A cool, foggy morning greeted me on my ride in. What I love about a morning like this is the quiet, the calmness. You cannot help but slow down, look around, take in the moments along the way.

Yesterday's SUB ride showed I needed a few adjustments. Cleat alignment tweaks for my shoes and, since my strength is up, a modification to my rear cogs to fit my current level. Today another test of the adjustments.

Foot position and pedal motion much, much better. I did not have any knee issues at all, whether seated or doing some standing pedalling. The utilitarian SUB sure seemed to roll slow, though, compared to the road bike. Are these tires rolling with that much resistance? Is the SUB really that much harder to roll along? Have to think about it.

Seems so light out these days, having been trained to commuting through the darker winter days. I stopped a few times to take some pictures and to just look. There were two close calls today. The first, along SE Lincoln, a bus turned from 52nd onto Lincoln cutting off a cyclist riding in the opposite direction of me. He yelled, but that's about all he could do, the even already happened. Then not two blocks later, a car cut across Lincoln cutting me off. All I could do was yell, "Hey!" and I moved left to pass behind the car. Is it the fog?

The SUB did great, again, today and the new shifter location is working out great. The one bad thing about bike commuting is it ends - lol.

Well, decided to go ahead and test a different set of tires. So, I replaced my Serfas Drifters with a pair of Continental Sport Contacts. I've always had great experiences with Continentals on my road bike so let's see how they do in SUB mode and size. That's the other great thing about bike commuting is that changes can be more easily evaluated because I'm riding the same route and have experienced many different weather conditions. So it seems easier to determine if an issue is me, the bike, the weather; or if something I changed is an improvement or just a change.

Over the almost 900 miles that I have ridden now, I have been doing my own human behavior test. I either wave or if they are close I say, "hi." I am finding that the cyclist today seems to have not learned how to respond as most do no absolutely nothing. I probably still have fingers I can use to count the number of people who have reciprocated. Sad, really, just sad.

The other phenomenom I have noticed is that there are cyclists who have adopted an almost driver like approach to their commute. They are head-down, hammering along, zipping around everyone else, not slowing down much around pedestrians, short-cutting, red light running. Maybe they have commuted so long that they figure they have seen it all, maybe they are late, would be an interesting study. I know some use the commute as a heavy work out. I work harder going home, because it is uphill. I don't like being overly sweating going, so I am glad I have a mostly downhill ride to work.

Anyway, I am enjoying the journey of each day, seeing the changes across winter to spring - from nature to people, there are definite seasonal changes going on.

Foggy, Cold -- Healing -- I Want My Drop Bars Back

A chilly, foggy morning to start Thursday's ride. Note the frost on the car. I suppose in the grand scheme of things, though, we have it pretty mild here in the Pacific NW compared to the eastern side of the states.

Evan and I bundled up and made our trip to school, then I continued on to work. Gosh, I feel slow, I think the hip pain is getting to me mentally. I can't wait until I don't have to think about it anymore. I mean, I just want to ride.

Of course, just being able to sit at my desk for more than a few minutes would be nice, too. Then, because I am standing so much, I am so tired at the end of the day. My hat is off to those that are on their feet all day, like wow.

At the Steel Bridge we all had to wait as the lower section was raised as a tug approached. You can just make it out coming down river through the fog. Everyday there seems to be something new and different.

Even with the less than 100% of my current situation, I must be riding okay. When I was a bit away from work heading toward Evan's school (about Multnomah and MLK) I noticed a shadow behind me.

He proceeded to stay behind me for the next mile and a half. I'm thinking, "Hey, go ahead and pass." I think he was using me to push himself along or a lazy wheel sucker. Anyway, about a block from where I was going to turn right, he did decide to finally push past me. He said something inaudible, I thought to myself, "Ya poop! You suck the wheel of an invalid and then when you are all rested, you go hammering by, without offering to pull?"

I think it is good I am back riding the SUB and using my panniers. At least I am not putting any extra pressure against my back and, thus, my hip area. Hopefully, this will help speed up the healing. Friday's ride was uneventful, except this morning, Evan led the whole way! I guess he's got the route down, now. I don't often get to ride behind him and watch his riding style. The dude is pretty strong and pretty smooth. Sorry, it ws too cold for me to get the camera out and snap a picture.

Well, my experiment of going back to my SUB's flat bar is not working out so good for my hands. So, this weekend's plan is to do some adjusting to maximize brake efficiency when I am riding on the hoods. While I am there, I am planning to make a modification to where I mount the shifters (original, Shimano thumb shifters) so I can create the most room for my hands across the bar tops.

Brake-wise, I think I just have to fine-tune the brake arm positions so I am pulling with the most leverage. Since I had the bars off (Cinelli Little Wings), I decided to fill-in the front and back cable grooves, which I never really liked. I used some liquid metal filler. This is a picture of the back of the bars and that flat looking section is where I filled in the cable groove.

 

Here you can see the extremely rotated thumb shifters. This puts the levers on the front side of the bars rather than across the top. This will hopefully provide the full bar top for my hands and still provide relatively easy access to the shifters.

Next step is to fit up the cable housings, run the cables, make the adjustments and do a quick around the block test for positioning. Once I've got it pretty close, I will re-wrap the bars and be ready to ride. (Okay, until the next time I get a "gotta change something" itch - hahaha).

Spinning in the Fog - Or, How Low [of a gear] Can You Go?

Just a tad foggy this morning as Evan and I began our commute, temperature was mid-30's. Wasn't long before I had to take my glasses off because they, too, were fogged up.

We rode pretty comfortably, mostly just spinning. We've come to realize that whether we ride hard or more relaxing, it takes about the same 30 minutes. So, spinning easy and enjoying the ride was our choice.

Another successful, ride in my work clothes, except my sweater was in my bag. Used my SmartWool arm warmers under my fleece jacket and that made the temp very comfortable. We'll see about tomorrow, though, as there is a slight chance of rain, or so the report is at 10:00pm tonight.

I'll be using a new backpack that has a mesh back and the bag is actually not resting directly against the back. Will see how this feels. Of course, I am also trying not to carry everything, since I really don't need everything - you know, like car keys and that sort of stuff. Just wallet and house keys.

After going our separate ways at Evan's school, the ride was pretty normal. I did stop right before crossing the Steel Bridge to take a foggy picture. Parts almost look black and white. A train was crossing as I got there.

Knowing that I would have a long wait to cross at my normal spot, I rode a bit further south (to the left from this view) and took another street. The train was still going when I reached my building, so I was glad I took the "longer" route, at least this morning.

In the afternoon, met back up with Evan and his legs were still feeling tired. So we did a low gear, spin only ride home. I mostly stayed in my lowest gear (39x23), except for a few short stretches. Evan was in his second to lowest gearing. Time-wise, we did not take that much longer. We'll get him there. It is nice that we are close enough to have many choices in how we ride to and from.