Cool and Grey - I Experience a Torrential Shower

Wednesday, Thursday and Friday saw the return of a lot of clouds and chances of rain. There were drizzles, light rain, downright downpours and a few spots where you could actually see blue sky. In certain sections you can tell if it is cold or too wet as the birds seem less active in the mornings on those less than nice days. Of course there are less people out, too.

Wednesday along the Eastbank Esplanade the morning rush hour was filled with Canada Geese grazing along the upper banks. There is so much water in the Willamette right now. These guys are pretty use to people traffic as they did not even flinch when I stopped and took a few pictures, as if they were thinking, "No big deal, just another two-legged." It's kind of cool, I  have always liked the Canada Goose.

Despite the rain, the sense of cooler than normal temps reminding me more of late winter than spring about to become summer, it must be spring because everything is green and the once bare trees are filling out. While it is always nice to be out on the bike, I would not mind a bit warmer temps and some multiple dry, sunny days would not hurt, either.

I still find it interesting, yeah, I said it, interesting, to continue to wave or say hello to other cyclists and see who actually responds. It is funny, some almost seem annoyed by my waving acknowledgement, like I'm the crazy one.

Friday's ride home was the most memorable of the week. As I left work for the Steel Bridge the sky went from very grey to very dark grey and just as I was leaving the clouds opened up in all their glory. Yep, that's right, an Oregon downpour! Of course, as I hit the Steel Bridge the lift alarm went off and I got to sit there getting drenched. As fate would  have it, the rain was coming with the wind on the side of the ped/bike path. What a lot of water! This is the first time my feet got a little wet with my Keen shoes, I think there was so much water it was running down the leg of my rain pants into my shoe more than my shoe soaking through.

I am sure I must have been quite the sight riding along in the torrent. Most people were finding cover, hoping to wait out the worst of it. I was heading to meet up with Evan, so I did not have time to wait. Fortunately, it did lighten up a bit to light rain for the remainder of our ride home. What an adventure in being wet.

A Very Peaceful, Lovely Day for Bike Commuting

With the drier days I decided to road test my Pentax DSLR camera. I've gotten a bit lazy and have been just using my pocket digital for most things. I do like the greater control of the DSLR over the pocket digital, I guess it goes back to my film SLR days.

This morning was a really nice ride in, I felt in good spirits and I was early enough that once I reached the Eastbank Esplanade, I just cooled down and glided along, taking pictures as I went.

It could be just me, but this image  has a European feel to me. The boaters were the only traffic on the Willamette this morning and the water was very calm. The Willamette is quite high, but it is also fairly clear and was serenely calm this morning. Quite peaceful.

This afternoon, I "strolled" along the esplanade, enjoying the warm temperature, sunny skies and fresh air. As I am still also trying to fine tune my cleat alignment, I stopped to make an adjustment. People must feed the migrating birds, because this Canada goose just hung near by and looked up occassionally, as if waiting for me to toss a morsel his way. I looked over the railing and saw that he had been working on a banana peel floating in the water. Sad really, some people do not think about what they are doing.

I was a bit surprised this guy just hung around until I saw the banana peel. Not quite your average river food supply. The river is so clear and calm today -- lovely.

Bike Nerd Adds Analog Clock

Well, since today was basically grey and I did not have an inspirational moment to take much in the way of pictures, I went bike nerd today when I got home from work.

I  have thought about having some kind of clock on the bike, because it is too hard to be riding and pulling out my cell phone to see what the time is. I really did not want to just strap a wrist watch on and I know I do not want to buy a cycle computer for just the clock part.

What I was looking for was something readable, small but not too small, waterproof (hey, it's Oregon!), and would mount securely but simply.

I guess it was time to do some research, internet style, of course. Hmmm, bicycle clock, clock on a bike, clock mounting on bike. Okay, then, just a few million hits, let's check out the images results. Hmmm, some of these look promising, so let's click here.

The site was Cruiser Customizing, yep, that's right, uh huh, a motorcycle site. They had some interesting products, some adapters, and hey, check it out, a little, round analog clock. Well, what the hey, let's order it and give it a try. A week later, today, it arrives and I open up the packaging. Ooo, chrome, well, it's small enough it should not show too much.

Well, now where to mount it? I want to keep the bars as clean as possible, since they already have my shifter mounts. I want to be able to easily glance and see the time. After a few tests, I decide I can use my existing headlight mount. I do have to do a little grinding on the clock mounting housing so I can rotate it 90 degrees, not how it was designed, of course.

After I get the housing to rotate in its bracket, I mounted it to my headlight mount and with a little bending had the position quite usable. Haha, now I have my bike clock, old school analog and the numbers and hands glow in the dark!

Oh, yeah, that's right, I'm a bike nerd and proud of it.

