Well shit.

Seemed like a good idea to ride the bike this morning at least.

Hell, it's November in Chicago.  We all knew it couldn't stay nice forever.  But it would have been fun.

Current beer-scale: 8.1 and it's a short week. 

feeling kind of pointless

It's going to be a wet week, and things started off on that note this morning. At least I managed to get the dog out and back in before it really started pouring.


But now the office gets a view of my wet shorts clipped to the window as I try to get them dry enough to wear tonite. What do I care, I'm not hosting any meetings this morning.

Current beer-scale: 6.66

40 degrees? Seriously?

I got to work completely soaked for the fourth day in a row this morning, but this time it was due to a mild downpour vs sweltering temps. Not a bad ride in the persistent rain, but the forecasts are only calling for a high in the sixties after three days of 90+. Quite a change.

Also a change is having the car back, so we can head out tonite and pick up some small things to help us acclimate to the new place. Rye for me, blinds for her. Ah, marriage & adulthood.

Current beer-scale: 8.4

ETA: clothes still being wet and a nasty headwind make for an awful ride home tonite. That was just fucking brutal.

BTD 2011

The camera cord got packed away this weekend so more interesting pictures of the mall in front of Science & Industry swarming with riders and the hellish conditions in fog and rain are trapped on the camera for a while, but I can post this out of focus, too far away shot of a rental bike rack.

I actually saw a few people on these borrow bikes during the ride, which struck me as a brilliant idea. Especially after having my bike strapped to an suv and sprayed with I-80 juice the entire way into the city that morning. They might not be the funnest bikes or easy to go fast on, but renting a bike just outside of the starting area seems like a brilliant way to handle Bike the Drive.

Possibly more pictures to come, but they'll have to wait until after the wife and I close on our place tomorrow. And move a bunch of boxes, and then find everything I would need for the camera. So it will be a while. We've got stuff to do.

ETA: some shots from the ride. It was surprisingly crowded already at the first turn, we got started a little late. Still cool to see all those riders out.
Soldier Field in the fog/rain. I got a good action shot of my mustache near here too.

Current beer-scale: 8.8

it's a wide open road

Two rainy days and the path and streets have been relatively bike-free. Now if only they could be car-free, and my ideal morning would be complete.

I've caught myself reminding myself to slow down and take it easy a few times since getting clipped and it bugs me. I was the one wronged in that scenario, and yet it's me that has to watch out for other douches in their cars not stopping or turning on red. That's just how it goes on a bike. Especially in the rain.

But I don't have to worry about cars on the path, and Bike the Drive will hopefully help me shake the insecurities that have me riding feel a little uneasy lately. It's spring in Chicago, let's roll.

Current beer-scale: 8.8

wet wet wet

To avoid any headaches dealing with traffic in the rain this morning I decided to keep things simple and take the lakefront path. Other than the usual nonsense with the Fullerton LSD entrance I was feeling pretty smart until I made it to the Chicago underpass. There was city van in-front of the entrance and a guy in waders heading up the steps telling me the tunnel was flooded.

Ooops.

He said I could slog through if I wanted to, but the water went past his ankles when he stepped in and as wet as I already was, the idea of soaking my shoes didn't appeal to me. So my ride got extended a little as I went down to Grand and took the tunnel over to McClurg. I cut through Northwestern to get back to Chicago and finished up just a few minutes behind schedule. Not too bad. Now I have coffee, and I'm happy playing out the string until I can go home this afternoon. Hopefully my shoes are dry by then.

Current beer-scale: 6.6

Remember that time I got hit by lightning?

We laughed and laughed...

I've ridden in some ridiculous shit before. Chicago can get difficult and I try not to complain too much b/c I'm the one choosing to get on a bike instead of a train. Today was one of those days, where a light rain turned into a complete downpour and I kept going anyway. At one point by the lake lightning hit so close I saw a red flash along with the white. The accompanying thunder was so loud I thought it was cracking right over me. Good times. Still better than snow.


