The heat is on!

The heat was unbelievable last week.

The commute home on Thursday started the week off at a relatively cool 110 degrees.  I say cool because it was partly cloudy and there was quite a bit of wind.  The wind, of course, blew a ton of dirt around and since I was loaded up with sunscreen I had a fine layer of Sunscreen and dirt all over by the time I got home.  Luckily, the wind was a tailwind because I really would have been in trouble if it was a headwind. 

Wind in the desert is a funny thing.  Usually wind is cool or even cold.  not in the desert.  it's as if you turn on your heater in your car and then direct the vent into your face.  Throw in some sand in the air, and smoke from a fire that was burning along my commute, and you have what has to be the most uncomfortable wind you I have ever been in!

Thursday was the worst day of the week by far.  It started with a flat tire when I pulled my bike out of my room to load it up for the commute to work.  No problem, just pop in a new tube and off we go.  The  temperature was a warm 88 degrees that morning which isn't too bad.  Not when the temp was 110 during the afternoon yesterday.

The ride home was a different story.

Gone was the wind and the 110 degree temperature.  Instead it was a sweltering 116 and the wind was replaced by humidity.  Breathing was tough and your lungs burned when the air got into them.  It was a very draining and exhausting ride.

About halfway through, I had to eat.  Normally I will have a powerbar or something like that in my handlebar bag but since I was pressed for time after the flat in the morning I guess I just forgot to pack a snack. 

So I made a stop at Ralph's, got an Oddwalla bar, and got a drink.  As I sat out in front of Ralph's enjoying my snack I saw that I had another flat.  Now I've only had one flat on this bike since I bought it at the end of last October so it was quite a coincidence to have 2 on the same day.  I checked the tire for any kind of thorns and couldn't find any.  I guess it was just bad luck.

Saturday morning was the hottest of all the mornings.  97 degrees at a quarter to 3 in the morning.  I couldn't believe it.  It was also humid so it was a sweaty ride in to work.  Sweatier than usual that is.

Saturday was also the day that I learned the most.  I don't know why I hadn't thought of it before, but I learned how to keep from getting a mouthful of hot water each time I took a drink from my Camelbak.  After each sip I blew back into the tube pushing the water back into the pouch and out of the tube where it was just sitting in the sun and heating up.  I have been commuting by bike for close to a year now and I just figured out that this would keep the water cool.

I also took my shirt off and let it soak in a sprinkler I put it back on and it was amazing how much more bearable the ride was.  Up until then I had been riding as close as I could to sprinklers and getting hit with the overspray. 

I don't know if it's the heat but I can't for the life of me figure out why I didn't think to do either of these things sooner.  I guess we aren't as smart as we think we are sometimes.

Another county trying to ban bikes

Proposed St. Charles Co. Bike Ban Draws Packed House

I am constantly amazed at the things that people will try to ban in this country.

St. Charles County Missouri wants to ban bikes on a number of highways in their county. 

Now, the County Council doesn't actually have the authority to ban bikes on the roads.  But they have decided that this is a matter of safety.  Which the numbers clearly contradict:

• According to Missouricaraccident.com Missouri auto fatalities in the year 2006 were nearly 1100 total.  Of those fatalities .06% were bike related which is down from the national average of 1.8%  Now in case you were wondering, .06% if 11 is 6.6 deaths for the entire year of 2006.  But this isn't for St. Charles County.  This is for the ENTIRE STATE OF MISSOURI! 
• By contrast, 76 Missouri pedestrians were killed in the state of Missouri in 2006. 
• Smoking causes 10,300 deaths in Missouri each year. 
• Missouri is also home of 12.3 firearm related deaths each year per 100,000 people which is good enough for 19th in the country.  St. Charles county has a population of 353,076 which means that there are over 36 deaths per year just in St. Charles Co. alone each year from firearms.

I think you get the point.

So if there are other things out there that are more dangerous than Bicycles on a few highways then why are the residents of this county working so hard to ban bikes?

Why do they not have a time frame in place to actually build the shoulders on the road that this article claims is the reason why Stephen East's daughters were unable to stay on the road in their accident in 2003. 

Stephen East, by the way, is the father of 2 teenage girls who were in an accident in 2003 when they swerved to avoid a cyclist who was in the middle of the road. His daughter's accident is one of the things that is being talked about all across the media in order to gain sympathy for the bike ban.

I just want to take a second to point out a couple of reasons that this accident would not have been prevented even if there was a ban on bikes in this county. 

• First, the cyclist who was "in the middle of the road" was clearly not obeying traffic laws.  If he was not following the laws that govern the rules of the road what makes anyone think that he would have been following a ban?
• The driver of the car was 16 years old.  Her reaction was not the same as that as a seasoned driver.  Also, the state law in Missouri has been since changed and she would not have been driving with her under aged sister in the car if this accident had happened today.

