable to air. Those things didn’t bother me after a little riding – it also helped my morale to keep leapfrogging my fiancee, who was driving most of the same route as I.

Although today is a springlike day, I thought I would reflect on the EVO Drone gloves I’ve been wearing. The exact product name escapes me (and google is no use), so I’ll have to fill that in later. They’re made of thin Nylon fabric, which is pretty good about not sucking up rain. They have the “hunter” thumbs and index fingers, which are good for checking your phone without taking the gloves off. What makes them truly useful is the attached outer mitten – I’ve found this allows you to stay warm and extra 10-15 degrees of outside temperature by defeating the wind and holding in heat. It’s an air impermeable synthetic that is sewn into the wrist of the glove and folds into the top when you’re not using them. (If you’re neat, they don’t look bulbous, either!) Although the seam on these covers has a bad habit of ripping under normal use, this hasn’t compromised the performance of the glove. You can see in the attached picture how I can get a few fingers through that cover after a few months of riding. They’re not too expensive (around $30?), and Hub Bicycle Company in Cambridge carries them. Of course, now that it’s just about spring, you’ll have no occasion to use them…

The gloves do a great job of keeping your hands warm, despite the covering sprouting some holes.

I suppose now that I’m overtly recommending products, I should announce that I’m moving from my current, non-bike related job to start working at Hub Bicycle Company. I’ve been going there as a customer since a few months after the shop opened two years ago, and as I became disenchanted work in the soul-stealing financial industry, I also discovered that I’m cuckoo for bikes. I can safely say – as a customer – that it’s an awesome bike shop, but don’t believe me, believe Yelp. I’m going to be working there full time starting later this month, which means I’ll be reporting more second hand on bike commuting (on customer attire, as the shop is walking distance), but there will still be plenty of errand running and general transportation riding.

Weather

Temperature: 57 degrees

Road condition: Dry

Clothing: Light spring jacket, timberland shoes, light Pearl Izumi gloves, messenger bag

Comfort: I was definitely too warm. Every time the weather changes I relearn the lesson: slow down, wear less. Today would have been OK without a jacket.

It was windy today, and should be more so later, according to the forecast. There were tons of bikers out, and I expect many, many more next week.

I left my house this morning to feel a lot of squishiness in the tires; although tires don’t need a lot of inflation in the winter once a month seems to be the outer limit. Since I was already around the corner, I just rolled over to the gas station and pulled out one of these handy dandy adapters (no pump on me!) and put some free air in there. (Free as in beer, not as in speech.)

Shrader, Presta Adapter: helpful to have for using non-bike shop compressed air.

The most adventuresome three-season bikers were out today on their thoroughly rusted bikes. It was a very slow march down Hampshire Street, with many winter coats in attendance, and very satisfying (for me, anyway) passing as I flew over the Longfellow Bridge. While there was generally good behavior, namely stopping at lights and not “shoaling” to cut to the front of the line, there were a few serial offenders who kept leap-frogging. To quote some other Boston Biker blogs, “don’t cut in line,” and “I want to mount a bottle of triflow on my handlebars.”

Weather

Temperature:  45 degrees

Road condition: Dry

Clothing: Light fall jacket (with a long sleeved shirt), Pearl Izumi gloves, Timberland shoes, messenger bag.

Comfort: Lovely! I was glad for having sleeves, as the jacket I have tends to expose my wrists (the humanity!) and send air up my arms. I ditched the gloves once I was in Boston.

Good news, everyone! I got access to my camera phone pictures again! Although I ordered a USB bluetooth receiver for my computer, it was shipped from China (see the screenshot below), and estimated to take a full month to arrive. However, now it appears it will be here imminently (unless the package has to be de-contaminated for a full month). Not bad for a $2.50 part with free shipping!

From Huangzhou, China to Somerville, MA in only 8 days!

A few days ago, I saw a guy riding on Cambridge Street downtown who had lights in his shoe covers! They flashed with about a 2 second period (1 second on, one second off). They weren’t especially bright, but it’s a pretty cool idea. You can see the lights on his ankle in the picture.

This man had shoes that flashed!