Change My Attitude - Have a Zen Moment

Okay, following the last venting session it was time to re-focus, reset my attitude about being out there with everyone else trying to soak up as much of the nice weather as we can, because after all, it is Oregon and this year each of those nice days are so darned short-lived. We are all going to be out there and so, let's just focus on the good whys versus on the baddies.

While I enjoyed a nice spot along the Eastbank Esplanade, so did the SUB. Together we focused on the beautiful Spring day, the light breeze, the light and shadow and went to our happy places. Well, at least I like to think the SUB went to her happy place.

For me, I think I just had not adjusted to the shift in season and weather here in Portland. In my significant cycling past, I did more recreational riding, training rides in preparation for those 100-200 mile events, some with a few friends and some solo. Oh sure, you would see others but not in the numbers one sees in Portland today. Then when I started my utilitarian era (actually, don't really like that term, utilitarian) I started smack dab in the middle of winter. I think I done gots spoiled. Quiet roads,, solitary times, I could mostly just ride and focus on being out and not have to watch out so much around me.

As our weather has changed, so has the slow, quiet morning pace. So the season changed, my mind did not. And after I thought about this for a bit, all this change is really a good thing, I mean this truly shows there is life in the city, right?

So, I think my mentalness is catching up with my physicalness and we are adapting to the changes. We all are out there, moving about, doing our outdoor thing, wanting to get somewhere, accomplish something.

Speaking of accomplishing something, this year is the first year our work, which moved to downtown from the suburbs, had a more "official" Bike to Work Week/Day set of activities. We organized a waffle breakfast for bike to work day and held an informational brown bag a few days before. That was pretty cool and I totally loved doing something at work bike related.

We had 22 bike commuters on Friday. While that was about our previous max, we did have quite a few first time bike commuters (not all of our bike commuters are 100% bike commuters). We had the most bikes in our overflow space, 5, so we had quite a few firsts. I was so glad we did have the great weather to help motivate people to give bike commuting a try.

So, I'll drink in those moments of calm, enjoy the blend of city and nature and just have fun doing what I love - riding my bike.

The Hordes are De-hibernating!

The week started slow weather-wise, and has exploded into some awesome, warm and sunny true spring days. Within that same explosion, however, the throngs of fair weather folks have also splattered out across everywhere. Now, I should say that most have been pretty civil given they must be absolutely stir crazy, what with waiting and waiting and waiting for all the grey, cold and rain to move aside.

You know all those stories about how for such a rainy area people cannot seem to figure out how to drive in this stuff? Well, I don't think that behavior is limited to just driving, because I see that same behavior with cyclists, walkers, joggers and the other asundry wanderers. Just today, I saw a driver and scooterer get tired of waiting for the train so they could turn right (tracks were parallel to the road) and blast through the red light to go straight. The really stupid thing is they went one block, that's right just one block, to the next red light! I mean, really?

This morning I was riding up on another cyclist on his fixie. At the light, he stopped about a bike length back and seemed to be practicing his track stand, he was a bit wobbly. I moved left slightly and rode up to the crosswalk line. After a bit, he either got tired of waiting or just could not track stand, he rode through the red light - what? - a bit later the light turned green and I proceeded on. Next light, he actually put his foot down.

Oh, so here's a good one for you. That ramp is actually normally going down to the floating section of the Eastbank Esplanade. There is so much water right now, the floats of the ramp have the ramp higher than the bike path. That's a lot of water!

Oh, hey, this week is Bike to Work Week in Portland and tomorrow (Friday) is Bike to Work Day. Since this is our first year at work in downtown, a couple of us wanted to have some kind of inaugural event, so we are having a waffle breakfast on Friday. To entice more to bike to work we had an informational brown bag on Monday. That was pretty well received and we had some great questions. The really interesting thing is about attitude though. There is definitely room to grow in terms of how people, even ones that cycle, perceive the relationship between vehicle drivers and bike riders.

Their perceptions perpetuate the idea that cars have priority over the roads and streets that  spread out across town. And if they know there are official bike ways and routes they believe cyclists should be there and not where they want to go. I mean, how inconsiderate of those cyclists - really? That's why, for me, I think we have maybe too much infrastructure and not enough re-education. Our travel medium, typically paved routes, is designed to move people, not just cars. They are basically for everyone.

I want to say share, but that is not really correct, because the drivers don't want to share, that's the big problem. The attitude change needs to be "Hey! Mellow out, this is a multi-use people mover." And that's not just targeted at drivers. Just  the past few days, I have seen cyclists blow across the crosswalk when everyone else is stopping for pedestrians. I made cars behind me stop because I yielded to some pedestrians. Come on, what gives?

