There is a chance I’ll be typing this with nobody reading it (which hopefully isn’t typically the case!) due to continuing overloads on the server hosting this blog. But I’m hopefully that we’re getting closer to finding a semi-permanent solution for keeping things on-line.
Tuesday, Feb 25th– Felt better than expected, after having missed the opportunity to ride Sunday, when I was returning from “Frostbike”, a supplier’s trade show, in Minneapolis. Hung with the faster guys longer than expected and ended up 27:30 at the top of Kings, not bad for this time of year (for me, anyway). Kevin (my son, not the pilot) was lagging behind a bit, suffering from having missed far too many rides lately, some due to being sick, and a few because I wasn’t around to get him going (like Sunday, when he was home and “had to clean up his room”, which I figure he spent about 2 hours on, but somehow kept him from riding at any time during the day).
Thursday (today!), Feb 27th- My first “real time” entry since the troubles with our web host began. As expected, time for the rain bikes to come out. Wet out there, but nothing close to epic, only light rain and a bit of wind here & there. Kevin, Kevin & JR joined me for the ride up Kings through the park. Slow? You bet it was slow! Almost 35 minutes slow! Several stops for taking jackets off, putting them back on, and Kevin (the pilot) needing to get rid of his Diet Coke rental. Yes, even in the morning, he’s into Diet Coke.
Interesting clouds across the coast, which I could show you except that I can’t, since images still aren’t coming across here. One of the coolest encounters was hearing, and then seeing, two large hawks circling overhead, in extremely-close proximity to each other. It was like watching very skilled cyclists maneuvering and drafting at high speed.
Running a bit behind schedule we encountered different traffic than usual, surprisingly much heavier than the norm. Not just more traffic, but also “peskier” in terms of willingness to stay behind and wait until straight sections of the road to pass. As nearly everyone on the road knows it well, commuting it on a regular (likely daily) basis, it’s always seemed odd that they don’t know better than to wait a quarter mile to pass where it’s safer. The risk isn’t to us; we don’t need all that much road. Rather, it’s to those in the cars, passing on blind corners, playing percentage games that there won’t be oncoming traffic.
Hopefully the weather report is accurate and I can leave the rain bike at home on Sunday and get out on a nice ride on a fast bike! Really need to, because I’m off to DC for bicycle lobbying efforts Monday-Thursday, meaning that I miss two rides. Hopefully my son won’t be sitting at home Tuesday & Thursday morning; he certainly won’t be able to use the excuse that he’d been cleaning his room. 🙂 –Mike–
Well, those blind corner passes do put the cyclists at risk as well. Whether the passing cars do end up in a dreaded head on collision, which you could easily become a part of, or they are forced to swerve back into your path potentially squeezing you off the road.
And I should add there is a risk that a car is making a blind pass in the opposite direction. I had one very close call descending Kings a while back. You do not want to be face to face with a car as you clear a hairpin turn. Scary stuff.