Those reasons notwithstanding I have to wonder what makes a county councilman, in this case a Mr. Joe Brazil, decide that he needs to place a ban on Bicycling because of an accident that occurred 7 years ago?  Could it be because he's: "received close to 100 emails from people concerned about cyclists on the road"?

I wonder if any of his emails came from Dennis Brown who says that Cyclists have set up parties in his front yard and refused to leave and that: "They're urinating behind your bushes, they're sitting on your porch and they're playing music at 3 and 4 in the morning and," he said. "When you go to talk to them, they're not a friendly bunch."

My suspicion is that most of the emails are from people who are just angry at the fact that they are slowed down by cyclists.  Who obviously are going slower than the posted 55 MPH speed limits in the areas where the ban is proposed. 

Despite the fact that Patty Vinyard, executive director of the St. Louis Regional Bike Federation, says: "Their funding sources are limited. They have to ration their funding" and "This ban could go on for years or even decades." 

Joe Brazil says "If it's, 'There's nothing we're going to do, we have that right,' we're going to butt heads and butt heads for a long time,"

What a way to use those limited funding sources wisely.
We would all be better served to follow the League of American Bicyclists suggestions on sharing the road.   It would be much safer for both drivers and cyclists.

Further reading:

Black Hawk Co. Bike ban

Stay safe in traffic

Road Rights

Following Le Tour

After my earlier post that equated the excitement of Bicycle racing to the excitement, or lack there of, of NASCAR.  I have been intently following the Tour De France.

Now I don't have the time to watch all 3-4 hours of coverage every day on versus, nor am I ready to drop $29.95 on their Tour tracker.  but I have been DVRing each stage since they are on while I am at work and a 4 hour telecast can be greatly shortened by fast forwarding through commercials!

This is the first tour that I have followed this closely.

It's interesting because I have ridden long distance before, well 55 miles is long distance to me, and I can understand a little bit about what the riders are going through while on their bikes.  Now, granted, I'm not usually riding along at 30 MPH but I'm still riding at the limits that I have.

The biggest issue I have so far is with figuring out who the overall leader is.  I think that I understand how the Green and Polka Dot Jerseys are awarded.  But I have no idea how the yellow jersey gets decided.

I know, I know, the yellow jersey is awarded to the guy who has the fastest overall time.  I just find it hard to believe how a guy can have say, a 60 second lead over the second place racer and then for 3 days they all finish with the exact same times that they had the day before.  Then, all of the sudden, one day some guy will come out of nowhere and take over the overall lead by like 3 minutes!

Confusion aside, it's been fun.  Even though it appears that Lance Armstrong doesn't have any chance to win the overall race but he can still win a stage or two.  He can even help his teammate Levi Leipheimer overcome a 2 minute and 14 second deficit to win the whole race!

I have also been entering every single contest related to the Tour De France I can!  I'm gonna win a freaking new bike if it kills me!  Although my fantasy cycling team doesn't seem to be the way I'm going to win it.

It was hot out there!

It was hot on my ride yesterday!  it's only going to get hotter as you can see from the forecast!

The Encounter

Part of my commute involves driving down a two lane road that goes through a bunch of fields with not much else around them.  It's a little unnerving because there really isn't a shoulder or a sidewalk for me to get onto in case there is a need to,  the speed limit is 50 MPH so cars fly by me all the time, and I work at a Casino so quite a few of those drivers flying by me are probably pretty drunk!

This morning  I was running late so I was pushing it a little bit in order to get to work on time.  I was coming up to an intersection where I couldn't really see down the cross street.

That's when I heard it.

I just heard what sounded like air rushing toward me.  It was coming from my left, so I looked in that direction but there are some pretty tall bushes over there so I couldn't really see anything.  I stopped about 100 feet from the stop sign because I was pretty sure I knew what was coming.

As it got closer, I could hear the engine , I finally could see the headlights.  It was definitely a car.  The car was going at least 100 MPH.  As I described before, I could hear the wind surrounding the car before I heard the engine.  I was glad that I stopped back from the intersection because if that car lost control it wasn't too likely that it would hit me. It blew through the intersection, completely ignoring the stop sign and kept on toward it's destination.

It shook me a little because it made me think about just how exposed I was out there on these deserted backroads on my bike.

As I rode the last mile or so into work I thought to myself that I was thinking to myself that I was actually pretty lucky to be riding my bike instead of driving in to work.  If I was in my car I would never have heard the other car until it was too late.  I might have seen the headlights of the other car, but at the speed he was going it may still have been too late.

I did make it to work in one piece, on time too,  it is funny what kind of thoughts little encounters like this one mean to you.

Riding at night, Riding in the heat

I have gone to a new shift. 

I start at 4 AM and get off at 2 PM.  My commute each way is radically different.  It's so different each way that I almost don't even believe that I am riding each way on the same day!