Also, Hubway is definitely landing! There are now (empty) stations at Government Center and Charles Circle. The media reports that Somerville, Cambridge, and Brookline will all be getting stations this summer, which is very exciting! I’m going to bet, however, that given the winter precipitation (“snow”) last week, the system manager will be waiting a few weeks to put in the bikes.

Weather

It seems we’re back to winter today, with a temperature of 22 in the morning. I wore the Nutcase helmet, which kept my head warm. I had on Polypro Pearl Izumi gloves, which left my hands a little cold. (Still haven’t found my other warm glove.) Otherwise, a fine commute. Last night was windy: one should always know in Boston that lots of wind means either a thunderstorm (in the summer) or serious cold (in the winter).

Temperature: 22 degrees

Road condition: Dry

Clothing: Heavy winter coat, light Pearl Izumi gloves, Timberland shoes.

Comfort: Warm everywhere except perhaps my chin and hands. The riding kept me warm.

I won’t harp on it any more, but on Friday night I made a matching really big pannier of the same design (Woo! Party!) as my original. It was fast and easy; I also took the back rack off my commuter. I’ll report back after loading up the front with a ton of weight. I also have a page in the works for the design on the pannier. I’ll try not to bore you too much more on this subject, dear reader.

After last week’s snow riding, I let my bikes sit in an enclosed area for three days so they could breed surface rust. I cleaned the commuter yesterday; I’ll need to bring the mountain bike in to get a wipe-down, probably tonight.

Weather

Temperature: 29

Road condition: Dry

Clothing: Heavy winter coat, timberland shoes, light Pearl Izumi gloves. I forgot my Nutcase helmet at home, so I had the traditional Bell Venture today: my whole head, but especially my ears, were notably colder.

Comfort: Aside from the ears, perfect! I rode pretty hard without working up a sweat at all.

A few days ago while driving with my fiancee on Putnam Ave in Cambridge, she remarked on the epiphanies one has when first discovering a new place. “This Putnam Ave (at the intersection of Mass Ave and Mount Auburn) is the same as that Putnam Ave (in Cambridgeport).” Having those Aha! moments is so much fun; I imagine what fun it would be to sit down and draw your “world map” every week after moving to a new place. I recall in my first months living in Harvard Square running to Inman Square (exotic!) or biking over the Somerville line on Beacon Street and feeling as though was on the verge of falling off the end of the world. (My bike broke right in front of Johnny’s Foodmaster and I had to walk home.) Now, of course, I have to bike 30 minutes in some direction to find a map connection not yet made.

The other map discovery is by route following. I’m old fashioned and own a couple of atlases of Massachusetts that I have used to plan (but rarely ride) bike tours in Central Massachusetts. It is very challenging to put together a coherent route between two points which is suitable for biking and also direct enough, especially because one never knows the road conditions in a foreign place. The challenge is similar for using a mapping tool such as Google’s: while they suggest bike routes, I generally find them painfully indirect (go over the Longfellow Bridge to get to Back Bay Station?) or overly emphasizing “bike routes” which are usually just, um, streets. Over time, of course, you gather others’ route suggestions and combine them with your preferences to develop unique directional habits. As much as I’d love to collate that information, somehow I think it’s too idiosyncratic to bother.

Weather

Last night was an unremarkable ride in the rain/snow mix: the snow didn’t stick, and falling snow is as pleasant or more so than freezing rain… which brings me to this morning’s ride. I would say it was one of the most extreme bike commutes I’ve had. Freezing rain and temperatures, driving rain, and heavy wind. I took it slow and covered myself head-to-toe and it was mostly just a little inconvenient. On the other hand, I do like riding in the rain for the solitude and smugness; I hope the look on my face communicates that to the drivers sitting in traffic.

Temperature: 35 degrees

Road conditions: Wet, clean; they didn’t put down much or any sand for the storm yesterday

Clothing: Rain shell, sweater, rain pants, timberland shoes.

Comfort: Warm! I had the odd experience about five minutes from my house when my thighs felt noticeably cold – I think it was the cold rain sitting on the rain pants before I had worked up any heat from riding. I wore the hood up under my helmet and pulled it as far over my eyes as possible to avoid getting too much water on my glasses. The rain wasn’t falling too heavily, so it wasn’t as much of a factor as the wind.