I have to admit that I do miss the cold, rainy winter times because being out there is so much more mellow - because no one else is really out there.

Strange, but I Miss the Darker Mornings

Spring, while maybe not weather-wise, is definitely here. I seem to see more and more people out in the mornings. In some ways, I miss the more solitude of the winter rides, the quiet, the peacefulness, the bit darkerness of the mornings. I can accept the hustle and bustle of the afternoons, the mornings are more like my time, and my time with Evan. I think because it delays the rush around atmosphere of work that I like the quieter, lonelier mornings.

Thursday morning had some fun light out, peeking out from the fog and clouds, lighting some areas of downtown while leaving other areas grey and monotone like.

Next week is Portland's Bike to Work week and Bike to Work Day (20th); and along with our Bike Commute Challenge Captain, I have been working with a couple of our internal groups to promote Bike to Work Day. Monday, we are having a brown bag to present information and answer questions for people who are interested in biking to work but would like more information and help.

For Friday's Bike to Work day, we are having some regular commuters make waffles and our Green Team and Safety & Wellness Team will be providing fruit. We have some overflow plans in place so it would be pretty cool to double our current max of 24 commuters. Hopefully, the weather will not be pouring down rain as that will definitely reduce the first timer count.

Esplanade Es Crazy - The Price of Sunny Spring Weather

{R.I.P. Wouter Weylandt}

I did not watch any of the Giro D'Italia yesterday, so I was totally unaware of the tragic accident until a coworker friend asked if I had heard. Wow, how sad. After watching the tribute stage I am touched by the support of so, so many people and the closeness of these elite athletes. I reminisce of my past riding days with a close group of friends and the support we had for each other, the support I received - whether riding well or absolutely bonking. No one left behind, friendship first.



This morning was cloudy and cool, my hypersensitivity, again, thought I felt a rain drop or two. Probably because I decided not to wear the rain jacket or pants. Fortunately, I stayed dry and enjoyed a nice ride in. The closer I got to downtown, the more people I saw. I slowed and stopped a few times along the Eastbank Esplanade because I saw the two barges heading down river and eventually saw the Steel Bridge's center span go up - well no sense hurrying just to wait.

Work had some fun moments as I have been helping with our Bike to Work planning for the week of the 16th to 20th. That's been fun, focusing on cycling. The sad news is the waffle breakfast for Bike to Work Day, the 20th, will end just before I get there after riding with Evan in the morning. A few promised to save me some food.

Wow, just like the weather folks said, the afternoon was super clear, sunny and warm. Rather than rushing on home I slowed down and watched and absorbed all the activity going on. Whooosh! Wow, there are certainly people out who don't quite get the concept of sharing - how about slowing down when there are lot's of people walking, biking in the same 5 foot area. That is not say everyone was like that, but, then again, it only takes a few.

I still believe my theory that there are some converted individuals to biking/healthiness that have, unfortunately, brought their "me" world concept from the car world - spreading out across over half the path width, zipping in and out unpredictably, unyielding so they can pass first - sound familiar?

Despite the invasion of the less fun people, I am enjoying seeing many others - like the dad riding with his kids, helping them out, building up their riding skills. Hopefully they are also learning courtesies, as well.

Parting shot. I stopped and enjoyed the view from a bench area, and to also make a slight adjustment to one of my cleats before heading on and away from the esplanade. SUB is lovin' this nice weather, too. We'll soak it all up today - tomorrow we return to the chance of showers type weather.

Ramping Up for National Bike Month

Yep, May is the League of American Bicyclists National Bike Month. In Portland, the big focus is on Bike to Work Week (16-20) and Day (20). It's kinda fun helping at work to promote Bike to Work Day. We'll be having a waffle and fruit breakfast for riders. Sadly, I'll miss it because Friday is my late arrival day. I'll have to take advantage of the more public free eats offerings throughout the week, I guess.

Evan was looking forward to it, as well, until he found out the school is not recording miles. Sad, but he knows his totals and is pretty proud that he has been riding all year, rain or rain, hail, cold wind, we seen it all.

I thought this was an interesting ship name. Made me think, "Yeah, that would be nice, a full spring, hahaha." Well, I was dry today and tomorrow is suppose to be dry, too. After that, back to cool, rain; sigh.

I had a nice encounter on my ride in. Another rider complimented me on my bike, he said he use to have one (I was on the SUB - Bridgestone MB-5). Cool, someone that actually recognized and knew about Bridgestone bicycles.

With more pedestrians and cyclists out I am finding the esplanade more challenging than riding on the roads these days. I think the on and off weather has some effect as people are not getting enough exposure to lot's of different people out. Of course, there are those who would not care anyway. Sometimes, it is like they think everyone else should watch out for them, sound familiar, reminds me of driving - haha.