WGN had the temperature at 61 degrees when I got out of bed this morning so I was riding no matter what conditions were like. I had been thinking about switching to Frankenbike for a while now and the light rain pushed me over the edge. It's in surprisingly ride-able shape these days. I put some fixation session 23's on for winter hoping they would have enough tread even though they're real skinny. The gearing is a little suspect; bigger than a stock single speed but not even close to as big a ratio as I usually ride on the pilot. Which is good, b/c stopping is always a good idea and even taking it easy I felt like I was spinning away the entire ride. I forgot to put toe-clips on this weekend, how do you just 'forget' something like that? Definitely something to fix in the next day or two. As long as I get through the next day or two.

Thank god this is a short week. Bring on turkey and a few days off.

Current beer-scale: 3.9

As craptastic as the ride into work was this morning, there was a glimmer of hope in the sun that was trying to crack through the clouds out over the lake. You could see it if you squinted away from the rain that showed up unannounced and really looked for it.

I'd have shot a pic, but a phone upgrade suddenly made me apprehensive about shoving a new phone into the black hole that is my bag before a ride. Hopefully I can get a case that gives me enough confidence to at least have a phone on me, but that might be it for the one-handed travel shots for now. That phone is fucking complicated.

Bears-Packers in less than 10 hours. No sweat, I can make it.

Current beer-scale: 7.8 and still floating after too many bbq beers Saturday. Had to ignore the beatdown Stanford layed on ND somehow.

Grind it out

It's easy to enjoy a ride in the rain when you're the only person out there, or at least the only person on a bike. It might be a little more tempting to slap some car windows when people can't seem to stay out of the bike lane though.

When I got into work this morning and was drying off, I was struck by a strong memory from college. For a couple of semesters, we had "dress up humpday" every Wednesday. It's pretty self-explanatory, but the idea was to dress up on Wednesday since it was the nipple of the week. There was a weekly newsletter and everything.

Tying my tie this morning, it struck me how much fun that was and made me wonder why it kind of fell off eventually. Everything does I guess, but I wish I could muster the same enthusiasm for my daily office attire that I had for weekly formal attire at college. It's all I can do to stop myself from breaking out the Blues Brothers "mission from god" tie.
Current beer-scale: 4.9 & climbing towards tomorrow night's college football games!

I managed to make it into work in one piece this morning, even thought ahead and put my work clothes in a separate bag so they stayed dry. Of course, I nearly dumped a pot of coffee on myself once I was dressed. Good times.

I remembered why I liked biking in the rain this morning.
There were a handful of other people out, and one guy even said good morning. Even covered in grime and rain it was a good start to the day, but I can't shake this nagging cloud in the back of my mind. I don't know why. It's been there since last night. Maybe I should have had another beer.

Current beer-scale: 3.8

Hit the road

How best to take your mind off a job search? Take an extra day off, and instead of stewing, hit the the road for a few hours. 20 miles minimum. 30 is better. Bad weather could be a positive too, at least for a while.

So that's what I did today. Hoping for the break in rain that Conrad was talking about this morning on wgn to come through, I hit the lakefront trail around noon and headed south for about as long as I could handle.

I wasn't in a huge rush, but I did have an end point in mind and I wanted to see how long it would take to get there. The rain wasn't quite breaking when I hoped it would, but it wasn't terrible out. It was down to sprinkles by the time I was winding around the Shedd.

Considering I was out there to get my mind off things, it didn't really help that nearly all I could think about was "I'm getting my mind off the job search" for nearly the entire ride. Even in the rain, into the wind. Oh well. Considering I was biking by some of the places I'd like to find work at, and ending up at my number two choice right now, telling myself I was getting my mind off things was probably good enough. Long rides= good, poorly planned or not.

The sun did start to come out as I got to the south side, and after about 45 minutes it turned pretty nice out. For a while at least. There was some blue in the sky around the mid-2000's.

Eventually I got as far south as MSI at 5700 south. Thank god for the occasional street marking painted on the path too, b/c around the 3000's the blocks started to blend a little. The cool thing about going that far south though is that when you're far enough out of the city, everyone out there has respect for everyone else out there with them. I got more smiles and nods from people running or biking in the other direction on this one ride than I've gotten all year just in the neighborhood. It put me in a better mood.
The south side beaches helped with that as well. After getting down there, I took a minute to sit down at the 57th St. beach house. This was a big change from taking the dog to Montrose earlier in the morning, where in between sprinkles we were walking through goose turds and running after seagulls. Or at least she was; she loves goose turds.

