Cycle Ti Thunder

I added another set of seasonal lights to my bike this weekend.  Monday was my first ride with them.  What I discovered when riding down really dark country roads is that the lights help me see where my water bottle cage is when I am trying to put it back in the cage while riding.

In my rush to get home before it gets dark and my battery dies I had to stop and capture this image.  As a photographer I am always amazed at the changing seasons, light and atmosphere.  Here is SW Georgia when the humidity is so high and the temperatures change during the colder months there is a dramatic effect on rivers and swampy areas of the landscape. When I am on my bike I can stop anywhere I like and take a picture.   This bridge is on one of the busiest streets in Albany. When I got off of my bike I am sure motorist thought I was nuts.  the shoulder is really wide on the bridge so it was safe to be taking pictures.  Large tractor trailer trucks were passing and the concrete bridge bounced under their passing weight.

Today I rode 80 miles with 50 miles of headwinds. My rule of thumb is that if there are winds blowing when I choose a route I always choose riding into the headwinds on the first part of the route.  Today's route was chosen my the Pecan City Pedlaers  (PCP)  ride coordinator and we rode with the tail wind first. Usually on a PCP club ride I try to keep with the group as long as I can.  During this ride I stayed with the group all the way to Morgan and a few miles past the small town.  At about mile 32 as we turned into the wind is where I decided that if I was going to ride another 50 miles that I would have to slow down and back off of the 19-21 MPH pace and do my own thing. I am pleased with my progress as a rider this past year.  I have been using the club rides as a means of increasing my cycling abilities so that I can ride faster and longer.  I was glad that today I could stay with the group for 30 miles and I did not feel stressed out or ...

This morning I went through a typical conversation with me and myself.  The idea of being able to create your possible future is both daunting and exciting at times.  Most of the time I am able to expand my world to what is possible. When I went to bed on Thursday, I was thinking "one more day of riding my bike to work, yuck".  The alarm that I set for 5 AM went off Friday morning and I got up and turned it off.  My first thoughts were to go back to bed and call in to work and take a sick day.  My next thought was to make a cup of coffee and sit in front of my computer and read Google+ stuff and watch Tech news on YouTube.  It was at that point that I knew that the only thing to do was to immediately put my bicycle clothes on and get on my bike and ride to work. My friends and co-workers are amazed when they find out that I ride my bike to work several days a week.  Their minds are blown when I say that I ride 12, 25 or sometimes 50 miles one way o...

900 wipes from Sam's Club for about $17 Some of my hard core bike commuting friends in the Bike Commuter Cabal have converted me to shower-less bike commuting.  I have always had a rule that I could not bike commute unless I had a place to take a shower.  I was recently told by the facilities management team where I work that they no longer wanted to maintain the shower in the building where I store and change clothes.  This building is an old residence hall and is slated for demolition. For the past three days I have taken some advice and instead of showering after my ride to work I am using baby wipes to get the perspiration off of my skin. Small pouches that can be re-sealed So far things are working out OK.  I have made some changes in my bike route to work so I am not adding to the perspiration issue.  I am not taking my long 25 to 50 mile morning commutes, but I have chosen to take my 12 mile rout to work in the mornings.  It is also late f...

Today it was 72 degrees at 6 AM as I prepared to ride to work.  I knew that the Weather channel was forecasting thunder showers in the area about 9 AM so I knew that I should expect some rain.  I started out without taking a jacket but I had my arm warmers in my pocket. This was my maiden voyage on my new Cobb seat.  I have been riding a used Specialized seat since 1999 so it was time for a replacement.  I purchased the seat from  Higher Ground bike shop right after my 100 mile ride last weekend.  I had been searching for a seat for a few months and I finally decided to go with a seat that I could purchase with a 30 return policy.  I am sure that this seat will work out, but I always want to have options. I took my short route to work which is about 12 miles. When I was 4 miles from my house it started raining really hard.  There was only a slight wind, but it was warm and as I got wetter and wetter it finally felt refreshing to get compl...

Spiz I have been talking a lot about Spiz.  At the rest stop  at mile 90 during the 2013 Spaghetti 100 where we took the photo I promised to post a link to the Spiz web site .  I learned about Spiz when I was doing ultra trail runs in Texas.  I learned that when you are doing an event that last over 4 hours you need to eat real food and not snacks or energy bars.  Running and cycling burn a tremendous amount of calories when you are doing ultra events. Read about Chet Blanton's experience with Spiz. Even if the estimated calories that my Garmin 810 recorded during the ride are not correct knowing that I burned about 7,280 calories on a ride makes me want to make sure that I have enough fuel to ride 100 miles.  On a 70+ mile ride I drink Spiz.   On the Spaghetti 100 I mixed three scoops of Spiz in a bottle and kept it in a pocket without water.  At the mile 48 rest stop I put water in it.  At mile 60 I drank it all. That was about 1,5...

Niterider Digital Headtrip I have been reading on my Google+ groups and talking to a lot of cyclist in my cycle club who have a fear or reluctance to ride after the sun goes down.  I am posting this on all of my cycle groups so that you all can get a good opinion on riding at night. All summer I ride most of my morning commute in darkness.  When daylight savings time ends I will start to ride most of my evening commute in darkness all winter. Riding in darkness has it's advantages and disadvantages.  I will discuss some of the best ways to optimize riding in the dark based on my experience.   Just this year alone as of this writing I have cycled 6,883 miles. Of that mileage I have bike commuted 4,768 miles. I estimate that almost half of the bike commuter miles was in darkness.  I have ridden my bike in the dark in California, Oregon, Texas and now Georgia.  Each time I have stopped riding for a year or two and I start up ag...

In September of 2012 I started bike commuting to work on a regular basis.  That was when the cotton was just about ready to be harvested here in SQ Georgia.  Well it is cotton harvest time again and I am glad that I have accomplished one of my goals and that was to bike commute for one year.  I had to invent a few games along the way to keep me inspired to keep cycling to work and taking pictures of the cotton fields on Eight Mile Road was one of the games.