Since I start at 4 AM and I ride my bike I get up at 1 AM.  It allows me to have some breakfast, surf around on the Internet, and see what happened to my beloved San Francisco Giants.  I leave between 2:30 and 2:45 to give myself enough time for the 45-55 minute commute and any possible flats, breakdowns or other issues that may arise on my ride.

Yesterday it was 84 degrees outside when I left.  Yes, 84 degrees at 4 AM which is easily the coldest part of the night!  Needless to say, during summer in Palm Desert there is no being cold.

Riding at night is an interesting experience.  You can't see a whole lot even with your handlebar mounted headlight and the occasional street lamps.  Your mind tells you that there is always some unseen danger lurking in every shadow whether it is a giant pothole that wasn't there yesterday, some wild animal, or crazy guy who is waiting to jump out of the shadows and take your bike.

Never mind the fact that at that time in the morning even the crazies are asleep!

Everybody thinks I am crazy for riding at night. They think that it is just a matter of time before someone doesn't see me and runs me over.  I tell them that I am safer at night than I ever could be during the day since on a typical night commute I am lucky to see 5 cars.  During the day it's more like 500 cars go by me.  So the odds of me getting hit by someone who doesn't see me are much much greater during the day.

The biggest difference about riding at night is your lack of sight.  You are forced to concentrate more on the road and that further up the road than you ever need to during the day.  What looks like a shadow could be some debris or a pothole that will put an end to your ride if you miss it or misidentify it.  Where I live there is a lot of undeveloped space and a coyote or some other wild animal can be out there too.  The other night I noticed a shadow coming across the road towards me.  I was able to identify it as a dog in time and hit the gas.  The dog chased me for a little bit, let out a bark, and gave up.  It gave me a start but it reinforced the fact that I have to keep my eyes open in the dark.

It was 106 degrees at 2 PM when I left work to ride home.

Believe it or not, 106 degrees isn't as terrible as it sounds.  Sure it's hot and it's even more important than ever that you don't overextend yourself but when you are on a bike you have your own cooling system.  The wind keeps you from feeling the full effects of the heat.

Yesterday was my first day commuting in 100+ degree weather this year and I learned a valuable lesson.  Heat is extremely energy sapping.  You need to make sure you have eaten plenty of food and you have at least 2 times the amount of water you normally have. 

Oh, and ice is your friend!

I have been riding with just one water bottle, a Camelbak Podium ChillJacket, packed with ice.  That is more than sufficient when the weather is 84 degrees and just enough when it is 94 degrees.  When you cross that 100 degree mark it's time for a hydration pack.  Even though the wind fools you into thinking you are not sweating, you still are.  It is just evaporating in the wind before you really notice it.  You are losing fluid at a faster rate than you do when the weather is cooler.

I learned the food and the water lesson the hard way yesterday.  I didn't eat a ton for lunch and I only had the one water bottle.  Of course the bottle was packed with ice and water as usual.  I got about 9 miles into my almost 13 mile ride and realized that I was probably not going to make it without a pit stop.  My stomach was screaming for food and my legs and arms had become extremely shaky.  I had to stop and grab a Snickers bar and a Rockstar energy water. 

Funny thing is, my commute home was not too much longer than my ride to work was.  I may have been riding home to hard considering how hot it was and that it was the first time I had been exposed to that temperature in about 9 months. 

These experiences are part of what I think makes riding your bike to work so valuable of an experience.  You are forced to look deeper into your situation than just making sure you have enough gas, turning a key, and letting an engine carry you to your destination.  You need to know your situation, know how much it can and will change, and prepare accordingly. 

Hopefully, those experiences help you in more situations than just your bike ride!

Tour De Suisse Congrats Lance!

So I have been watching the Tour De Suisse at last a little bit every day since my original post about it.  Despite it being seemingly boring and the fact that I know next to nothing about that type of Cycling I still find myself checking in on it.  It's really interesting and seeing the crash the other day didn't hurt it's interest either.  Although seeing those guys crash like that made me appreciate helmets even more because just about all of those guys hit their heads on the pavement and hard! 

I watched the final time trial stage today and I wanted to just say congratulations to Lance Armstrong for finishing second overall and Frank Schleck for the overall tour victory.

I also can really appreciate how hard what they are doing is.  The other night, after watching one of the stages of the Tour De Suisse, I went out on my bike and attempted to get it up to 25 MPH. 

Now let me preface this by saying that I was on a 25 LB. Kentfield FS hybrid.

I hit 21 MPH on the approximately 1 mile stretch that I had available to me on my short ride.  I held it for a little while before I came up to a stop light.  Let me tell you that it's tough riding that fast for an extended period of time.  Again, it's not like I'm riding a Madone like Lance, but it is still a tough thing to do.

Now, I'm still not sure that I'm going to become a big fan of competitive cycling or anything but I'm going to be watching more of the tour De France than I normally do.  Hopefully Lance wins!