Snow is forecasted for today. I welcome it: the sooner we can get to spring. 🙂

Weather

Weather: 33

Road conditions: Dry

Clothing: Heavy winter coat, EVO gloves, Timberland shoes.

Comfort: I rode fast again today, and got a little warm: I was chasing someone on a mountain bike whose drive train exceeded the 50% rust marker. He made up for it by standing and pedaling hard basically the whole length of my commute. The little wind covers on the EVO gloves were clutch.

On Saturday, I finished up my home-made pannier project. It’s a simple roll-top design, made of 430D Nylon pack cloth (a fabric on the lighter side, it turns out), and is absolutely gigantic. For example, I carried three bags of groceries in it. It compromised my steering less than you would think…

I made the pannier for my Cetma rack, as there didn’t seem to be good commercial options for it. It attaches by four velcro straps around the fork and rack strut, as well as straps that reach down from the rails on the rack. The idea is that I could still strap items to the rack deck itself while having loaded panniers.

The pannier, unloaded and clipped shut: I put four or five rolls in the top to close it to its rough "design" size.

When I first completed it, I thought it was too big. However, I like being able to move the kitchen sink. I’m going to make a matcher, and then probably remove my rear rack and start looking for a two legged kick stand that fits on the Crosscheck. After the second go-around, I’ll try to put out some how-to for any other home-made gear enthusiasts.

Weather

Temperature: 41

Road condition: Dry

Clothing: Heavy winter coat, timberland shoes. I took off my gloves (light EVO ones) pretty quickly.

Comfort: I was riding pretty fast the whole way, so I ended up getting a bit too warm. Otherwise, lovely!

Yesterday was the inaugural meeting of Boston-area bike bloggers (or in internet parlance, BABBA). Some of those in attendance were (the people behind) Bike Safe Boston, Commonwheels Coop, Hub Bicycle, Bikeyface, Boston Cyclists Union, Steve Miller and, obviously, theHumble Cyclist, as well as a variety of non-blogging bike enthusiasts. A good time was had by all, and those who stuck until the end of the night had a little convoy north of the river, where many of the “Boston” bike bloggers seem to reside. Following on our discussion of promoting road safety with blogs, no traffic laws were broken on the ride home; I also observed an unusually high number of people able to do track stands. I don’t know when the next meeting will be, but I encourage all to attend as either blog readers or writers!

Following yesterday’s promise to “portage” one bike with another, I managed to follow through without too much fuss!

Bike on bike portaging: good luck parsing the mess of tubing

I did put some scratches on the “top” bike from its rubbing against the wheel axle (lesson: don’t put the removed wheel against the frame), as well as somehow getting grease on my pants (lesson: if you handle the dirty bits on a bike, you will get dirty). I consider these minor costs to advancing the world’s bike mobility!

Weather

Temperature: 37

Road condition: Dry

Clothing: Heavy winter coat, timberland shoes, EVO gloves

Comfort: Worked well; the wind-breaking covers on the EVO gloves warmed up my hands after I started the ride without them.

Everybody got scared off by the weather forecast today (it is currently snowing!), although the snow didn’t start falling until after 9 am, and should be done by the evening.

I cringe at the frequent sight of people wearing broken helmets or mis-adjusted ones. Last year, I saw a man riding with a helmet whose strap had been cut (I wonder if it was stolen off a locked bike?); I regularly see helmets pushed too far back or with straps dangling three inches below the chin; sometimes a person is riding an ancient helmet which doesn’t have a plastic outer shell. I always wonder to myself: why don’t these riders take helmet safety seriously? I know that I am unusual in say, religiously reading manuals, however it seems obvious that a helmet pushed way back on your head is both uncomfortable and useless. Why even bother?

As with most things I write about, I’m far from the first to do so, and I’m also probably going to do the least research. In this case, there are many guides out there. The NHTSA has one such guide. Searching for “helmet fit” should turn up many more.

I’ll save the discussion of whether or not to wear a helmet for another day. See also the recently written and very thorough post on Steve Miller’s blog for why to wear a helmet.

I left my commuter bike at work yesterday and chose to ride again today, so I think I will try moving two bikes home today! I’ll try to remember to take pictures of the set up.

Weather

Temperature: 49

Road condition: Dry

Clothing: Rain jacket, timberland shoes, messenger bag.

Comfort: Very much so, thank you.