Biking in snow is not so good without letting some air out of your tires first... I took a good fall last week on Tuesday when we had some fresh powder on the ground and I was a little over-confident. At least I was only a couple of blocks from home and could walk my bike and pride back. I ended up with a nice lump of snow/ice frozen around my cleats by the time I got back.

After nursing a sore wrist for a week, I finally got back in the saddle on this Tuesday and caught some great weather in the evening. It hit something like 10°C and the sun came out (a rather nice day for January). It was my first ride in a while without windbreaker pants/jacket.

Hopefully I can ramp up the amount of rides I'm doing each week and get back to my prime of 4-5 days out of 5.

Slogging through the cold weather of November and December… Not too bad today as it’s clear and relatively warm, without much wind. Trying to keep up a log of rides is a little tougher when I’m only doing 2-3 days a week. (If that!)

Still recovering from my birthday last weekend… Thanks Tree. :-P


Well, time to brave the weather. See ya on the streets.

Woo, made it through October pretty consistently. 309km total riding to and from work. And it was damn cold this morning!

Work and being a daddy are taking up most of my time these days, overwhelming any aspirations I might have had to get my butt out to the Cyclocross races. Oh well… Looks like fun, but I'll be on the sidelines for a while still.

Gears, wheels and peo ple
Cars, Bi cy cles share the road
All mov ing as one

I survived the September Bike Commute Challenge. I managed to ride 70% of the possible days for a total of 266km. Trying to beat this in October and keep going through the rain/cold…

My company as a whole logged over 1700km!

On my most recent bike trip home, I encountered a peculiar driver... He decided that even though he was 3 cars back at a red light, he would pull to the right side of the road (single lane, bike lane, no parking strip). I contemplated sitting behind him, but instead pulled up to his left, where there was about a meter between him and the center line. His window was rolled down, so I took the opportunity to tell him how I felt in a humorous way, "You know, I don't think you car quite fits in that [bike] lane..." He said something to the effect of, "I'm making a right turn and didn't want to cut anyone off." I laughed. This didn't really make any sense nor explain blocking the bike lane to make a right that was already obstructed by three cars ahead of him. On cue he said something about how he, 'wished that more bikers would come out against Critical Mass'. While I do feel some ambiguity about CM myself, I support their right to peaceful and lawful protest. It's about getting people sharing the road, out of unnecessary car trip, and safe above all, right!? Also WTF does CM have to do with driving ignorantly?

BikePortland.org » Blog Archive » Wanted: your close calls:
SE Steele and about 44th
2006/08/14 about 7:15am

While riding westbound, taking the lane and easliy keeping pace with traffic ahead, a silver/blue early 90’s model Camry or Accord (I think) started to pass me while I was in the lane. My position was approximately in the right tire position of auto traffic.

While the silver car held position to my left (straddling the dotted center line) for about 5 seconds, the car in front signalled and pulled to the curb. I do not fault this driver, and I was able to safely stop behind them on the shoulder and wait out a long line of traffic that had piled up behind a TriMet bus.

Of all streets I ride on my commute to the Lloyd Center area from the Holgate/Foster crossing area, Steele is consistently a problem despite being a bike boulevard. The route is wide, lightly travelled, with sporadic parking on-street, a dotted center line but no bike lane.

• The approximate position of the incident