The Blaſphemous Bicycler

Evil neighbors, foul weather, and general laziness have thrown me off track. Only 30.30 miles this week. The plan called for 86! Pathetic.The weatherman says we may get as much as 12″ of snow today.
As much as that sounds like fun, I think the line between courage and foolishness is crossed somewhere around 8 inches. I’m driving in; may be walking home.

My care package from Rivendell arrived last night. I got the stem and bars installed.

You can also see the frame pump and the b17 saddle, too.
Cringer is down by the front tire. He likes bikes too.

A fistfull of seatpost, just like the directions call for.

Close up of the noodle bars. Also visible are all the tools a real man needs:

• Hammer
• Yellow Pages
• 100′ of Cat6 cable

I’ve been discovered by a fellow bike person/blogger.

It seems there are a couple of people doing what I’m doing (quitting smoking, riding bikes, (or both) and blogging about it.) I’ll have to do the whole blogroll thing if I ever figure it out.

• There’s this guy who doesn’t seem to post very often, but commutes from New Cumberland to downtown.
• The Bike Riding Donut Guy, who rides in or near York, I think?
• My new groupie
• Others I can’t think of now.

Anyways, I am more than happy to ride with anyone who doesn’t mind slowing down so I can keep up. Anyone who’s been reading bonius.com for long has probably seen my lethargic average speeds of 10-12mph. (Less if I’m riding the studded tires). I frequently get off to push up hills, and if we pass a coffee place, I’m stopping for a cappuchino.

My legs are shot for some reason. I crawled home in some nice weather.
As promised, here are the pictures for todayThis is what Shiremanstown looked like this morning. I think this was the intersection Green and Spruce St.

Here is a shot of my Diamondback, all tricked out for Winter commuting.

I found a bike rack in the parking garage at work!

One of the pain-in-the-butt things about winter commuting is that It’s usually warmer in the afternoon than it is in the morning, so you need room in your bag to store not only your office attire, but also all your spare insulation. This is where the Carradice Longflap is really handy, You can overstuff the bag by quite a lot.

I just though this was an interesting picture. It almost looks like it was retouched with a ‘warp’ effect, but it wasn’t.

Elapsed Time: 00:18:13
Max Speed: 18.9mph
Average Speed: 7.6mph
Distance: 2.31 miles

Since I can’t ride the trainer except at lunch, and since the plan calls for rides that take more than 1 hour, it looks like I am back to getting my rides in before work. No problem. I had every intention of doing my 10 mile figure 8 commute today. We got a lot of snow last night, but I expected everything to be cleaned up by 5:00.No such luck, some of the roads looked like they hadn’t even been plowed. It is an interesting feeling when your front tire starts sliding sideways at 15mph.

There was a pick-up truck who seemed afraid to pass me, and followed me for about half a mile. He eventually did pass me, but I caught up to him at a red light, and he rolled down his window and stuck out his head. I was expecting the redneck tirade about how I shouldn’t be on the roads, etc. He just said “Man, you got bigger balls than I do,” and he drove off.

Since I was running way early, I took all the side streets and plowed through 8″ of fresh powder. Fresh snow looks pretty cool when you have a white LED blinkie on your bike. It’s all sparkly. When I finally got to work, I rode around exploring the parking garage, and I found a bike rack! Now I have a safe place to park my bike out of the weather! Huzzah!

I also took some pictures, I’ll try to get them posted tonight…I forgot my USB cable.

Elapsed Time: 00:25:37
Max Speed: 20.8mph
Average Speed: 6.0mph
Distance: 2.58 miles

Oh yeah, for all you .mil and .gov people I see in my httpd logs every time I use this word….

That’s 2.58 miles of JIHAD!