Your mom would stick a fork right into daddy's shoulder.

Commuting (by bike) during the winter and commuting during the other three seasons are two entirely different things. In Pittsburgh, anyway. For now, let's just talk about the commute in to work.

Commuting during Spring, Summer, or Fall is like a little vacation before arriving to work. You get ready for work, you get on the bike, you head out. In most cases, you're wearing shorts, and some form of shirt on top that might be sleeveless, short-sleeved, or long-sleeved. If it's really chilly, maybe you have knee warmers and an extra layer on top. Gloves with fingers, definitely. Oh, and a helmet, of course.

You (and by you, I mean me) fly down the Southside Trail at about 20-21 mph, zip over the Hot Metal Bridge, and continue down the Eliza Furnace (aka Jail) Trail, also somewhere above or near 20 mph. The entire 11.5 mile ride, including all of the various holdups as you make your way through town, takes 33 or 34 minutes, so you average close to 20 mph for the whole thing (thanks to the first few miles where you're flying down West Run Rd and Forest Ave between 25-33 mph).

33 minutes is probably pretty close to the amount of time it would take to drive in to work. Sure, you have to take a shower once you get there, but you'd have had to spend extra time taking the shower before you left for work anyway. It all evens out, at least in terms of time spent getting to work.

Winter commuting is a little bit different. You get ready for work. This is more of an involved process involving:

• tights
  
• socks
  
• shoes
  
• neoprene shoe covers
  
• wind pants
  
• top base layer
  
• top long sleeve shirt
  
• top windproof shell
  
• balaclava
  
• glove liners
  
• gloves
  
• helmet (with liner)

Once that's all taken care of, you hop on the bike (equipped with studded tires for icy/snowy conditions) and hit the road. The studs are great for handling the Southside Trail, which apparently doesn't get touched by any city crews, but man, that snow and ice sure do slow you down. Instead of moving at 20 mph, it's more like 15-16 mph.

The switchbacks on the Hot Metal Bridge are sheets of ice, too. I'm not sure why they can't send someone over to salt that bridge. It's pretty heavily travelled by pedestrian as well as bike traffic. The Jail Trail is in much better shape for some reason, but the resistance from the tires (and some nice wind) still helps to keep speeds down. By the time you get to work, you're looking at 44:37 in riding time. Altogether, with traffic stops and other slowdowns, it takes close to 50 minutes.

It's still better than driving. Driving might get you there a little more quickly, but then you have to sit on the road with everyone else, and hope that they know how to deal with a few snowflakes. You have to worry about what sort of construction someone will have started this morning. You have to wait for the car to warm up long enough for the heat to come on. You don't worry about heat on the bike. You just make your own.

Biking and... hockey?

Well, I have an appointment on the 13th to have someone take a look at my left knee. I hope they can see something obvious and tell me what easy steps I need to perform in order to continue with pain-free, long-distance cycling.

Yesterday was mostly pain-free. I only did about 21 miles, and stayed away from any crazy hills. Except for Greenwood over in Morningside. I only rode up that street because I was pretty close to my friend's house, and that was the only way I knew to get there from where I was.

The commute to work this morning was good, too. I was surprised at how warm it was (upper 30's, maybe?). I probably could have done without the studded tires today, but I was thinking it would be colder, and I was a little worried about ice on the trails. There's still some potential for that this evening on the way home, I guess.

I bought a new battery for the wireless sensor of my bike computer. The whole thing had been acting up lately. It would work for awhile and then just stop recording. At the Icycle Bicycle, it kept track of 49 of my 56 miles. Yesterday it wouldn't register at all, and today it worked for the first .3 miles of my commute.

We'll see how it does on the way home. Of course, that will be with my light on full power because, as previously mentioned, having it on the flash mode also causes the computer to freak out. I really should just switch to the wired sensor. I'd have to worry about fewer batteries, and lights wouldn't interfere with anything.

First hockey class is tonight. It'll be great to get back out on the ice. We went to a public session at Schenley a few weeks ago, but that's not quite the same as being able to skate around with a stick and pucks. There were two goalies in the class last year. I hope we're as fortunate this year.

I apologize in advance for only ever talking about my bike.

The ride home last night went really well. No complaints from the left knee, although the right quad was a little noisy, but nothing like the knee had been earlier in the week. The quad provides a teeny bit of pain, the knee made it hard to even keep pedaling. I'll take the quad over the knee any day.

