Bicycle 300 miles in October

It’s getting too dark if I leave work after 5:00 PM to ride home northbound on West Lake Samm. I’m probably condemned to East Lake Samm until March.

October layers…
To meeting in downtown Redmond:
quick-dry t
plaid flannel shirt
fleece vest
jacket
(note: City of Redmond has done a good job with signage off of the Sammamish River Trail)

From meeting to work, mid-day:
quick-dry t
plaid flannel shirt

From work to home, after 5:00
jacket, shed after 5 miles
quick-dry t

We don’t get very good color here in the fall – it’s isn’t like when I lived in upstate New York. But we get a little bit – mostly from big leaf and vine maples. As I came up 212th this morning, the big leaf maples were all turning, and it was quite pretty.

On the way home, my husband, “Jackrabbit” Levine, rode up to my office and we rode most of the way home together. He wanted to go up Bel Red, a steady 5% grade, while I wanted to do the stair step of multi-deity hill. So we split off for the final miles. He got home a hair before I did – just the difference of waiting for a traffic light.

This is the time of year the blinkie batteries go dead. Yeah, the blinkie looked fine when I did my first pass of winterization, but the batteries quickly faded after a few evenings of riding.

Also, after soaking my feet on Monday, I realize I need to put the fender back on over the front wheel. I already yanked it off of the tandem – I just need to put it on my single.

You can tell it’s late October – in the mid 30s for the ride in, mid-60s for the ride home.

If I didn’t have to had ridden for mental health reasons, I probably would have driven a car. It was pretty cold and pretty wet. But I’ve become increasingly aware of how important riding is to my mental health and state of consciousness. It’s one of those things I want to explore further.

Also – pretty cool – maples all turning and weighed down with rain, made a golden tunnel to ride through on the Mercer Island trail.

First spin with David on the tandem since…July!

So, I ride to work. When I get my bike at the end of the day, the rear tire is flat again.

Feh! Feh! Feh!

I had several flats on the way to work, in the rain. I had such difficulty getting the tire on and off, I broke one of my tire irons. I got in an hour late. Feh.

On the way home, I stopped by Veloce Velo and bought a new tire. Since I had already put the tire on the bike several times that day, I decided to live the luxurious life and pay them to mount it, with a fresh tube. And then, what the heck, I bought a brand-new bike computer and had them slap that on there, too. Oh, and I bought some replacement tire irons.

By the time I left the shop, it was doing a classic Northwest type rain. It’s like the wettest possible mist you can imagine. The raindrops don’t fall, they sort of hang, but there’s so many of them, you get soaked through.

Kinda cool to have a bike computer again. I can see how fast I go. Whee!

Rode to my class on Monday, and then into work on Wednesday.

Today, I had a meeting in town, so I did the bike/bus thing to the park-and-ride, and then zipped up to Lower Queen Anne. All that pedaling up to the Plateau has paid off. Even with a full pannier, I made it to the P/R in a sprightly 25 minutes.

After the meeting, I made a couple of stops. First, I dropped off my proxy card with the old personnel dept., who nagged me about not turning it in when I finished up in May. Then I stopped off at the Bicycle Alliance office, to turn in an auction item. Finally, I made a stop at Working Dog Cycles and bought a couple of spare tubes.

After all of that, it was a sparklingly clear and breezy ride home. Really gorgeous cycling weather. And you know? Because I now have a ‘burb to ‘burb commute, I really miss bikie culture. Riding in town just puts me in proximity with other cyclists, other people riding to make deliveries and get places. I do see a few other cyclists on my way to work, but it’s pretty rare. It’s much nicer to be where other people on bikes are.

Enough loafing – time to get some things done around here…!

I rode to Salmon Days in downtown Issaquah. This sort of event is ideal to bicycle to, even with the crappy weather – there’s no parking to speak of and traffic is horrific.

I put my bike over at the REI bicycle parking, and got a free mini-tune by the wrenches there.

Then, at the American Family Insurance booth, I picked up a free plastic rain cape. They got their exposure value from me – I wore it all the way home.