A long ago promised update

This post regards my milege project.
For a recap -- I am tracking the miles per week that I drive my car. Anne and I share a car, so it is the total miles we drive together or seperately. I would like, on that account, to divide all of the numbers herein by two. That, however, would be disingenous as the fact is that I drive more than Anne does. I will leave the numbers unaltered, please bear in mind that these totals are for two people.
These numbers have been tracked for a 20 week period from September 21 to Feburary 15.

Overall total miles driven: 2843.6
Gallons of gas burned: 142
Amount spent on gasoline (Approx) $400
Overall miles per week: 135.4 or 19.34 miles per day.
Miles per week when I worked at TC (the job I quit in October partially because of the long commute) 180.23 Or 25.75 per day.
Post quitting TC avg. 127 or 18 miles per day.
Post quitting TC on weeks we did not drive out of town 69.8 miles per week or 9.98 per day.

These are very interesting numbers to me. I expected the overall total to be lower, and I expected more of a difference between the TC and post TC driving. We did take more than the usual number of out of town trips during the past 20 weeks, betweenthe holidays (two 400+ mile weeks to visit relatives in Iowa) and not working weekends for the first time in years. I'm a little distressed by my non-trip miles of nearly 10 per day. I recognize that that includes the winter, and I have hardly biked anywhere in a couple months, but that still seems high. Must resolve to not drive more. My goal is to have a 0 mile week this spring. Ideally more than one.

Some working definitions
Out of town trip means any trip past the 270 belt or outside the greater Metro east I'm not splitting hairs with this one, pretty well all the trips have been Columbia or Kirksville.

A week is defined as from Sunday morning when I reset the odometer to the next Sunday morning when I reset it again It includes all of the miles my car is driven in that week, weather it is myself, my wife, or borrowed. (I don't think I lent the car out in that time)

I only worked at TC for three weeks of this project, so the numbers will reflect that only figuring lightly into the overall averages.

New (ish) project for me.

I have launched a new project this fall. I have been keeping a log of my driving miles. With an eye to reducing my overall time in a car, and the amount of gas I use, I thought this seemed like a good first step.

I started a couple of weeks before I left TC, as a control as it were.

I dont' have the log here with me tonight, so actual numbers will have to wait.

bad drivers

Something somewhat refreshing happened to me today.
Some jerk yelled stupid things at me from his car. I don't really mind, I hope that he recovers from his road rage and feels bad. Maybe even that he grows up a little. Jerks yelling from their cars has never bothered me much when I'm on my bike. I dunno why, but they don't.

He was not even the jerkiest person to yell at me ever, or the most random. That goes to the guy in the old T-bird who yelled "get on the sidewalk you faggot!" at me one day as I was heading up a hill. I wasn't in his way or anything. I mean, top that.

Okay, I've dwelled on this jerk long enough. I'm done.

If you've got anything choice that someone has yelled, I'd like to hear about it.

bike to work day=Fail.

:(
I totally failed to ride in to work today. I saw a few commuters, but not me.

"why, oh, why didn't you ride your bike to work today, of all days?" you may ask. Well, I say, I had a decent excuse.
My commuting bike was at work already, so I couldn't very well ride it in.

Anne and I had the day off yesterday, so we went to Columbia to visit some friends Wednesday night, and spent some time wandering our old stomping grounds yesterday. I rode in to work Wednesday, then Anne picked me up so we could fly straight to "college town, USA" asap.
The original plan had been to spend a couple days bike touring and camping in the Columbia region, but it transpired that I would have to work on Friday. So, the plan morphed into taking a ride around Columbia on Thursday. Then it was going to be cold and rain on Thursday, so we wound up at the last minute not even taking our bikes with us to spare them the sitting out in the rain and not being ridden they would have been subjected to.

So, in the end, Stupid.

Hopefully, you managed to bike to work today, doing a better job of it than I.

Oh my god, Yes!

I am continuing to get my commuting operations suitably adjusted. I am commonly displeased at the amount of stuff it seems to involve buying. I don't like buying things. On the other hand, every day I drive in to work, the ostensible (but slightly outdated) $0.50 per mile that it costs to run a car would cost me ~$18 to get there and back. The train tickets cost me $4 round trip, so I'm saving $14 every time I ride in. I'm sure that's not quite accurate, because I'm putting wear on my bike, clothing, probably eating more, etc. On the other hand, I would much rather give my money to TC or Quality Bicycle products or Local Harvest Grocery than Exxon-Mobile, or Ford. But I digress. I was posting to talk about the spiff new stuff I'm using.