Of course, turning around gave me a clearer picture of just how far south I was. Holy crap the city seemed far away, even back up in the 4000's. A fat man could get awfully skinny doing this 5 times a week. I was worried w/o a zoom this picture wouldn't look good, but it's a decent depiction of just how far south I was.

Eventually, I got back into more frequently traversed territory and the rest of the ride wrapped itself up pretty quickly. I was turning off lincoln and zooming down webster before I knew what happened.

It was a good ride but it had its share of nostalgic moments too. One positive I'm taking from the job search is the chance to maybe work downtown again or better yet, even further south. I miss the long rides downtown but there are parts I don't miss, especially around Navy Pier. The squeeze over the river was never fun, and the rain pouring off of upper LSD/Wacker didn't help on the way out. At least it was empty on the way back.

Of course, when you've got a dog like mine, you never know what you're coming home to. Today, it was this. A minor hiccup--she barely bothered to raise her head off the couch in acknowledgement when I asked her about this. I can't say that I blame her. She had a hard morning what with all the goose turds.

Current beer-scale: a mellow 6.1

**grunting inaudibly**

Whoever thought up the idea for an all-day bachelor party was either a genius or a masochist. Probabaly both. Yes if I any sense I would have made today a sick day but I don't so here I am typing away at work, where even the sound of keys clacking is making little sparks go off behind my eyes. At least I smell like a drowned rat after riding in the rain and having my bag spring a leak right over the clothes I brought to change into. Awesome.

I can't complain though, b/c I brought this on myself and had a tivo'd ND game to watch as I tried not to pass out too early. Even if it wasn't at a tailgate, any day I've got an excuse to be drinking out of a flask at 9 AM is a good one.

Current beer-scale: 1.1 (all-time historic low)

where'd everybody go?

What the hell people? There's a little rain in the forecast and you pack it up for the day?

...

You know what? I shouldn't say anything. Let's pretend this never happened and maybe it will happen again.

Current beer-scale: 3.2. A couple post-loss rounds at Castaways did wonders.

I love riding in the rain. As long as it's warm enough, there isn't a rain that really bothers me too much to ride. My bike's crap anyway, so it's not like it's doing any significant damage. It's even more fun sometimes to see rain clouds coming and try to race them home, but if the rain's already started it's almost as good. My favorite ride ever was one from downtown last spring. Clouds were forming over the lake and as soon as I left the office it started to thunder. Racing down the path by Oak Street beach, lightning was flashing. The rain started by the time I hit Fullerton, but that frantic race down the path was a blast. Nothing quite that exciting this morning, but still a good summer morning ride.

The apartment search is on hold, which is good b/c the bike test-riding can resume. In the end, it sounds a little easier to stay and put up with loud neighbors than spend the next month packing with our fingers crossed that we can find a suitable place in time. Plus, I didn't want to buy another bike just to have it add to the things we had to move. Now that we're not, maybe I can pick something up if I like the ride in the next few weeks.

Woo hoo.

Current beer-scale: 7.4

As long as I've cleaned & lubed my chain recently, I actually quite like riding home in the rain. So yesterday afternoon wasn't the end of the world, especially considering I could have just waited another 15 minutes and missed the whole thing, instead of leaving early to get rained on the entire time. Oh well. Just like you've got to expect more bikers to start showing up this time of year, you also better get used to the idea of getting wet every now and then.

I was even getting my hopes up for more rain today, but it seems to have cleared up to the point where it's not likely. Too bad. I like when it rains because I stay on the bike path versus cutting through the neighborhood, and with less people out I can open it up and just go. Even in shit conditions, wind, rain, cold, being able to just bike is one of the purest forms of fun you can have and it's a lot easier to do when you're not going around busses or trying to obey the street signs. The worse the weather, the better the ride.