Happy Ho Ho Ho!

Dusting of snow and rain yesterday but the skies cleared off in the afternoon and the sun came out.  Sweet!  Dry that nasty shit off of the roads!

Alas, the sun didn’t last long enough and the moisture on the roadways froze up as soon as the sun went down (my driveway was a sheet of ice when I got home!)

Surprisingly, none of the towns put any salt down and there were plenty of slick spots on the way in this morning…in the Jeep.  L

The good news is the sun is shining brightly out there now and the roads look like they’re pretty clear.  The other good news is that I’ve got a half day at work today, so I’m going to knock out some last minute shopping and then head home to get a few miles on.  Merry Christmas to me!

And speaking of Christmas, I probably won’t be posting anything until after the holiday so here’s wishing all you troublemakers a happy and healthy holiday.  I’m back in the office on Monday for a little bit, then I’ve got the rest of the week off.  My liver is dreading what’s coming but he’s given up on trying to convince me to behave, so…yeah.

Merry Christmas!

Get Some Miles On!

Snowbanks and Solstices

I was able to ride in today.  The weather has been dry enough during the past couple of days to dry up most of the black ice that’s out there so I took a chance and it was worth it.  Even though I had to dismount and dig through two snowbanks to get here to work.  (There’s a shortcut I can use if I’m on two; it’s a small bike path that connects the back corner of the parking lot with a dead-end street, that runs down to the main drag to get here.  There are huge rocks in place to keep vehicles from passing, but the bike fits between them.)

The problem is that both the dead end street, and this place’s parking lot, utilize the access points to plow the snow up and out of the way.  In the wintertime, this often leaves me with having to use the back roads that cagers are relegated to using (to get from the main drag, to here), even if I’m on two.  The snowbanks are too high and solid to get through.

Today though, I took a chance and found that the snow banks were small enough that I was able to kick a path through one side of the dead-end street pile and ride around it, and then just get some speed up and plow through the bigger one that was blocking the parking lot.  (I got off the bike first and cleared some of the larger snow chunks out of the way.)

The weather had been saying clear and 40’s tomorrow but now they’re saying cold and about an inch of snow.  WTF.  An inch isn’t bad, but since the nights are getting so cold, even an inch of snow is making the roads slick as shit in the mornings so I’ll probably be back to the Jeep.  Drat.

Anyway, moving on…

As I’m sure man of you know, today is the Winter Solstice.  It officially marks the end of the Sun running away from us, and when he (she?) finally decides to head back up where he/she belongs; securely over our heads.

Today will be our shortest day  (I saw this morning that sunrise was @ 7:10 and sunset will be @ 4:15.  That’s barely over 9 hours of daylight!  No wonder the temps get so cold – our heat source is basically turned off for 63% of the day!

Thankfully, though, s/he’s heading back up toward us.  We wish s/he’d get a move on and be back up here in a few days, but that would mean we’d had some sort of tragic rotational tear and were probably about to die, so I guess we can wait it out.

Sure would be nice to be riding again, daily, though.

Ride Hard, Take Chances

RIP Dana

The years keep rolling by but it doesn’t make us think of you guys any less often.  You, Garv, Chuck, Gapper, Russ…that’s quite a crew assembling up there.  All the more for fun and rambunctiousness, I’m sure.

I hope you guys are hanging out, popping some cold ones, and getting some solid miles on.  A few of us are heading out to your neck of the woods in a little over a week.  I’ll stop by and say hello as usual.

Sure wish it was in person, though.

RIP Dana

Juicing the Goose

The stock battery that came with the bike has seen a lot of miles and a lot of cold starts.  These things take their toll after a while and I'd taken to carrying jumper cables in the saddle bags due to the number of times I hit the starter and wasn't sure if the resulting "kapop...kapop.......ka...pop.........." would kick over into a full start or not.

I'd swung by Cook's Cycle a week and a half ago to pick up a new battery but hadn't gotten around to installing it yet.  The starting became steadily harder each night and Friday when I was leaving work, it took long enough to catch that I'd been eyeing the parking lot for a familiar car to request a jump from.