Tour De Suisse

I watched some of stage 3 of the Tour De Suisse this afternoon.  Frank Schleck from Luxembourg won the stage, German Tony Martin took the overall race lead by a second, and Lance Armstrong moved up from 33rd overall to 21st.

Other than that, cycling on TV is about as exciting to me as NASCAR.

I don't know why.  Maybe it's because I know about Lance Armstrong, Greg Lemond, Floyd Landis and that's about it,  Maybe it's because of the way that cycling is presented on TVm  Maybe it's because I had never watched a race on TV before, or maybe it's because I actually prefer Mountain Biking to Road Cycling.

Beats me.

I do know that a lot of riders do like to watch the Tour De Suisse, Tour De France, or Tour De whatever.  But it's just not for me.  I mean sure, I appreciate how hard it can be to ride in a group of people riding 25+ MPH.  I also appreciate how hard it is to ride 100 mile stages, and I also appreciate how dangerous it is to be riding in a big group of cyclists the way these guys do.  I appreciate the difficulty of NASCAR too.

Funny thing is I plan to tune in tomorrow to watch some more.  I actually took the time to go to Versus.com and see what the leaderboard looks like (actually I just went there to get the info from the beginning of this post, but  I looked over way more info than I had originally intended).  I also want to see what Lance Armstrong can do.  I know that this is just a tune up for him before the Tour De France, but he strikes me as the kind of guy who will just go out and win one of these races just because it is there.  Plus there is hardly ever anything related to cycling on TV.

Maybe it is a little more interesting than NASCAR....

WIND

I hate the wind.

I'm sure that most cyclists hate the wind too. I would rather ride up a steep hill than ride in the wind. 70 - 90% of a cyclist's energy goes toward overcoming wind resistance. That's all the time, not just on windy days. Windy days just mean you are going to expend that much more energy in order to overcome the wind resistance or drag.
This morning, my ride home was one of those times of expending the extra energy. As I was leaving work, a co-worker said: "I hope the wind is at. your back!" after noting the direction of the wind I could only chuckle and say: "I don't think today is going to be one of those days."

Now I have ridden in the wind before, and it's always tough, but today was something else! Before I even made it out of the parking lot I had a serious headwind. According to Weatherbug, that headwind was about 20-30 MPH which is easily the strongest wind I have ridden in.

Normally I ride along at about a 14-15 MPH average but this morning I was struggling to keep up a 10 MPH average. I really had to lean into it. Now, given the fact that my commuter is a hybrid, I don't ride in the most aerodynamic position. I'm also riding with Panniers on the back of my bike and it's as if I was riding with a couple of parachutes attached to my bike.

I managed to fight along through my close to 13 mile trip. Usually, it takes about 50 minutes for me to complete the whole route, but today it took about an hour and 12 minutes. The wind actually added over 20 minutes to my commute time! I do live in a pretty windy area but, at least most of the time, the wind isn't as constant as it was today. I usually get somewhat of a break from the resistance. Apparently today wasn't one of those days.
My legs are reminding me of that ride tonight.
Where is that Ibuprofen?

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Panniers

I recently ordered a new set of Panniers.

The funny thing is, I used to think that people who rode with Panniers were a strange breed of cyclists.  I thought "What could really be so important that they needed to take it with them on their bikes?" 

Then I started commuting by bike.

Now Panniers are almost always on my bike unless I am able to actually get out and ride my bike just for fun which is pretty rare these days.  I would much rather use them to carry my work clothes, a towel to dry off after a sweaty ride, and any food I am bringing to work with me rather than stuff all that in a backpack and have a giant pool of sweat on my back.

The Panniers I am replacing are some Schwinn Panniers that I got for $25.00 from Wal-Mart.  I have been using these for a few months now and I couldn't be happier to be rid of them.  I'm hoping that with the arrival of my new Panniers I won't have to live in constant fear of the bags coming off my rack and getting caught in my spokes any more which currently happens about once a trip.  This propensity for finding their way into my spokes has caused the panniers to form growing holes in them.  These holes happen to be in the bottom of the bags which means they are just begging to dump my work clothes all over the pavement one day.

I should have taken them back after my first attempt to ride with them.  I followed the directions that came with them which consisted of hooking some pretty suspect hooks on to my rack and strapping a couple of straps around the rack.  Well I made it approximately 10 feet before the bags fell off.  I put them back on and then they fell off again.  Since  I was on my way to work I had to backpack it that night.  I did find a way to get them to stay on but I had to wrap the straps around the rack and then around the bags themselves.  At least now they didn't fall to the ground, they just fell into my spokes!  Good thing I don't have front Panniers!

Anyway, I'm pretty stoked for my new panniers which the tracking information from Amazon says should be here by the 9th.  Which will be in time for me to not have to commute with them this week.  I'll have to review them after I use them for a few days!

Bike tour

I'm planning a bike tour.

