Weather Out There

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.

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!

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.

I hate to repeat myself, but bright lights are for safety. With a few days of riding on my new dynamo light, I now have another anecdote to share. Yesterday, while riding down Mass Ave north of Porter Square, I was about 30 feet behind and to the right of a car. As they prepared to turn and, presumably checked their mirror, I had something that rarely happens, and almost never at night and from that distance (about 45 feet behind their mirror): they stopped and let me pass. In fact, on more than one occasion on that ride did I have vehicles stop and let me turn rather than cutting me off, but this was the most memorable.

Following up on yesterday’s post, I had another close call, this time from a car running the light. In close proximity to my previous anecdote, I started to ride when the light turned green. However, a car going in the other direction had sneaked through the intersection on a dying dedicated turn phase (or something like that). Luckily, he saw me and stopped. In addition, another kind biker called my attention. (The driver then proceeded to honk at either the other biker or a crossing pedestrian.)

Finally, I thought I would add a little spice with a picture of my commuter bike from yesterday.

I pack the full complement of equipment: two racks (Cetma 3-rail half rack up front for big cargo, Toba rear rack for panniers, both purchased from Hub Bicycle Company), Planet bike Cascade fenders, dynamo hub and Blaze 1-watt, Kryptonite lock bracket, water bottle holder, and even a cycle computer (I mount it under my seat so I don't check it compulsively). With this set up, including lock, it weighs in at 40 lbs. Camera phone apparently only makes blurry pictures...

Weather

Temperature: 41, but feels like 50 🙂

Road condition: Basically dry

Clothing: Rain shell jacket, timberland shoes, cotton Pearl Izumi gloves, Timberland shoes. It’s so lovely outside today! I meant to wear the bike shoes for some variety, but forgot.

Comfort: Lighter clothing and still cool weather means you can ride harder, but managed to stay mostly cool.

Today was probably the closest I’ve come in a long time, maybe ever, to getting hit in traffic. I chose to go through a red light on Cambridge Street near Government Center, and a few factors made this a very bad decision. Luckily, none of them conspired to cause me injury. First, I ran the light in Boston: there is no delayed green, so almost as soon as I was in the intersection, another direction had the signal. Second, I did it as a truck was turning: the traffic on the far side of the intersection had no way of seeing me (not that one thinks when the green light comes on). It just so happened that there were pedestrians in the crosswalk, which kept the traffic from proceeding against me.

Really in the “bikers running red lights” discussion, there are two kinds of red light running. The first is doing it like a car: entering the intersection immediately after the light changes. The second is treating it as a stop sign. The former is nearly universally derided, whereas the latter is hotly debated. (As regular readers may know, I am generally against it.) I won’t say more except that drivers tend to view all red light running as the former, whereas bikers make the distinction (as a pedestrian would with regard to jay-walking).

Weather

Temperature: 31 degrees

Road condition: Dry

Clothing: Heavy winter jacket, Timberland shoes, light EVO gloves.

Comfort: Perfect! The air was colder than I expected, but well suited to my outfit. I rode the commuter bike (Crosscheck), today with both racks attached. My lesson is: if you ride a challenging bike (e.g. fixed gear), every bike feels easy after that (e.g. geared but 40 lbs bike).

I got the Blaze 1-Watt Dynamo Light this week, and got to installing it last night. Wowza! Dynamo lighting is everything I imagined, and more! (Well, it’s pretty cool, anyway.) I had it on while riding in this morning, and definitely noticed the extra drag; once I switched the light off, I could feel a little boost going up the Longfellow Bridge.

I’m still waiting for more inspiration on my homemade light; now that I have a baseline light for comparison, it should be a little easier to push myself to finish it up. I think for iteration 1, I will just attach a 350 mA buckpuck (cheating, I know), and save stand lights and voltage doublers for another time. I may also rely on some tool help to get the mounting for the light all set up.

Weather and Clothing

The beautiful conditions this morning call for a “fair weather” tag on this post. It was definitely on the lower end temperature-wise, but I could have gone down to a spring jacket and been quite happy (with gloves). With a high of 54, the day today is undeniably good for biking.

Temperature: 41

Road Condition: Mostly dry, still wet on the Longfellow Bridge for some reason.

Clothing: Heavy winter coat, EVO gloves, Timberland shoes

Comfort: I didn’t zip the coat, and I was still pushing the upper limits of comfort. Tomorrow will call for some lighter clothing (and rain).

I’m back on my commuter bike, with only a back rack (the horror!), although I rarely load anything onto it aside from panniers. Last night I switched back to my 3-season tires and ditched the studs, which will have to wait a while to see some ice.

This is a really dumb pet peeve of mine, but one nonetheless: fixed gear bikes are not the same as single speed bikes. The experience of riding them is also very different.

Single speed bikes have exactly one gear combination; they ride the same as a gear bike but without shifting (imagine your bike got stuck in the 6th or 7th speed of 10: you’d be riding single speed). The benefit of this over a gear bike is lighter weight, better power transfer (because of a straighter chainline), and simplified maintenance. These are well suited to city riding, as you don’t do a lot of shifting anyway. (Or if you do, you could probably do fine without it.)

A fixed gear bike is a single speed in which the back wheel does not turn independently of the pedals. Therefore, you could ride it backwards; the pedals are always moving and transferring power between the wheel and and your legs. The maintenance on this type of bike is a wee bit less than a single speed (no freewheel means one fewer moving part), however it is cultish because it’s a totally different riding experience than a bike with a freewheel; you can immediately feel the responsiveness of the road surface and of the bike.

As an aside, Sturmey Archer makes an internal hub which rides fixed, but has 3 gears. It ruins the purity of the fixed gear bike, but sounds pretty fun to try out.

Weather

Easy ride, felt a little cold at the beginning, but I warmed up nicely.

Temperature: 33

Road condition: Dry, but some salt and sand from this weekend still around

Clothing: heavy winter jacket, Timberland shoes, Portland Design Works EVO bike gloves (I lost one of my wool gloves!), messenger bag

Comfort: Worked perfectly! I like the PDW EVO gloves I am using: they have a little vinyl mittens shield that folds down for wind protection. That part is a little light, though, and is getting kind of shredded from the ferocity of my grip.

(For those wondering, I took the day off work yesterday, so there was biking, but no commute.)

Edit: I looked down at my palms later and realized the gloves were EVO, not PDW. Thanks hubcyclist!

Today I’m going to follow up on my previous “Carrying Things” post by talking about big, bulky items. You know, the kind that don’t fit in yours, or anyone else’s bag, such as two weeks of laundry, a CSA share, another bike, or large packages of paper towels. These are the kinds of things I move with alarming frequency with the bike. The only practical way I’ve found to do it is with a front rack (I use a Cetma rack). Other methods, such as a back rack (a device created solely to eject cargo from your bike), or balancing on your handlebars (hard to steer when your arms are busy with other things) aren’t up to snuff. Good alternative I haven’t tried are a bucket bike (bakfiet), basket, or a trailer. Is anyone else moving moderately sized things with their bike?

Weather Today

It was a little warm today, beautifully sunny, but actually shockingly comfortable.

Temperature: 35 degrees

Road condition: Dry

Clothing: Heavy winter coat, Timberland shoes, messenger bag

Comfort: Tiny bit warm, easily solved by removing my gloves