Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Bike Commute 2011 - Day 12

Book Idea - I had an good idea yesterday for a non-fiction book.  Well, it seemed like a good idea to me. 

I started thinking that it would be cool to build a trailer and ride pole to pole on a bicycle.  Then I thought it could work to eat one hot meal a day.  That evolved into eating it at McDonald's, and then the idea to use McDonald's as a logistical base and then to the idea of a sort of opposite Supersize Me, where because you choose healthy meals at McDonald's and you are exercising all the time you actually lose weight and/or maintain it. 

Then I thought it might be hard to find McDonald's on the polar ice cap, the jungles of the Amazon basin and down in Terra Del Feugo.  So the final morph of the idea was to bike across the US.  I could call it, Coast to Coast on McDonald's.

I believe that most if not all McDonald's are free WiFi hotspots so you could write and do all your computer stuff there too.

Somebody willing to try it?  I'm kinda busy with the wife and kids etc.

IN - Hardcore! It rained on me the whole way in. Okay, it was only like two notches above mist, but it was the whole way.

I looked out the window when I woke up and it was cloudy, but no rain. I looked up the weather on-line and it said cloudy with only a 25% chance of rain. It was supposed to rain when I was at work. It was about 51o so I planned on not wearing my jacket. When I opened the garage door I was surprised to see that the van was wet, but I couldn't see any rain. I put my hand out and sure enough the mist was actually falling, rain.

I put my jacket on and wrapped up my stuff tight. I was mainly concerned about kick up wetness. The wind was slight out of the NNE, but since the air temp was so warm it actually was more comfortable than yesterday. I got to work not exactly dripping. There are actually parts of my bike, my shorts and my jacket that are dry. I do feel like a nice hot cup of coffee though.

Oh, and I still made it in under 40 minutes.

It definitely feels like I'm dragging though. I had to sprint to make the light at St. Mary's and I just couldn't get it to go, even when I stood up. I thought it might be the rain or even my rear tire going flat, but it wasn't the tire.

I wonder if anyone else feels a drag when the pavement is wet?


HOME - I rode home in my work clothes, but without my jacket on. It was the same temperature as the ride in, but the "rain" was dialed down two notches to mist. It wasn't falling and the ground was drying, but I could feel it as I rode through it, as if the rain drops were hanging in the air. It was probably over 95% humidity.
 
I never talk about smells, and I think I should. A few days ago it smelled a lot like summer. Today the smell was damped by, well, the dampness. There were three smells that struck me, wood burning, good; cigar, good; and bus, not good. Why is it that some burning smells are nice and others aren't?
 
This was the second time I rode past a bike standing on the trail with no sign of the rider. These aren't abandoned bikes left to rust to death. I don't know what that's about.
 
Speaking of which, the train was sitting, waiting again.
 
Speaking of rust; I don't know if you can see it in the photo, but my bell is starting to rust ever so slightly. That's interesting since I NEVER leave my bike out. Not when I'm at work, not when I'm at home, never. So the only time the bell has gotten wet is when I'm riding the bike, and I must have ridden in the rain and wet enough that it's rusting. That is hardcore.

My Bell bell, see the rust there on the left?

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