Hints of Spring

It's spring, and it's awesome outside.

Over the past few days it's been going back and fourth between pouring rain and warm sunshine, which has caused everything to bloom and made my little rides such a treat.

Does the garden match the bike...or does the bike match the garden?

Because I've been busy lately (more on that later) I've been mostly doing errand running and short trips on the bike as opposed to long rides.  It's been about two weeks since my last "real" ride, but I like the different feel of short trips and getting to see more of my neighborhood when I jaunt all over the place.

After I got home and snagged some photos of my garden with my bike, I was greeted by goodies from Anvil! 

The Phrunt Shui on a seasonally appropriate throw. 

This is the Phrunt Shui, which will be used for brazing disc brake tabs to forks.  My next two frames are being built with disc brakes, so this little guy will help me quite a bit.  My current rear dropouts have the tab built in, but eventually I will invest in the Feng Shui too.

And you'll probably think I'm nuts for being inside on a day like this, but I was doing some work while enjoying this lovely view...

Don't Walk - Ride!

I've been trying to better myself as a cyclist by stepping outside of my comfort zone and doing more workouts than can benefit me, so I took a sports conditioning class that nearly killed me.  That's why I was doing wrenching on this particular day instead of riding, as I couldn't make it up the stairs to get to my bike clothes anyway.  

All of the boring stuff that I've been dealing with is finally coming together.  After running around dealing with laws, licenses, phone calls, and lots of keeping my fingers crossed, there's really only one last thing to do - which is happening tomorrow.  

Not an April Fool's joke, I promise.  

"Snow"

I keep seeing all of these awesome looking wintry adventures on fat bikes, and admittedly, I'm pretty jealous.  

While I don't have any real snow to go riding through, I was greeted by a different sort of white covered ground on a ride this weekend.

If you squint it kinda looks like it could be snow.

Not only was the ground covered in petals, any sudden gust of wind made it seem like a blizzard was coming through.  It was very pretty, and only lasts for a short time each year, so I was glad to get out and enjoy it! 

I'm still trying to see if there's a way I could get up to Tahoe for the weekend to actually get a legitimate fat bike experience before the season is over.  It just looks like so much fun! 

Sunset Jaunt

I went out for a ride and managed to catch a pretty amazing sunset through a break in the rain.  It was pouring down for quite a while, so I had the bay all to myself.

Since this is the path that I commute on, you might think it would get old to ride it again on the weekends, but when I get to go out on a slow jaunt and really explore, it's a completely different experience.  

Looking towards the East Bay.

You can just barely make out Oakland in the background.

Wildlife observation path leading all the way out to the bay.  A bit muddy, but lots of fun.

I rode out further as the clouds were really starting to move away.  

At one of the many observation points along the bay. 

A short but sweet ride amid the utter craziness as of late!

Stay Frosty

Winter commuting has officially begun!

Icy conditions ahead.

I know for many of you this hardly counts as winter, but when everything is frosty and icy in the mornings and I get to bundle up in my cold weather gear, it does feel a bit like a winter wonderland.

The ice has caused its fair share of accidents (I often stop this time of year to help riders that have wiped out on one of the two bridges that I cross on my commute) but most riders around here are experienced enough to know to be cautious.  Dangerous though it may be, I love the way the ice looks and always enjoy seeing a layer of it collecting on my tires. 

The tracks of the riders coming off of the bridge.  Cold doesn't stop most people from riding around here.

It's in the high twenties when I leave and the low thirties when I arrive, so I get to see the world frozen on my entire ride to work.  Frost on the ground and autumn leaves still clinging to a few trees...what an awesome time of year. 

Grey Monday Commute

Slight drizzle right now, and they're saying *maybe* thunderstorms!  I love gloomy summer days.  

My Tires Are Melting

Generally any temperature above eighty degrees renders me completely useless.

DO NOT WANT

Nonetheless, I can never go more than a few days without riding or tinkering with something, and since the heat was keeping me off the bike I tackled a headset problem that timeshare bike was having.

I do wonder what color that saddle was originally.

For those of you not familiar with Zakat, my timeshare bike, understand that the frame is of unknown origin and uses standards that no other place in the world seems to use, specifically the headset.  Its fork was borked beyond repair when I got it, which required me to replace it, and when I tried to replace the headset I discovered that nope, nothing else fits it.  Literally nothing.  Believe me, I tried.  So I ended up fudging together a headset out of a few other headsets (I've been informed that I am going to hell for this, I know) which is not something I recommend.  Seeing as this was a beater put together with spare parts to ride around my ultra hot hometown and I'm not racing anything with it, I opted to take my chances.  So far I haven't died.

Anyway, the headset was rattling, and the cure was another spacer.  Once the night cooled off to a refreshing 100 degrees at 10 PM (kill me) I hunkered down in the garage to add the spacer.

Boom.  Easy.

About a minute later I was done and also drenched in eight gallons of sweat.  A bit of tweaking and the rattle had stopped, everything was fixed, and I was good to go.  

I love these handlebars.

Since I had everything out I did a few more tweaks here and there and checked everything with the intention of going on a night ride, but it was still too hot to even breathe.  I've ridden through storms, wind, pit bulls and Los Angeles, so it takes a lot for me to not ride...this is just too much.  

Here's to hoping the weather stops being stupid relatively soon.