It’s a strange time of year in Minnesota, weather-wise. There’s enough sun high enough in the sky to warm things up pretty well during the mid-day. But there’s enough snow cover to reflect all that sunlight back into space, so nights still get pretty chilly – and it’s still a bit brisk when we get ready for work in the morning.
So for the next ten days or so we’ll be having highs pushing 30 during the day, but lows in the single-digits to barely over ten.
Which means that in the afternoon, I’m overwhelmed with the desire to start biking – and get bludgeoned in the morning by the idea that it’s probably be a really dumb idea for the time being.
That, and the roads in Saint Paul are atrocious this year. The city got behind the eight ball from the beginning; the Christmas ice/snow storm left most of the side streets as rutted and filling-jarring as andean goat paths.
Anyway. Soon. The goal for the year is to be back on the road by mid-March, to make up for the lousy biking last year, when a family commitment left me driving around the metro every morning all summer. While I did manage to bike a bit from September through November, and even squoze in a ride in early December, I never really got a rhythm going. The other goal? Get somewhere close to my 100-mile-a-week pace from 2008.
As soon as these freakin’ mornings warm up.
(NOTE: While this blog’s policy is to generally leave comments alone, all anti-biking comments will be mutilated for my own febrile amusement. There will be no further warnings).
I have been hitting the spin bike at the gym 5 days a week, training up to my first century ride the end of April.
St. Paul streets are really in poor shape this year. Where the sun/salt/plowing/traffic has cleared the road, there are 4 to 10 inch deep potholes all over, some running longitudinally with paving seams for 4 to 10 feet. Every time I drive over those, I decide to leave the bike inside a little longer.
I got out last Saturday. it was great!
Naa naa!!!! (sorry, I couldn’t resist)
*yawn* 😉
[MITCH ADDS – perilously close to being a candidate for mutilation…]
Hey Mitch, if you were hoping that AGW would have you in the saddle year round, you’re in for a dissapointment.
Have you seen the latest Climategate revelation?
The whole stinking scam is coming unraveled….
http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/158214
“Professor Phil Jones, who is at the centre of the “Climategate” affair, conceded that there has been no “statistically significant” rise in temperatures since 1995.”
“The admission comes as new research casts serious doubt on temperature records collected around the world and used to support the global warming theory.”
“Researchers said yesterday that warming recorded by weather stations was often caused by local factors rather than global change.”
“Yesterday it emerged that Professor Jones, whose raw data is crucial to the theory of climate change, had admitted he has trouble “keeping track” of the information.”
“Colleagues have expressed concern that the reason he has refused Freedom of Information requests for the data is that he has lost some of the crucial papers.”
“Professor Jones also conceded for the first time that the world may have been warmer in medieval times than now.”
I wonder if the disgraced Nobel committee will ask ALGORE to send his prize back?
I’ve been biking a lot through HVNP (Hawaii Volcanoes National Park) this month. Dryer weather than usual.
I do about an eight mile loop, from my place, through Volcano Village (three restaurants, two convenience stores), across the highway, up the Escape Road to Thurston Lava Tube, then along the edge of Kilauea Iki & Halemaumau craters & back home.
Most of the ride is along unpaved roads & hiking trails.
Temps about 60 deg., no bugs. I used to go all the way around Crater Rim Drive as well but they closed it to traffic about 18 mos. ago when Halemaumau began erupting.
This video gives you an idea of the terrain:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpSewKTCzSw
Come visit us in Hawaii! Spend your tourist dollars!
AHHH! The Thurston Lava Tube! Terry, you’re making me so damned nostalgic for the Big Island, I’m almost in tears.
Hah! Febrile bike riding amusement. Is there no limit to your liberal depravity?
No topic digression about Hawaii can be complete until the mamona Hawaiian sings like an angel.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ltAGuuru7Q
Swiftee wrote:
“Professor Jones also conceded for the first time that the world may have been warmer in medieval times than now.”
That is a key, if not the key to the Gorists’ chain of evidence that underlies the so-called consensus on anthropogenic warming. Atmospheric CO2 was much lower a thousand years ago than it is now. If global temps were warmer then, for that long a time (over a century), our current (or just completed) warming trend cannot be definitively traced to atmospheric CO2.
Scientists cannot accurately tell you n PPM atmospheric CO2 = global temperature of x.x deg. They’d love to be able to do that, but they can’t. The feedback is too complicated to model and they can’t determine it experimentally, for obvious reasons.
So they use statistics and historical records to correlate CO2 and global temps. If the MWP was real, good-bye correlation, and goodbye scientific consensus. The jig is up.
Bradda Iz! I remember that when he died they damn near declared a state day of mourning.
Nothing says “descendant of Hawaiian royalty” like death from dropsy.
Over a century? It was more than three centuries, Terry. Followed by a mini Ice Age.
They did declare a state day of mourning. Flags at half mast, lying in state in the state house….da works.
Will the Branch AlGoreans ’round here ever ‘fess up and admit MMGW is a hoax?
Come on peevee/deegee/stooj/flush/et al, just admit you were duped and that you tried to dupe others as well.
