Bicycling

After a crappy start to the year on riding our bike to work, today marked the 4th Friday in a row we have accomplished it. Because of our timing and the route we take it is normally a placid and enjoyable trip, but today we encountered not one, not two, but three inconsiderate or inattentive drivers that had our hearts racing a bit.

1) Less than 10 minutes into the ride to work some guy in a Suburban was in such a hurry that he couldn’t wait behind us for the last 50 yards to a stop sign that he passed us, taking up the entire left lane on a slightly curvy section to beat us to said sign. Of course we arrived at the sign at the same time with us in the right and correct lane and him taking up three quarters of the left and wrong lane. As we paused together, I looked over to my left, with my helmet mounted headlight and illuminated the bozo as he was looking back at me. We both had frowny faces on, I could see his, but mine was probably masked by the high powered LED light shining in his eyes. This can be a tricky and semi-busy intersection, but fortunately it was not at 5:40 AM or who knows what would have happened.

The second two occurred on the way home and within an 1/8 of mile of each other:

2) Passing through one of the neighborhoods some guy in a pickup truck made sure it was clear to one side of him and started backing out of his driveway very briskly without looking our way. I reached for the brakes about the time Donna shouted very loudly, “HEY!” He hit the brakes, stopped and said loudly, “What did you say?” I let off the brakes and Donna repeated, “Hey,” as we cruised on by. I don’t know if he ever looked in our direction or he did and didn’t see us, but before the loud shout he looked very much like he would back right into our path.

3) About the time we calmed back down from the pickup incident and were motoring along down a slight hill when an aging, paint peeling Toyota Camry misjudged our closing rate or didn’t see us at all and decided to make the left turn in front of us. Because I could see that they were angling to cut across the intersection and we were already a couple feet into our lane avoiding the rough patches along the right edge, to avoid smacking into the right front quarter panel at 15 MPH, I steered almost into the other lane so it wasn’t as close as it could have been.

Considering how uneventful our commute to work usually is and has been, I guess the law of averages caught up with us today. Thing of it was we thought for sure that we would even see less than the typical dozen or so cars today because we figured everyone would have already left town to get an early start on the Memorial Day weekend.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMcA-HGVo6o

We like to ride the tandem bicycle to work on Fridays. It sets a nice president for the weekend, kicks it off right.

It has been too cold or rainy on every Friday so far this year to commute to via bicycle. Ten weeks. And it is forecast to rain this coming Friday. Today’s weather on the other hand was to be sunny and about 15-20 degrees warmer than the average morning low of 41° and afternoon high of 66°.

We rode the tandem to work today.

Last Friday we rode the tandem to work. The weather forecast called for a 20% chance of afternoon thunder showers and when we mounted up to leave for the trip home, we thought we were in big trouble. Looking off to the southwest, our predominate direction of travel, the skies were dark black. Not only did it appear grim, but there was a fairly brisk breeze in our faces, AKA a dadblamed headwind that slowed our progress. But the further along on the ride we went the skies seem to lighten as we went. With less than a mile to go to home the gray skies had receded and we didn’t even come close to getting wet.

This Friday we rode the tandem to work and the weather forecast called for a 30% chance of afternoon thunder showers. After last weeks dodge we thought for sure we could do it again. Quitting time is 4:00 PM and right around 3:15 it started to rain lightly. I checked the Weather Channel’s radar and there was an ugly cell of thunder bearing down on us. About 3:30 it was pouring down, but the animation showed that it was a small, fast moving cell and I had my fingers crossed that it would pass by the time we got ready to go. Sure enough when Donna and I changed and started to load up the bike, the rain had stopped and the roads were starting to dry. We did get a little damp on the trip home from a couple of small puddles near work and a few damp spots on the roads near home.

Next week I’m betting we get soaked no matter what the forecast.