It's not going to be anything like a 3 week trek through some foreign country our anything.  it's going to be 3 or 4 days and maybe cover 300 miles max.  Considering that I ride about 300 miles in a month, I think that this is an ambitious goal for a first time tour.  I have a buddy who lives in the Bay Area who will be going with me.  I'm not sure any of the other riders that I know would be up for something like this so it will probably be just the two of us.  However I think this may be the best way to go since I think the idea behind a bike tour is not worrying about making anybody happy except yourself which is pretty hard to do when you have a big group of people going with you.

I got the idea from the most recent issue of the Bicycle Times.  In it they talk to some of the staff writers and discuss what they typically take along with them on a tour.  This story coupled with an article in Bike Magazine about a railroad bike tour really got my juices going about grabbing the bike, getting enough stuff for a few days, and riding as far as the bike will take me.

Something about that just seems like a fun thing to do.  Being on the road with your thoughts and your bike.  I'm the kind of guy who prefers to ride without headphones on so being in the middle of nowhere while on a bike sounds like it's something I will remember for the rest of my life.

At this point, there are no set plans.  We are shooting for going in September when were planning on going up to the Bay Area so my kids can visit their grandma on their mom's side of the family.  I think we will go light with one bike trailer full of stuff between the two of us.  A few changes of clothes, some spare bike parts, some food for the road, a camera and not much else.  We have a few different destinations in mind: Santa Cruz, Davis, Sonora, or whatever else sounds good to us.  

I'll be posting more info as the plans develop.  If you have any suggestions on touring essentials drop me a line of leave a comment below.

Helmets

Should adults wear helmets?

I hadn't really thought that there was that much of a debate over helmets until I read the article above.  I thought that if you rode a bike you wore a helmet and it was that simple.  I did know that some people didn't wear helmets, hell my brother would not wear a helmet when we would ride together until we went to the Cycle Eastlake! ride and they wouldn't let him ride unless he had one.  But my brother rides a bike once in a blue moon.  That was always my impression of other non helmet wearers.

Now granted, the guy who wrote the article seems to be a casual cyclist, but some of the responders seem to be people who ride quite a bit.  I just don't get why people are so adamantly against doing something that protects them.  I wonder if these same people drive around in their cars without their seatbelts on?  Some of the responders question why people who are in favor of helmets think that they want people who don't wear helmets to get hurt.  I don't know that this is necessarily true but I do think that they won't feel sorry for someone who gets injured while riding without a helmet.

The only reason that I could see that people were giving for riding without helmets were "personal reasons".  I have to believe that this is because they feel that helmets look dorky.  Hey, I'll admit that there is no way to look cool while wearing a bike helmet but at least your dorky head will be protected.  Also, it's not like anybody is asking you to wear spandex bike shorts!  Although for some strange reason I have seen people wearing spandex bike shorts while not wearing a helmet!

This article also underlines a problem that I have with the media.  They use statistics to support their claim but they omit the statistics that conflict with their point.  The author of the article states:

"Context is important here. The most recent federal statistics on bicyclist accidents shows there were 716 bicyclists killed on roadways in the U.S. in 2008, or about 2 percent of all traffic fatalities. Certainly, helmets might have prevented some of those deaths, but from public health or statistical perspectives, this is a pretty low number"

Now if context was really as important as he claims he would have included all of the statistics that he was looking at.  He also would have realized that while 716 traffic deaths are 2% of all traffic fatalities, they are a much higher percentage of the Cycling population since there are significantly less Cyclists out there than motorists.

The following information can be found at:  http://www.helmets.org/stats.htm This is the same website that the author of the article linked to so he could show where he got his statistics from.


Bicycle Deaths by Helmet Use


1994-2006

Year   No Helmet  Helmet  Total*

1994  776 (97%)  19 (2%)  796

1995  783 (95%)  34 (4%)  828

1996  731 (96%)  27 (4%)  761

1997  785 (97%)  23 (3%)  811

1998  741 (98%)  16 (2%)  757

1999  698 (93%)  42 (6%)  750

2000  622 (90%)  50 (7%)  689

2001  616 (84%)  60 (8%)  729

2002  589 (89%)  54 (8%)  663

2003  535 (85%)  58 (9%)  626

2004  602 (83%)  87 (12%) 722

2005  676 (86%)  77 (10%) 784

2006  730 (95%)  37 (5%) 770

 
From these statistics you are almost assured to not die on your bike while wearing a helmet.  Think about that for a second, no matter how many total bicycling deaths there were in a given year, there were always less than 100 deaths from people who were wearing helmets.  In 7 out of the 12 years that the study took place there were less than 50 deaths among people riders wearing helmets. 
 
So, maybe those people who don't ride with helmets on aren't as smart as they think they are? 
 
At least they look cool.

Some other food for thought:

Bicyclist deaths in 2006 occurred most often during June-September and between the hours of 6pm and 9pm.


Twenty-four percent of bicyclists killed in 2006 had blood alcohol concentrations (BACs) at or above 0.08 percent. This percentage is one-third higher than in 1982.