Yeah, Swiftee, Wikipedia says they gave Iz a state funeral. That was back in ’97. Being out here on a neighbor island I guess I missed all the fuss. I remember that he was ill for quite some time before he passed away.
Just to make Yoss more nostalgic, here’s last year’s male & female Merrie Monarch winners:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Afb3EtwB-GQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nupXxN1L0qo
Both our bikes are at Erik’s getting their spring tuneup. We’re getting very antsy.
On Climate change, I never was a rider on that band wagon, but its not surprising that it is easier to lump me in with all Left of Wellstonians. A quote from almost three years ago stated:
“”I am still one of those who think we should promote energy efficiency and conservation because it is the right thing to do, not necessarily spend time arguing whether Global Climate change is real, or just a cyclical weather pattern we are experiencing as our planet evolves. “” Centrisity, 4/2007
I consistently stand behind those comments
Yeah, Flush has GW figured out…but he takes his bicycle in for a “tuneup”.
Just another day for a scary smart liberal in the ‘reality based community’….pffft.
Bicycles are machines just as cars are, and, if they receive a level of preventative maintenance (i.e. tune-ups) will provide trouble free usage.
Brakes wear and either cable tension should be adjusted for the smaller pad size, or new pads installed. Chains wear, and periodically should be replaced. Seat posts should be periodically removed and lubed to prevent them from “welding” to the Seat tube. Tension on the shifter cables may need adjustment due to cable stretch.
Old lube infused with dirt should be removed from sprockets and chains and new, clean lubrication applied. Wheel bearings may need adjustment and/or repacking.
Tension on spokes may need to be adjusted. Wheels may need to be trued again.
Can someone do it all themselves? Probably. But choosing to pay someone else to get their hands dirty is not something worth ridicule. Nor is the idea of having a machine maintained.
Loren, it’s a bicycle. A screwdriver, a crescent wrench, a can of oil, a tube of grease, half an hour and you’re good to go.
When I was 10 years old, my brothers and I used to build our own bikes fer cryin’ out loud.
It’s sad that so few men can identify anything under the hoods of their cars today, but I’m sorry; the guy who takes his bicycle to the “garage” for a “tuneup” wears a sundress.
Even if he can identify AGW for a scam.
Swiftee,
While I can change the oil on my car, I generally choose to pay someone else to do it. While I have replaced brake pads on my car, I usually pay someone else to do it.
While I can and have sweat copper plumbing pipe, I generally choose to pay someone else to do it.
Same with the bike.
While I won’t get in the habit of defending Flash, if he wants to choose to pay someone to do that work, and do something else with his time…, it is not worthy of ridicule.
I sometimes make the same choice.
Whoa, flush, you are a partisan hack.
“not necessarily spend time arguing whether Global Climate change is real, “
Flush, MMGW is a HOAX!!!, but YOU want to tell us NOT to debate whether or not it is real?
If there was a bill that would forbid sundress wearing psudo-men Democrat POSs like you from owning a bicycle if they didn’t tune it up themselves and double your taxes would you oppose debating the issue?
You FAIL.
You still don’t have the guts to take a stand against the MMGW hoax. You partisan coward.
The only thing I ever took my motorcycle to the shop for was replacing the crank (damn AMF made in Wisconsin crap) and getting the wheels spoked. I never could get the hang of spoke-science.
Well I for one agree with Flash, we should promote energy efficiency and conservation because it is the right thing to do. It’s just common sense, and not a political position.
Flying a 747 to Copenhagen to lecture the world on the evils of carbon seems to contradict this logic.
I also agree with Loren. If I can afford it, I like to support local business by letting them change my oil.
The Bike was new last Spring, and the tuneup is free as part of the one year warranty/maintenance check. Otherwise, I tend to take care of most mechanical issue on my own. Still, every couple years I’ll have a professional give it the once over. My Wife’s Bike hasn’t been in the shop for 4 years, it was do for a $50 looksy. Up until then I have replaced pads, adjusted cables, packed bearings, and the like
Tom, you can pull your foot out of your mouth, now LOL
Mitch has been keeping his bike going for a long long time. I believe he told me that the there are few original parts at this point the frame being the main one, but I could be wrong.
Flash
I’ll leave the peddling to the stationary bike in my gym. But I’m really jonesing to get my Harleys back out on the roads. Darn these 5 – 6 month MN winters!
Tom, you can pull your foot out of your mouth, now LOL
Dude, you’re the one paying $50.00 to have some pimple faced 16 year old kid fix your bicycle for you. Maybe you meant to say you’d like me to take my foot out of your ass!!
HAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAhahahahahahahahahaahahahaaaaaaaaaa!
I am not paying anything, it is free, my Wife is paying a 30 something mechanic with 10-15 years experience in the fancy mutli deraliers to take a fine tooth comb through her 4 year old bike, and in the process stimulate the private sector with my hard earned public sector money LOL
A little oil, a little cable-tightening, and I”ll be on my way.
But Bun is wanting to bike to school this year, and her bike needs some work that’s above my pay grade. So it’s off to the shop in a week or two.