Then this past Sunday came and brought a forecast of nastiness with it so I figured that would be the last gasp on the roadways for a while.  I contemplated just heading on out but knew that if we caught a break on the weather that allowed us to ride, I wouldn't want to be swapping the battery out at night, after work, in the dark, so I might as well suck it up and do it in the daylight.  So much easier!

It wasn't a hard process and soon I was cleaned up, tools away, ready to go.  I hit that starter and Ba-Bammo!  She fired up with Au-thor-i-tay!  Nice!!

Out and about on the roads, hitting some smaller side stuff, mixing in some highway where I could really rip things open..you know; the usual.

When it was time to head back, I rolled to the local food store for some supplies, packed things away and hit the starter.

BA-BAMMO!  Even more powerful than the first one!  (Jon keeps his batteries charged up but mine, between when he'd charged it last and then the time it sat in my garage, had drained a tiny bit and the crusing around had charged it back up to full capacity.)  Such a sweet sound to hear; hitting the button, and the bike ROARS to life without a moment's notice.  Such sweet music to the ears.

It's currenlty sitting on the tender in the garage, waiting for the next time we can go out and play.  The weather has been wet enough in the daylight and cold enough at night to ensure a fresh coat of black ice and salt on the pavement but that can only last so long...right...?

...like; into June?  :-O

Ride Hard, Take Chances

Hold the Salt!

There's been talk that this winter will be wetter than last year's and so far it seems that may prove out to be true.  We had more rain in November than in some time, and December is shaping up to be the same.  The problem with more liquid-from-the-sky is that with colder temps, the stuff tends to get real slick.

Yesterday we had some snow in the morning - nothing terrible and it wasn't even sticking to the roadways.  Despite this, Walpole (and many surrounding towns) were just heaving the salt down onto the roads.  What the hell?  This stuff is turning to rain in a few hours, so lighten up!  The roads aren't even slippery!

Sure enough, things changed over to rain and the roads were nice and clear.  Huzzah!

But oh yeah; we're in December, and that means colder temps.  Overnight, the mercury fell, the wet roads froze, and now we have another fresh layer of the crystalline chloride covering our causeways.  (How's that for alliteration!)

Unfortunately this means the bike is sitting in the garage, eagerly awaiting it's next venture out.  I had it out on Sunday morning and got some good miles on but I'm afraid that may have to hold me over for a bit.  Forecast is calling for more wintry mix tomorrow which I'm sure means more salt being dropped.

Meh.  Just more impetus for moving south I guess.

Ride Hard, Take Chances

Scrooge Wore A Santa Hat, Too

It’s December 1st so that means the Santa hat went onto the bike helmet last night, to be worn for the month of December.  (Gotta wait until at least the end of November – don’t want to rush things so soon after turkey day.)

Anyway, so the Santa hat is flying bright and I’m enjoying a leisurely ride in this morning.  Every now and then I remind myself not to forget that I’m wearing the cheerful/Christmas/happy-happy hat.  That means be nice to the other drivers; allow them their stupidity.

I tried.

I really did!

And I almost made it…

I was about a mile away from work, heading north, and sitting a few spots back at a red light.  The light goes green and we start moving forward…for about three houses.  Why did we stop?  Because a dipshit in the third driveway wanted to go south and instead of being polite and waiting for a break in traffic, they decided to put themselves ahead of everyone else and pulled out into our lane.  But there were no spaces in the south lane to pull in to; that lane is moving along pretty well.  This left our fuckwad friend with nowhere to go.  But they didn’t care that they were sitting there, blocking us from moving.  They just sat there and waited for someone in the south lane to slow down and let them in.  Thankfully someone eventually did and the goddamn dink moved out of our way and proceeded to pass us, acting as if nothing had happened.

As the stupid twat was coming up beside me, I saw them notice my bright red Santa hat, and they smiled at me, probably thinking some nice festive thoughts and how I must be a nice festive person.

So you can imagine their shock when I looked right at them and bellowed “YOU’RE - A - DICK!!” right at their face.

Oh well, the commute home is in an hour and that’ll give me another try at being nice.

Wish me luck.

Ride Hard, Take Chances