First, I finally got around to getting some SPD pedals and some mountain shoes last week. These are cycling shoes with a metal cleat on the bottom that clips into your pedals. It's like toe-clips, but much, much better. It is in fact, Awesome. The shoes are comfy, and don't have laces to get caught. They are velcro shoes, but I'll forgive them that because it's for a good reason. Don't let that dissuade you, they are totally awesome! My coworkers have been telling me for months and months that clipless pedals are the best possible way to go, and now I believe them 100% (I still don't like road shoes, though)

A nice thing about these shoes is that they're well designed to vent air in between your toes so you don't get so sweaty. My feet sweat a lot when I'm wearing shoes, because I don't when I can help it. So this will usually be a great feature. The downside, is, not surprisingly, that they will blow air in between your toes all the damn time. These days it seems that, no matter how nice it's supposed to be during the day, it's 35 deg. out when I leave for work. This means that my toes first sweat, then the frigid air blows on them, then they go numb. Brrr! The first day this happened, last week, As I was riding, worrying a bit about the condition of my toes, I thought to myself, "self, all you really need is some sort of plastic barrier to stop the wind. Perhaps a cheap plastic bag of some sort, you had better use that on the way home" Within 10 minutes of arriving at work, as I was massaging the life and blood back into my toes, one of my co-workers asked me if I was familiar with "The bread-bag trick" It seems I am not the first clever fellow with cold toes. Stu!

The second point, I finally got around to buying a thermos that I can use for commuting. I have a green Stanley thermos, which is the bestest thermos ever, it will keep coffee too hot to drink for 8 hours. Unfortunately, it is fairly big and fairly heavy. Not perfect for backpacking or bike commuting. My former co-worker, Chris, had a very cool REI thermos which was smaller and lighter than mine, in fact, designed for backpacking.
So, this morning, I pulled in, stopped sweating, warmed up (yes, I know, but that's how it works) changed, then? I had a piping hot cup of joe! Kick ass! There is a coffee maker here at work, but I'm the only coffee drinker, and I won't make it just for myself. Also, I like milk in my coffee, and it's too much trouble to keep milk in the fridge at work. On the other hand, the little REI thermos is perfect for a couple cups of coffee, where I can add whatever I want at home.

Really, few things in life beat a nice hot cup of coffee after a cold ride. Really, it's as good as a cold beer after a hot ride.

Bikes and rain!

The weather is improving, the birds are singing, the gears are turning.
I've been getting my bicycle commute dialed in at the new store. I had it pretty well figured out nearly a year ago, but then I spent most of the intervening year working in other stores.

I managed to ride one and a half times last week in between the days of raining. On Friday, it was splendid. I got off the train early, took an extraneous lap of Forest park, then stopped at Vitale's bakery for some bread to take to my in-laws on Sunday. It was really good. (both the ride and the bread)

Tonight we are going over to an unusual location for nerd-night. Normally, this would mean organizing such that I could pick Anne up on the way. It turns out that my friend Ed lives very near Midland Drive. Huh! That's only about 6-7 miles from the store! I thought I might ride to work, then just ride to Ed's. Then I looked at the forecast. 90% chance for heavy thunderstorms this afternoon Esp around 3-5. When I would be riding. Damn! I don't really mind a little rain, but I'm not really up to plotting a new course in a downpour.
It occurred to me belatedly that I could have ridden up, then had Anne pick me up from work if it was raining hard. but, by then it was too late. Oh, well. Maybe next time.

I hope it's nice the next day I get off earlier than the now usual 8:00. I might ride home on Midland/Delmar. It's like 17-18 miles. Maybe I'll have the road bike dialed in, and it will be a good day for that.

Unending rain!

Well, for an update; I drove to work last Wednesday, then it did Not rain on Thursday. Anne and I went on a lovely ride, going many places. Among others, we went to the Delmar loop, and stopped to get bubble tea!
I loves me some bubble tea.

