Dobovedo's Journal of Journeys

Today marked a number of Endings and, since most things are cyclical (pun intended), new beginnings.

Most obviously, it is the End of November, and I did manage to get myself over the hoped-for 600 mile mark for the month. Given a week+ off, that would have been an 800 mile month. Nice!

It was also the Final Day of QuickBooks at work. I’m going to expand on this in a seperate non-ride entry, but in short, my company is replacing our accounting (QuickBooks) and CRM (GoldMine) software with a hosted solution (NetSuite) that has to integrate with our Production system (website/database/phone system). This is what all the extra work and effort and stress of the last 4-5 months has been about – data cleanup, system design, and database integration. We have to exist in two worlds for a short time and that will present it’s own challenges, but today is the day that QuickBooks goes bye bye. SWEEEEEET! We outgrew it over a year ago.

Read more on Final Friday…

Every day lately I ride down the road, layer upon layer of winter gear, balaclava covering my face, lights and cords protruding from my already goofy looking helmet. People in cars give me strange looks and I know they’re thinking I must be cold, I must be crazy, why would I do such a thing? They assume I must be cold, outside on my bike, because they were cold, sitting there inside their cars.

Co-workers, even the ones who ride bikes, look at me when I arrive at the office each day and make shivering motions and say “brrrr. and ask me if I was cold… how can I do such a thing?

Read more on Who R Nuts?…

Finally managed to get back on the bonus commute miles routine today. The west wind was howling and when I got down onto the river through Troy it was just waaaaaay too fun to slow down and make the turn up to Market St. So I zipped around the rest of the path at what felt like a million miles an hour.
Right up until the moment I turned back into the wind. But by then I didn’t care. Fun stuff! I did the same thing on the way home. Left an hour early to ride in the sunlight. Turned south, instead of north, away from home. It only amounted to 28 miles, but it was 8 miles more.

As I pedaled along Dye Mill Rd., I thought about that magic moment where a commute becomes a ride. For me, it really isn’t about distance. There’s no specific number or line of demarcation. It’s more subtle than that. It’s about that one turn, that one thought, that quick decision you make at just the right time, to turn down a different road (or path), or to go straight where you’re “supposed” to turn, to just keep going beyond that moment, where you aren’t simply going from point A to point B.

Read more on To Commute or To RIDE……

Since it’s still November and I was riding to work in only upper 20s with wind chill in the teens, I got curious about the long range forecast for the winter. Things look to stay pretty much the way they are for the foreseeable future. Check this out – I highlighted the ‘good’ parts and one ‘bad’ part:

Read more on Warm(!) Winter Ahead?…

Today was a bit of a fun day. The ride itself was another basic 10.x miles each way commute. But the riding itself was fun for other reasons.

First of all, this morning was the first bona fide sub-freezing ride of the year. Since I only rode 10 miles I didn’t have a water bottle to freeze, but I did manage to freeze my face. I finally got around to trimming up my face, which I don’t do very often, being the lazy sod that I am.

Read more on ‘Tis the Season…

Ran a little scenario using remaining workdays, holidays and personal time. I am going to assume I will not be in the office between Christmas and New Years. Any days I have to work that week will be done remotely. Taking Christmas Eve as a floating holiday leaves the first three complete workweeks and the remaining three days of December as possible commute days.

I see no reason why I wouldn’t finish out this week on the bike. That means that out of the 15 December days I only need to ride 6, or 40%, to make my 80% goal. Given that I rode a higher percentage than that even in the cold nasty month of February (46%), I’d say I’ve got it made. I may even DRIVE out to the last Fred’s Ride on Friday, especially if I don’t have the helmet light cord by then.

Read more on Commute Math…

Pretty basic ride today. I’ve been up late a lot lately and slept longer than I had wanted, so I ended up being in a hurry to get to work. No time to enjoy the abundant sunshine by stretching out the ride, which is too bad; I don’t think I’ve ridden under clear skies yet this month. It was windy and cold but I was actually a tad overdressed, figuring it’d be dark and just as cold on the return.

I brought in the non-functioning cable/switch from the Alias helmet light. Figured I’d pull the switch apart and see if it was fixable. Unfortunately the switch is more than a simple on/off deal and actually has a small circuit board with capacitors. I had figured that if it wasn’t fixable, I could just cut out the switch and wire the cord straight together, sans switch. The capacitors suggested I’d probably overload the lamp, so I didn’t try it. A new connector is on the way so in the meantime I’ll ride with the handlebar light only.

Read more on Windy & Cold & Rushed…

Call it a cursed road or a haunted road, but one of the things about Stalely’s reputation is that your vehicle can have electrical problems, lights going out, etc. And tonight I actually had it happen to me.

Now, the real truth of the matter is that I didn’t charge my battery after my most recent commute home last week, but it was very eerie to have the light go out just after I crested the climb at the beginning of Staley! And the shorted out cord on the helmet light had finally given out before I ever got out of Troy. 2 lights and both dead. Yikes! I naturally kept going down Staley rather than go back to ‘brighter’ roads, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Read more on The Staley Rd. Curse…

An insanely busy holiday weekend is nearly over, and it’s time to return to the Cruise Reviews. Next up in the series is our first port of call, Barbados.

Sunrise

Read more on Cruise: 11/05 – Barbados…

Today (writing this on Friday after Thanksgiving) was supposed to be the TLL 100 II – aka Triple Lindy Loops II – a century ride constructed of all three Fred’s Ride loops plus a couple warmup loops to get the mileage.

Since I ended up needing to work today, I could not to do the TLL. I also couldn’t do it last weekend, as previously written. Nor could I do it on Tuesday when it was in the mid-60s. That left the remainder of this weekend and I didn’t like that idea either. So instead I ended up riding the full 100 miles on Thanksgiving.

Read more on Thankful 100…

Today’s morning commute was one that just kept going, and going, and going.

First of all, when I started getting ready and checked the weather, it was only 55 and very damp. I put on knee warmers and a jacket, opting to put arm warmers and other extra gear into my pockets since I didn’t know what the evening would bring. Rain was very likely, but what would the temperature do?

By the time I was ready to walk out the door with the bike, it was 63. An 8 degree jump in about 30 minutes. Needless to say, I shed the jacket and knee warmers. Instead, I went with simple shorts/jersey and packed everything into the pockets. They were a little overstuffed, but I still didn’t trust the temps to stay above 60. And, November rain is November rain no matter what the thermometer says.

Read more on Decisions…

Figures that on the warmest day of November I end up breaking my streak and driving to work.

It took three reasons on the same day to convince me to do it:

1. Pick up the laptop at the bakery and take it to work to install software and configure.
2. Stop at the store and load up on lunch supplies
3. Take clothes and shoes to the office

Read more on 3 Excuses = 1 Drive…