My friend Chris met me, and in a pleasant turn of events, he didn't have to call an ambulance or anything to pick me up on the way home. It was pretty nice. The hills through Schenley didn't feel anywhere near as bad as I thought they would. It's so good to start getting back into the swing of things.

I've been riding with some 700x23 tires this week, which I thought would feel faster since I've been riding 700x28s since I started riding a year and a half ago. The thing is, the 23s have a recommended pressure of 100 with a max of 110, whereas the 28s were 120. I've been keeping the 23s at about 105, and I just feel slower. I'm sure most of that is due to me not riding for a month and just generally getting out of shape, but I'm going to throw the 28s back on tonight and see if they feel faster/slower/any different at all.

No problems on the ride in this morning, either, except for one minor technical issue. I bought a new light the other day since it'll be dark on my way home starting next week, and I'd like to have a better view on dimly lit trails. Anyway, it seems that when I have the light in the blink mode, it interrupts the (wireless) signal from my computer down to the magnet on my fork. When the light is off, or on a steady beam, it seems fine.

I have a few options. I can try moving the light a little to the left to see if it's a proximity thing. Maybe I can move the computer a bit to the right, as well. I could also switch the data transmitter from the wireless thing to a wired setup. I already have the stuff at home, so that wouldn't be a big deal, but I really do like having fewer wires/cables.

Some would say I could just deal with the fact that I won't get data while I'm running the light on blink, but those people wouldn't know me very well. I'm pretty obsessive about knowing how long it took me to get somewhere and how fast I was going in the process.

I think I'll run over to REI at lunch today. I need a pair of liner gloves to go with the windstoppers I wear when it gets cold. The windstoppers are good, but even in the low 30s my fingers start getting numb. I'm going to need more once things start getting a little colder than that.

It looks like I'm going to be able to get 100 miles in for October by the end of today. I'm pretty happy about that since I wasn't allowed on a bike for the first 24 days and it rained all day on the 25th. It'll be interesting to see how November goes.

You may now return to your job.

Well, the follow-up appointment on Friday was fine. I'm free to do whatever, like riding my bike, driving, and going back to work. The latter is going to be rough. You get used to sitting around the house and not really having to do anything after a few weeks. I can't believe it's been over a month (only by a day, but still).

I told my doctor about the smell/taste thing, and he showed me a little plastic model of the brain, pointing out where the cranial nerve that controls my smell is located, and how it's pretty commonly damaged in these types of situations.

He also said that it could take up to a year, maybe two before my sense of smell comes back, if it comes back at all. See, depending on how bad stuff got smashed up at the front of my brain, my sense of smell might never come back. That is pretty crazy. I kinda hope it does. I'll keep you posted.

Back to riding my bike tomorrow, though.

Also.

With all this concussion stuff in mind, I really hope I get the green light on Friday. All I want to do is go ride my bike. What's so hilarious is that the weather's been gorgeous for the past four weeks while I haven't been allowed to ride, and it's supposed to start getting crappy on Saturday.

Hey wait. That's not hilarious. That sucks. Seriously.

Oh my stupid head.

On September 24th, I was in a bike wreck. I don't really have any recollection of any of it, and after the impact, I guess I was unconscious for ten minutes or so. I'm lucky that my friend was riding home from work with me that afternoon, and he was able to call the ambulance, and Heather, and all that stuff.

I ended up at Mercy, which is good, since that's where my mom works. I was there for less than 24 hours, with time split between the ER and I guess a neurology department. I had two CAT scans. I had a small hematoma on my front left lobe. I suffered a moderate concussion.

So they sent me home. Said no driving, no contact sports for the next three to four weeks. Didn't say anything about work. But since I missed more than three days of work in a row, I had to have the neurologist's office contact my work and let them know when I could come back to work.

Now, I can't go back to work until at least October 24th, since that's the earliest that I was able to schedule a follow-up with the neurologist. That means that I have to sign up for Short-Term Disability, which means I can't do any work, and I only get paid a percentage of my regular salary.

It pretty much sucks, as I pretty much feel fine now. Maybe not 100%, but at least 90%, I'd say. I'm sure I could put in work days without issue. The other suck is that I can't ride my bike until the checkup, most likely. It's going to be an entire month until I can ride my bike.

Don't get me wrong, not being able to drive hella sucks, and getting paid less and not being able to go into work when I know there's valid stuff that I can contribute also sucks. But all I can really think about is how I can't ride my bike.