...
Unfortunately, it has rained pretty much since then. Bleh!
I find it to be pretty difficult to get organized to go bike commuting to work when I know it's raining before I leave. :P That means I've been driving more than I like this week.

Also, this week we go to summer hours here at lovely TC. That means a return of the 10 hour days I love so much. So much. Or not. bleah. 10 hour days.

bike commuting and a conundrum.

I managed to bike up to work yesterday. I took the metro part way, but that's fine, and nice. It's supposed to be really nice today, and I want to bike in again. On the downside, I really want to barbecue tonight. If I bike to work, it will get me home too late do cook out in the light. I could either barbecue tomorrow or go on a ride, but it is probably going to rain. Oh, what to do?

Busy Busy Busy!

My family is coming for Christmas tomorrow!
Yay! I can hardly wait to see them. I haven't really gotten to see Amanda in quite a while.
So, I've been very busy. Not much to report; cooking, cleaning, and wrapping.

I didn't manage the 3 out of four days commuting last week, only two. This week between being very busy and Very cold days, I've only managed a couple days, also. Though, I rode in today, and it was good.
The weather was really nice today, so nice that I under-dressed. brr. This is the first winter I've bicycled much, and I'm trying to figure out a good balance of clothing at various temps. I think it will take a lot of trial and error.

this mornings commute

I was delayed this morning by first a flat tire, then by a freight train. The flat tire was not mine, but I wanted to stick around a few minutes to help Anne change her tire.
To be clear, she is perfectly competent at changing a bike tire, and did it just fine herself, I was only around for moral support.
The freight train was more of an adventure than the flat tire ever hoped to be.
I was stopped on McCausland, and there' s no easy way around when you're on a bike, so I waited. The train went more and more slowly, and finally stopped. Ugh! I could see the end, and my impatience defeated my better judgment, I thought I'd just go around. There was a nice path on each side of the tracks, after all. After becoming very muddy, nearly wiping out on the semi-frozen tire ruts, and making it nearly to the end of the train, it started moving again. D'oh!
I headed straight back to the road, and made it back only shortly after I would have managed to cross had I just waited. Except for the covered in mud bit. Thank god I've got fenders!

So, the moral of the story?
Don't be a dumbass. be patient instead.

In other news, last week was the first week of my new resolve at commuting. I rode in two of five days. This week, I hope to ride three out of four days. I need new shoes, my toes were cold this morning. Brr.

Back in the saddle!

To quote Laminator_X, that is.
Today was my first day at the store location which is a reasonable distance from my house. More to the point, the new store is not located in an area which can be reached without putting my life into the hands of west county duchebags in 8 ton SUVs they can barely control.

I was on a pretty good program back when I worked in Bridgeton, and I was doing allright when I could get a ride with Wendy (I would bike to her place) Unfortunately, I just never worked up to biking out to Ballwin. I'm not going to make an excuse now, I just didn't.

On the other hand, I biked into work today. I hope to do a lot more of that in the future. Go my team, getting off on the right foot! I think it's about 4 miles each way. The next time I'm driving in, I will try to drive my bike route and clock it.

It went well, but something should happen differently with my shoes. My toes got wet and very cold. brr.

Bicycle commuting

I took my first bicycle commuting trip yesterday!
In the interest of not knowing how long it would take, and being on time to work, I got a ride out to work, then biked back after.
It's over 20 miles to work, so it's outside my abilities to bicycle all the way. On the other hand, there is a metro (the St. Louis light rail) station an easy ride from our house, then it's five miles from the end of the line to work. That's pretty do-able for me. It took me ~90 minutes to get home last night, but was pretty fun. It's too bad it takes so much longer. I would like to do it all the time, but the drive is only about 30 min. The savings via public transit are significant, though. The Metro pass would cost me $60/month, and the not driving 40 miles/day would save me about half the gas I burn, which would be about $20-25/week. Or, if you use the old equation for 32.5 cents per mile, it's $292.50 per month to drive a 40 mile round trip to work five times a week. Wow! That's a lot of savings. The difference in cost there would buy you a new commuting bicycle EVERY MONTH.
I think if I stick with it, I'll be able to shave my initial five mile ride down to taking less time, and possibly catch an earlier train. I'm going to try to stick with this, do my part towards using less oil, and save myself some money.

Maybe we'll be able to make our old van last a while longer after all.

So in short, "Yay, my team!"