One-third of bicyclist deaths in 2006 occurred at intersections.

Don't drink and ride, Use a lighting system on your bike especially at dusk, and be careful at those intersections!

What a week!

It's been almost a week since my last post.  It isn't because I'm lazy, although I am lazy, it's because I've been away from the computer.

Last Wednesday started out innocent enough.  I got up at 10 am because I had a couple of appointments at the community college that I am going to in the fall.  One was for counseling and one was for assessment testing.  I decided that I would get some extra miles in by riding my bike to the school for my appointments.  It wasn't too bad but it was the first time I had ridden this summer where the temperature had hit over 95 degrees.  At the time I thought it would be a possible topic for my next blog but that obviously wasn't the case.   Anyway, I got to the school  and I just had to take a picture of the bike in the rack since it's not often my commuter is the best bike around:

I met with my counselor and found out that I would have to take my assessment test and then come back again at 8:00 AM with my assessment results in order with help in scheduling classes for the fall.   I had an hour and a half to kill before the Assessment so I rode over to Barnes and Noble at the mall that is right down the street and picked up a copy of Bicycle Times and had a chicken teriyaki bowl.  I went back, took my assessment and rode home in time to get ready to go to work!  I had hoped to take a little nap before leaving for work but that didn't happen since the assessment testing lasted longer than I had planned.

Since it was Ride-your-bike-to-work-week I was planning on riding my bike to work every day last week.  I did manage to get on the bike to commute to work on Wednesday (which is my Monday).  I put in my 10 hours on Graveyard and left at approximately 6:30 AM to ride the 18 miles from my work to the school so I could make my drop in appointment at 8:00 AM.  I made my appointment and then rode over to the hospital to spend some time with my mom who started her chemotherapy treatments on Thursday (her third time).  Then it was time to go home and get some sleep.  Which I finally did at 12:30PM.

Wednesday and Thursday summary: 26 1/2 hours, 55 cycling  miles, 10 hours of work, 3 hours of school prep, and 0 hours of sleep.  But I did get a cool shot of a hot air balloon getting ready to take off while I was leaving work:

It's there in the background.  It looked a lot closer before I took the picture!

Thursday I woke up too late to be able to ride to work, so I had to take the van to work.  My boss emailed me a story about bike-to-work day and I said that I would be definitely riding to work on Friday which is the official bike-to-work day.  I had to since I have a face book group about Bike-to-work day!  After that is when all the real fun began.

Not too long after I got to work my fiance texted me to tell me that her daughter, from a prior marriage, was in the ER in Northern Ca.  They didn't know exactly what was wrong yet but were running tests and were pretty sure it was her appendix.  After a few hours of no news we did find out that she was going to be having her appendix removed so we would be on our way up north after I got off work.

We took a rental, the money we save in gas over our van pays for the rental and I don't have to put any more miles on it, loaded up the kids and we were able to get to the Bay Area around 5:30 PM.  Everything went OK with the surgery and we were able to bring her home and spend some time with her while she got comfortable.  We did get to visit with my Fiance's sister and mom before some sick members of our family forced us home.

We got home around 1:00 AM and the rental place at the Palm Springs Airport closed at midnight.  So in the morning I got up and dropped the car off and rode the bike the 11 miles from the airport to my grandmas house where we left our van.  I am so grateful for the bike.  If I didn't ride it to drop the car off, I would have had to get 2 sick kids and a sick fiance up at 6AM and drive to the van with them and then have them follow me to the airport and then home.  Not to mention the 30 or so miles of gas I saved on that trip!

Cycle Eastlake

Yesterday my brother and I rode in an 18 mile Mountain Bike and Poker ride called Cycle Eastlake.  The ride supports the Eastlake Educational Foundation which raises money for schools in the Eastlake area in Chula Vista, Ca.  Now I'm not much of a cause guy, but it is kinda cool to know that I can contribute to some good while doing something I love.

We rented a Nissan Altima Hybrid which was pretty cool because it had a push button ignition which was actually more handy than I thought it would be!  The gas mileage didn't seem to be too much better than what we would have got from a regular Altima but I can't say for sure since I haven't driven one!  The trunk was really small.  But we did manage to get both of our Mountain Bikes in the car without using a rack!

We got to Chula Vista around 5:00 Saturday evening and decided that we would go see the 7:30 showing of Robin Hood.  While we were waiting for the movie to start we decided to go ahead and bring the bikes in the hotel room we were staying at and get the bike ready for riding.  My bike had a flat front tire that I hadn't fixed so I figured it would be better to get that taken care of right then rather than scramble around in the morning and  try to get it fixed before the ride. 

So I replaced the bad tube with a good one and started to pump it up.  After about 10 minutes of trying to get the tire pumped up, I realized that the tube was bad.  So we had a mad scramble to go find a sporting goods store that was open to get tubes.  Since my bike only takes Presta valves my options were even more limited. 

