Christmas, 2007. I'm home with family. It looks like most, if not all, of my children and grandchildren will be here today. That is what makes Christmas special!

As for the commute, it was a dismal failure in 2007. I hold out hope for 2008. My younger sons are another year older and another year more independent. Maybe I'll be able to ride more this year.

The goal: 500 miles.

Happy Christmas!!

Excuses, excuses

Sometimes life overwhelms you. The past several weeks have been somewhere just past overwhelming. Family problems have pressed the Bright Red Rocket into the background. Hopefully that will change in the near future.







Meanwhile, here are a couple of pictures to brighten the day: These are my two granddaughters. Arent' they cute. The little one, Rosie, was born badly cross eyed. That was surgically corrected a couple of months ago. She is now reported to be a holy terror. Something about only seeing one of things instead of two or three....



And then there's my two little guys being silly.

Have a great day and remember, the round things go down!!!

And the Pain Was Tremendous

Oh the pain! Yesterday I rode to work. This was my first attempt at riding two days in a row. After I got on the bike I noticed it was quite a reach to get my right foot up to the pedal. I thought, "This could be fun!" However, I pressed on and managed to get started. I rode up the hill out of the apartment complex and stopped at the top.

While I was at the stop sign there was a SUV behind me. He went around me and turned left. I guess he decided he needed a smaller hole in traffic than I did. I just smiled and waved as he went by. Shortly I got started again. The first thing I noticed was it was easier to get clipped into pedals today. Maybe I'm figuring it out...

So I rode south on 1900 West. I really noticed how stiff and sore I was. I had a lot of trouble pedalling smoothly. Again I pressed on.

At 5600 South I hit the sidewalk and used the crosswalk to make my left turn like I always do here. This is just too crazy an intersection to join with the cars in the left turn lane. So I always ride through the intersection and up onto the sidewalk on the south side of the street. Then when the light changes I ride across in the new direction, East. Then I ride up the sidewalk for a few hundred yards to the railroad crossing. Here I get off the bike and walk. The side walk after the railroad crossing is very bad and often covered in sand. Beyond this is a freeway on ramp and somemore really bad sidewalk under I-15 with lots of wire, nails, glass, and stones. So I always walk here too. After that is another freeway on ramp combined with a freeway exit. Here at 5600 South in Roy, all the freeway access is on the south side of the street where I have to ride when I'm going to work. They terrify me! So I walk. Wednesday morning I did see two guys actually ride through that area so I guess it's possible. Maybe when I'm stronger I'll try again.

After walking under the freeway and crossing the entrance and exit area I crossed the road leading to the Roy gate at Hill AFB. To reduce congestion in the early morning they shut down the outbound lanes at the Roy gate so there are more lanes for traffic to get onto the base during the morning commute. One of the benefits of this is that the farthest left lane is always empty. So I walk my bike over there and mount up and ride up the hill to the gate and then on to work.

This was the second day in row where I always kept the wheels down. That is a good thing.

Stats: Dist- 4.77 miles, average speed- 6.2 mph, max speed- 21.3 mph, ride time- 46:19. All in all a good ride just 0ne minute slower than Tuesday.

After being at work for a little while I noticed that I was very, very sore. In fact I was limping and had a hard time standing. This continued through out the morning. At lunch I went to the Health and Fitness Fair on base. I got two short massages there. That helped the pain quite a bit. However, I still didn't feel well enough to ride home. So I called Christopher and he brought the bike rack and the car and drove me home. 800 mg of Ibuprofen later I felt sort of human. Needless to say I didn't ride in today.

Keep on spinning!!!

Another Commute - COOL!

Today was the first commute where I kept the wheels down the whole way, both directions! That was quite cool.

Fairly cool, about 45 degrees, this morning. I rode in shorts, a t-shirt, and a sweatshirt. The first half-mile or so was pretty brisk. Then the furnace kicked in and I was warm and sweaty the rest of the trip. Standard 4.78 miles in to work in about 45 minutes for an average speed of 6.3 mph. This mornings top speed was 22.1 mph.

This afternoon was perfect bike weather. Slight northwest wind and about 70 degrees with lots of blue sky and sunshine. Very nice. The computer reports 4.39 miles home. Seeing as I rode the same route as this morning, only backwards, unless I was riding a wheely that's bogus. I have to look at the speed sensor before bed tonight. The computer reports 4.39 miles in 27:22 for an average speed of 9.6 mph. Since I know that the ride is 4.78 miles I recalculated average speed to be 10.5 mph for that distance. The computer also reports a top speed of 26.1 mph.