Lot's of clouds out this afternoon, but I stayed dry, so it is all good. I am liking the skinny tires (Continental SportContact, 26 x 1.3). I think it drops my gearing by maybe a half tooth, will have to ride a bit more to know for sure. Aesthetically the bike looks good with the smaller tires, even more balanced looking than the road bike. The road bike because is it a smallish frame, 51cm, sometimes looks like all tire and wheel.

Hope you all are able to enjoy some of National Bike Month, get some free food and enjoy some of the events happening all around. Now, if the ol' sun would come out for a bit, that would be just, plain, awesome.

Old School = New Bars, Plus New Tires

Have really gotten into the rhythm of commuting now, even in the rainy weather there is no thoughts of if, just what am I going to have to wear or bring. Must be spring as we are having a few more dry days and rides, though we do continue to have those wet days, too.

The sunny mornings, especially, are such a nice treat.

Around the water front there are definitely changes going on, as well. Way more cyclists, artists and meandering people. Huge lines form at the many food carts placed around downtown. Outside of the heads down, no slowing down speedster cyclists and the 3 abreast stroller pushers I really enjoy slowing down along the waterfront area and watching and taking it all in.

The bike room at work was overfull a couple times this week, must be the nice weather. I've been working with our facilities team to locate a secure overflow area. We happened to have a old, unused storage area in our parking garage, so we have a bike rack coming (the one in the picture is no good). To keep my life simple, I've decided to use the overflow as my standard storage location. See, my bike has a nice window view, too.

I decided that riding in the drops of my ergo style handlebars was not working out, so I began a search for some old school drop bars. Ideally, I looked for the same brand and model as my road bike as I know those fit and work well for me. Being the Nitto Model 185 is a product of the late 80's and early 90's, my search was not turning up a lot. There are certainly a many newer models, but I'm stubborn. Finally, I found one online store in Japan that carried a version of the Model 185 in 40cm (many other bars seemed to start at 42cm, which is too wide for me). Done.

Loving the Continental SportContact 1.6" tires so much, I wondered if I could find a narrower set, since Continental's site listed a 1.3" tire. Must be relatively new as when I first bought mine, the 1.6" was the only size available. Well picked up a set of 1.3" tires and put them on. Discovered that not only are these narrower, they are also shorter, so there was a huge, dork gap between my fenders and tires. Fortunately, I still had the full fenders that use to be on Evan's road bike (he wanted me to switch his to RaceBlade fenders).

Well, a few hours of trial fitting, adjusting, making new brackets the SUB  has well fitting fenders to compliment the new skinny tires. Looking forward to some fast riding now.

Bike-arific Tuesday - National Bike Month

Photographically, I kind of like our cloudy, but mostly sunny days. There was a bit of rain for the morning ride, but, as you can see from the picture above, the afternoon was glorious. Portland is definitely feeling more alive these days, many, many more people out. I see more bike commuters, morning and afternoon runners, people relaxing and enjoying both sides of the Willamette River.

For another Tuesday at work, our bike room was past base capacity, we had a record 20 bikes!

Bikes were doubled up on the horizontal racks, bikes leaning against the lockers, bikes, bikes everywhere! Since May is National Bicycle Month, a couple of us are thinking about how to plan a nice, casual event for the bike to work week and day (May 16-20 / May 20). I have also been working with our Facilities team to come up with an overflow plan that will allow riders to still store their bikes securely.

Heightened Appreciation of the Joys of Being Able to Ride

Clouds and coolness in the morning, a few rainlet bouts during the midday, gave way to some pleasant sunny skies for the afternoon's ride home. There must be something about the sun as I felt energized, thrilled to be out on the bike and so I rode quite well, spinning a higher gear than my normal "cruiser" gear combination.

As I thought and composed this entry, I was watching the program, "Take a Seat." The 10 episodes documented Dominic Gill's journey from Los Angeles to New York. What makes this more amazing is that the purpose of the ride was to enable someone with cancer to do something he had always wanted, see America by bike. What made this touching is that Ernie's cancer ended his adventure early and soon after, took his life, but Dominic continued by having 9 other special needs people join him to finish the ride that Ernie had started.

Each adventurer's story is unique, their challenges, how they have coped and managed. The thrill and gratitude they express is so, so heart warming. Their rides were not flat and easy, many hills, awful weather, mechanical issues, special fitment issues. And in the end, they smiled, they laughed, they cried with appreciation and they cheered their successes.

I suppose timing is everything, heh? As I have rekindled my joys of cycling the program was come to heighten my appreciation of being able to just ride. Few things reward me, fill me with the level of joy as cycling. I wonder if there are similar opportunities locally to provide others with a chance to experience cycling who would otherwise not be able to. I think that would be cool.