This is where I learned about the true magic of a smartphone.

I had never been to Chula Vista before in my life.  So I obviously had no idea where to go to find bike tubes let alone where to find presta valve tubes!  So I used my handy Droid Eris to look up some bike shops in the area (which were already closed) and a Sports Authority store that was about 5 minutes away.  Complete with driving directions!  So we went to the shopping center where the Sports Authority was located and saw that there was a Big 5 there also.  We went in to Big 5 and discovered that their Cycling section consists of one little rack with about 5 inner tubes.  Of course none of which had Presta valve stems.  So we went over to Sports Authority and found the tubes with Presta valves!  Saved the day!

The technical problems didn't end there.  We were getting the bikes unloaded and ready to go when we discovered that the brakes on the bike that my brother was using weren't set up correctly.  Now, the bike he is using is my old Marin hardtail.  It has cantilever brakes which, in my opinion, have to be the least user-friendly brakes that you can have on a bike.  So that means a lot of time wasted on adjusting, remounting, and having to pedal harder than you need to because they are rubbing on your rim.  Anyway we wound up starting the ride about 20 minutes late and I'm sure we were the last ones to get on the ride.

The ride itself was fun!  After about a 2 mile road ride to get to the trails around the lake we were in business.  Now it is a ride and poker run so along the course there are stops where you draw a card to make the best 5 card hand possible.  We were so late in getting started the people at the first card stop had left!  Luckily one of the later card givers let us draw some extra cards to make up for the ones that we missed. 

Oh, and another drawback to starting late is that you have to be careful of the riders who are already on their way back.  The trail looped around in one section and you had to go back on the trail the way you came.  It was quite a shock to be riding along on the trail and all of the sudden see 3 riders coming from the opposite direction!

 

It was overcast out so it wasn't too hot.  Actually, it wasn't hot at all.  It was probably about 65 degrees out.  I took the picture above probably about 6 miles into the ride. 

The trails themselves were nice.  They were well maintained and clearly marked.  They weren't too strenuous so the casual rider can ride them with ease.  As a matter of fact, my brother, who hardly rides at all made it through the whole course!  This is a guy who thought that the small wooden bridges that they put down to get over the watery areas were dangerous because he couldn't keep from going off the sides.  When I explained to him that they were just as wide as the trail he was riding on, he tried to tell me that it was different because there was ground on either side.  I told him: "Yeah, ground covered with trees!".  There was one little creek that didn't have a bridge over it.  My brother thought that it was the craziest thing in the world to try to ride through that.  I rode across it and he opted to carry his bike.

We finished in just under 2 hours.  Other than having to wait multiple times for my brother to catch up, the ride was pretty smooth.  I almost qualified for a prize with the my poker hand too.  I had a 10, Jack,Queen, and an Ace.  I only needed a King on the last card to make a straight and I got a 9.  Oh well.  I don't even know what the prize was I could have won.  We had some Rubio's on the way home and we got home safe and sound. 

It was a good day!

Commute Day

Well I worked graveyard last night and made my usual 26 mile round trip.  Nothing too exciting other than I haven't been commuting on the bike as much as I want to and I haven't been able to make up the miles on my days off because the kids are in between daycare providers and I have them all day on my days off. 

At least I have been able to somewhat make up a couple of miles on the days I have them.  I get to load them up in the bike trailer and haul them over to the park up the street.  I am also the envy of all the moms there who probably haven't thought of exercise since their kids were born.  It's funny, when you go to a park and the people are all driving Mercedes, BMW, and big monster SUVs everybody wants to talk to you about your $350 bike!

You like?


So after working a 10 hour graveyard shift last night, having to take the kids to the doctor, and having a horrible headache, and my upstairs neighbor banging on something.  I have had a total of an hour's worth of sleep!  I may not be riding the bike to work tonight!

Although I am riding in the Cycle Eastlake! 18 mile Mountain Bike and poker ride with my brother on Sunday.  I hope we make it as out of shape as the two of us are.

Now to hopefully get two more hours in of sleep before  I gotta be back to work..

Why do I ride?

If you read my last post you know that I didn't get started riding because I just felt like it one day.  I am still riding today and it's been about 8 months since I first started riding.  You would think I could have figured out a different way to make the 26 mile round trio I have to make each day to get to work right?

Right.

I did get a nice tax return this year which I could have used to get myself some sort of alternate transportation to and from work. 

But I didn't.  Why do you ask?

I love riding. 

First and foremost it is fun.  You can get on your bike and go away for a few hours.  There is just nothing but you, the outdoors, and your bike.  Now where I live we pretty much experience all the extremes except for snow.  We obviously get heat, we get rain, we get heavy winds, we get cool days, we get freezing days.  You really get it all here.  There are also a lot of places you can ride your mountain bike as well.  The desert is pretty rocky so you have to deal with that a lot!