About an hour after each leg of the two prevous commutes I have had moderate low back pain and stiffness. It was bad enough to make standing up difficult and wouldn't be knocked back by Tylenol or Ibuprofen. I asked about it at bentrideronline.com. One of the respondents asked if I was sliding forward in my seat. Well I was. He suggested that I was riding on the back of my butt rather than actually on my bottom. So I tilted the seat back on notch and slid the seat forward about 1/4 inch. No pain today after ether leg. Very cool!

Every day I like this ride more. Of course it helps that I can see improvement in comfort and speed with each ride.

Be safe out there and keep the wheels down!

On The Road Again

Finally, I got another chance to commute again. The world has kind of ganged up on my schedule and so riding hasn't been in the cards for the past two weeks. Today the gods of the ride smiled on me. Yes!

Since my last ride I added another shim under my cleats. Getting in and out of pedals was easier today. I'm still not very consistant at it. For example I fought for most of a mile on 1900 west to get clipped in this morning. It didn't help that it was uphill and so I couldn't coast very far as I fought with the pedals.

This morning, out of the apartment complex and up the hill to 1900 west. I unclipped my right foot at the stop sign. I sat there for about a minute. Then a hole in traffic opened to my right. So I checked left, and fell left! I don't know what happened to cause the fall, but the Artie Johnson was wonderful to behold. Picture it, here is this 50 year old fat guy on his fancy schmantzy bike and he does the slow motion fall to the left. About half way down I got my left foot out of the pedal, but it was too late. So I just sat there and cussed as the street came up to meet me.

Otherwise the commute was uneventful. The uphill ride to work was 4.77 miles in about 45 minutes. Max speed was 21.1 mph with a 6 mph average speed. Other than the very scary part under I-15 I rode the whole way. The downhill ride home was 4.78 miles in 28 and a half minutes. Max speed was 26.1 with 9.3 mph average speed.

What really caught my attention was that both ways the speed was up and time was down. In both cases fairly significantly down. Since I haven't changed anything on the bike, or ridden in 2 weeks I can't explain this. Very interesting.

Keep on spinning!!

The Fairness of Life, NOT

Nobody said that life was fair. This week certianly hasn't been.

Monday I rode to work for the first time. I knew that I couldn't ride again on Tuesday. I had to have a rest day. (Yes I am in that bad of shape...) Wednesday Old Man Winter came back for a reprise appearance. When I went to work Wednesday morning it was about 60 degrees. That was the high for the day. By 10 am it was snowing, hard. Luckily it didn't stick too much. I thought, Thursday I'll ride.

When I got up at 2:30 Thursday morning to answer the call of nature there was snow on the ground and the streets were wet. The weather report listed a low of about 30 degrees so I expected ice on the streets. So I canceled the ride. I was so sorry. When I went out with my boys to start the day it wasn't very cold and the roads were dry. But by then it was too late to ride. Boy was I disappointed!! I'll ride Friday!!

Thursday evening I was at a PTA meeting and singing program with my 8 year old son. Part was through the program he started to cry. After he was done, he came down and cried in my arms for a while. It quickly became apparent that he'd had a major bodily function accident. We went right home. Friday morning he wasn't feeling well enough to go to school. That blew that ride opportunity. Such is the pain of being a single parent with small children at home.

Unfortunately that wasn't the only problem this week. Monday, after I'd survived the ride to work, I walked around the corner of my cubical. I was greeted with the "blue screen of death." Seeing as it's a government computer, I called the LAN folks. They came and looked at the error and we rebooted my computer things appeared to be normal. Late in the afternoon Outlook notified me that it needed to restart, and restart again, and again, and again. And then the "blue screen of death" returned. When I attempted to reboot, Windows refused! Oh the pain of loosing data!!!

By the end of my very short work day on Friday I had my computer back, missing large amounts of data. So now I rebuild. In the mean time, twice to work next week, at least!!!

Keep those pedal turning!

My First Commute

As I said last night, if the matress monster didn't get me I was going to ride to work today. Well, I guess the matress monster was taking the day off, or perhaps he slept in, because he didn't get me!