The good thing is that it's at the shop at least until Thursday for a scheduled tune-up (with some extra attention since they know it was in a wreck). That means I can't even be tempted to hop on, which is probably a good thing.

The other weird thing about this whole deal is that my sense of taste seems to have taken a vacation. Seriously. I can't taste much of what I eat these days. I had cinammon wheat things for breakfast this morning. Couldn't taste the cinammon at all. We had spicy basil fried rice this evening. Couldn't really taste it at all. Crazy. I hope that comes back sometime soon. On the other hand, I guess I can be more adventurous with stuff.

The Wheels on the Bike Go Round and Round

It's been a pretty good summer for riding.

On June 1, I did a metric century at the 65 Roses Ride for Cystic Fibrosis. The next weekend, my friend Chris and I did the MS-150 (Cranberry, PA to Conneaut, OH). In August, I logged 755 miles, most of it just by commuting every day, and this past Sunday, my friend Jon and I rode an imperial century for the Western Pennsylvania Wheelmen's Fall Rally. All told, since I bought my new bike in May, I've put on 2643 miles, almost as much as I rode all of last year.

The best thing about last Sunday's ride is that even after 100 miles, my ass didn't hurt at all. That's a huge improvement over the MS-150, where I wanted to die every time I got back on my bike on the second day. So what changed? After I got back from the MS-150, I bought a new saddle. I also got some shorts that actually fit me. Man, what a difference.

I'm just sayin'.

La la la.

The ride in this morning was chilly. Windy, too. Quite a change from yesterday, when it was 66° and humid. I kinda liked yesterday. I don't mind the humidity so much, and it was nice to be able to ride in with just a short sleeve shirt. This morning I was back to a long sleeve with the windbreaker on top.

Still, I'm not going to actually complain about it. Sure it was 42°, but at least it wasn't raining. It was actually quite sunny, and the ride home tonight looks to be more sun, and probably cool. And most likely windy. It seems like it's been really windy this spring.

I said goodbye to an old (well, only a year old) friend yesterday. I dropped off my Sirrus at my friend Chris's house last night. He bought it from me to give to another friend of his as a housewarming/here's a bike now you can ride it kind of present. I felt a little bit bad about selling it. I put 3,000 miles on that bike in just over a year. It certainly did what it was supposed to do, and it did it well.

That said, I'm loving the Portland. I've put close to 400 miles on it already, and I've only had it since the beginning of the month. On Sunday (June 1) I'm doing the 62 mile Ride for 65 Roses at Settler's Cabin Park, and then the following weekend is the MS-150.

Speaking of the MS-150, if you haven't donated to someone else already, would you mind sponsoring me? Click Here. Many thanks!

Some things about the new bike.

Picked up the new bike on Thursday, and I've managed to put over 100 miles on it, thanks to round trips to work on Friday and today, as well as two rides over the weekend. Not bad. I rode it around Thursday night when I got home, too, but didn't have the computer set up yet, so I can't provide data for that ride. I'm really surprised that I went out without getting that in order first. That's not really like me.

So far it's doing really well, although there's a little clackity noise when I'm in the middle chain ring on the front. Some sort of chain tension issue? I'm wondering if the rear derailer needs to be adjusted or something. I'm going to stop at Pro Bike tomorrow on the way home from work and see what they think. I don't have a repair stand at home, so it's not really easy to try to reproduce and get an idea of what's happening.

It's definitely quicker on flats, and it climbs really well, too. I find I'm able to stay up in the third ring a lot more than I could on my Sirrus, and my average speed on flats is probably 1-1.5mph faster, which is pretty awesome. I've already taken three minutes off of my commute into work, which is mostly flat to gentle ascent (with a real nice downhill for the first few miles).

Anyway, yeah. I love it. I have no regrets about shelling out for it, and it looks like I have a buyer for the Sirrus, too, so I'll even get to recoup some of the cost pretty quickly. I still need to get my butt in gear and start listing some CDs on eBay to further offset the cost. I mean, it's not like it's unaffordable or anything. But those CDs have been sitting in a box in the basement for a long time, and this would be a really good excuse to actually try to get them out of the house in exchange for some cash.

Oh. Another thing about the bike: shifting is ridiculously smooth. And easy. Doesn't bother my thumb at all, which seems to be pretty much all healed anyway at this point.

np:NOFX:Bleeding Heart Disease