Second, its good for you!  I have lost 20 pounds since I started riding.  It's been a long time since I felt better.  As I mentioned before I sit for 10 hours at work staring at TV and computer monitors.  One of my biggest challenges to my job was to not fall asleep in my chair.  Well since I have been riding I have more energy and don't have problems keeping awake.  Another side benefit of the extra energy is that you aren't so lazy when it comes to taking care of yourself.  So I have been eating better as well.

Now eating better wasn't something that I set out to do when I started this whole bike commuting thing.  When I started out I was taking about an hour and 10 minutes to go the 13 miles one way to work.  I set a goal for myself of getting to work in about 45 minutes.  So I started to ride on my days off as well.  I also started to pick up some cycling magazines like Bicycling, Mountain Bike, and Road Bicycle Times.  One of the biggest things that they all agreed on was if you want to improve your riding skills you needed to eat better.  So I have been.  Now don't get me wrong, I'm not on some miracle diet or anything like that.  I've just cutback on the junkfood I ate and have started eating more fruits and vegetables.

The biggest obstacle to getting to love riding was the fact that I started riding because my car broke down.  I had to really fight against the urge to be upset that I was riding a bike to work because I was too broke to afford another car.  I had to just jump in to cycling as a way of life.  The Tour De Palm Springs was coming up and I had done the 27 mile ride back in 2006 and that was a tough distance for me.  I decided that I would push myself a little bit and get ready for the 55 mile ride. 

I have a buddy who lives in the Bay Area who is in to cycling as well.  He also happened to be the person that I did the 27 Mile tour with back in 06.  Now he has been steadily riding since then and I hadn't even been on a bike since we rode in the tour back then.   I told him that I wanted to ride in the tour this year and he was ready to go.  So I had a goal to work toward while I was pedaling my way to work.  I did make the 55 miles and it took me 4 hours and 6 minutes!  I will say that I was extremely thankful for the last SAG stop because  I was ready to die from starvation!  Who knew that a sandwich consisting of two slices of bread  and one slice of ham could taste so good?

I really am glad that I decided to dust off that old bike that I had sitting in my backyard and ride it to work rather than figure out a way to hitch a ride with someone.  I really can tell the difference that riding the bike has made in my life.  Not to be too preachy or anything but the benefits to commuting on your bike or even just getting out and riding for recreation far outweigh the drawbacks.

Welcome!

Well here we go!  Welcome to my first post on Bike at 115 Degrees!

As you probably guessed from the title this blog is about cycling when it's hot out.  I live in Palm Desert Ca. and yes I do ride my bike when it's 115 degrees out!  I commute on my bike to work.  I've been doing it since September of last year and I have about a 13 mile commute each way.  I started commuting on my bike when my car broke down.  I didn't have a way to get to work and due to the scheduling at my job there really wasn't a feasible way for me to carpool with any of my co-workers.  I had an old Marin Northside Trail hardtail just collecting dust so I took it over to the bike shop and got it tuned up and I was off!

The first day I rode to work it was 115 degrees out!  Yes, it gets to 115 degrees here in September!  That's where the inspiration for the title of this blog came from. 

 At the time I started riding, I wasn't in the greatest shape in the world either.  I was 32 at the time and I weighed about 235 lbs, I hadn't ridden a bike in close to 3 years, and my job consists of sitting in front of a bunch of monitors 10 hours a day.  So needless to say just hopping on my bike and riding it wasn't just a simple thing for me to do.  Plus I didn't have a helmet, gloves, or even a water bottle.  So there were a few things to work out. 

Now I decided to take a test run a few days before I had to ride to work for real so I could make sure I had enough time to get to work and not be late!  About 5 minutes into my ride I thought I made a mistake.  My legs were burning!  (I also hadn't figured out that lower gears are your friend.)  I decided to just tough it out and go as far as I could.  I had arranged for my fiance to pick me up at my job so I wouldn't have to try the roundtrip all at once.

As I mentioned before, I didn't have a proper water bottle.  I bought a bottle of Aquafina at the gas station by my house and put it in the bottle rack on my bike.  That turned out to be a real great plan because about halfway through my ride my water was so hot it was undrinkable!  Luckily there is a Ralphs about halfway through my ride so I was able to stop and get another bottle of water.  I just hoped that one would last me all the way to work because there would be nowhere else I could stop to get any more water.

I was in luck and the rest of my ride went pretty smooth.  I made it to work and lived to tell you the story.  it's a good thing I had my Fiance come to pick me up too. While I was putting my bike into the back of the van I noticed that the rear tire had gone flat on my bike.  I wasn't carrying any spare tubes....

Well that about wraps up my first entry.  Thanks for reading!  In the future I'll let you in on some of the lessons I learned the hard way.  I have to ride on a budget so hopefully I can pass on some tips I've learned along the way.  Most of all, I hope whoever reads this blog actually enjoys it!