I got up about 5:15 and started my normal morning ritual. I removed the daily filth and scraped the fur off of my neck and got dressed. Then I had a banana and packed my panniers for work.

I got out of the house about 6:25. After collecting my security badges I started pedaling. Out of the parking lot and up the first hill. There was no traffic so I rolled through the stop sign and on to 1900 West (the main north/south road hereabouts) and started south. Going south on 1900 is mostly uphill. The hill is gradual, but never-the-less real. Particularly to someone in as bad a shape as I am.

I arrived at 5600 south, about 9 blocks south, blowing pretty hard. Because I need to turn left here I rode through the intersection and stopped on the opposite corner. I turned the bike to the left and backed it up onto the side walk. I just sat there for 3 or 4 light cycles and blew.

After my breathing and heart rate were somewhat back to normal I started out again. At this point, 5600 south goes under I-15. Due to some crazy design decisions, both the north and south bound entrances to I-15 are right turns off of 5600 south. I got part way across and freaked out. The traffic was heavy and close and not considerate at all. So I got off the bike and walked. Under the freeway and for a while afterwards there is a side walk. There are pedestrian signals for crossing the freeway entrances and exits. Walking was much less stressful.

After going under the freeway 5600 south turns right and heads towards the Roy gate onto Hill AFB. It's uphill for the next 3/4 mile. Since I'm not really very comfortable starting on an uphill slope, and because the traffic into the gate was amazing, I decided to walk to the gate and then a little further. After checking in with the security guard I walked another 150 yards to a point where I thought getting started again wouldn't be too difficult. I clipped in my right foot, looked for traffic, and pushed off. I fought to get my left foot on the pedal, I struggled to keep the bike straight, I failed at both! The next thing I knew I was on my side in the river rocks decorating the side of the road. The bike was on top of me. I was clipped into the pedals and stuck! I layed there for a minute or two and collected myself. About the time I was ready to try to figure out how to extridite myself from this predicament my first rode angel appeared. He asked me if I needed help and then helped me get myself out from under my bike and back on my feet. He even helped me set up my paniers, which had fallen off in the fall. We looked over me and my bike and decided that all was well. He went on to work. THANK YOU!!!

As I finished collecting myself, one of the security guards from the gate walked up and asked if I was alright. He asked if I'd been hit by a car. I told him, "No, I just fell over." His radio didn't work, but he started back towards the gate. So I pushed my bike a little further and mounted up. Just as I was about to start again, I saw flashing light bars and heard sirens. Security police and the base paramedics were coming down the street. So I sat and waited for them. When they arrived they, again, asked if I'd been hit by a car and if I needed medical attention. By then my ego was well and truely trampled, but medical attention wouldn't help that. So I told them that I was fine and had just fallen over while starting out. They laughed with me about it, shook my hand and went back to what ever firemen do while they wait for the next call.

{NOTE: I discoverd later in the morning that I had jammed my left ring finger during the fall. So far, just a little swelling and a very small amount of pain. Not to bad for trashing my ego in front of hundreds of people.}

I sat on my bike and waited for about 5 minutes while the traffic jam created by the police and paramedics abated. Then I started again. Or rather I tried. I quickly realized why I'd fallen. I'd gotten off the bike in a VERY low gear. So when I pushed on the first pedal there wasn't enough speed to keep me going straight whilst I brought up the other foot. So I caught myself, shifted to a higher gear and started out again. The rest of the trip to work was uneventful. The high point was coasting down the hill by the firestation at 21 miles per hour.

Trip stats: 4.74 miles in 52:30. Max speed 21.1, average speed 5.4, total trip time 1:10:00.

The trip home was much less eventful. As I talked with people about my ride to work a suggestion for a route modification was made. So when I left the office I took a slightly different route back to the Roy gate. This saved time and distance. I rode the whole way only stopping for two traffic lights.

Trip stats: 4.36 miles in 35:40. Max speed 23.7, average speed 7.7, total trip time 0:40:00.

All in all, not too bad for a first commute. Tomorrow I'll take a rest day to recover. I plan to ride again on Wednesday. Right now the weather guessers are predicting a short reprise on winter. So I'll look at the weather Tuesday evening to decide about Wednesday for sure. I want to ride at least one more day this week. Perhaps, but probably not, a third day. That's a significant milage increase, so I probably won't ride that third day. We'll see.

In the mean time, be safe out there and remember, the wheels go DOWN!