Well, just like last summer, this one looks to be nothing but bad air days as far as the eye can see.  And of course, on these days we’re all supposed to stay inside or drive around in our air conditioned cars, thereby creating MORE smog and continuing the downward spiral.  And in beautiful eastern Howard County, they’re happily building countless more new sprawl developments where you need a car to get anywhere.  Gotta love progress.  Sorry, I’m feeling cynical today.

I still ride my bike through the heat waves.  Most of the time, it’s not too bad.  Mornings are the best time of day to ride, but of course, as a bike commuter, I have to pay the piper and ride home in the late afternoon.  Around here, it usually hasn’t cooled off much by 5:00pm.  The key is taking it easy and staying hydrated.  My ride home is 8 miles.  Drinking lots of water during an 8-mile ride isn’t much help.  It’s essential to keep drinking during the day, leading up to the ride, to avoid getting dehydrated on the ride.  Then just take it slowly, pedal in a low gear, and take advantage of coasting when possible.  Air movement will provide a cooling effect, which makes cycling in hot weather more tolerable than other activities such as jogging.  So while it’s important to take it easy in the heat, you still have to go fast enough to get some cooling from the air.  It takes some practice to get the pacing down.  I have to re-acclimate myself to it every year around this time.  By July and August, it’s second nature.

With all the heat and lack of rain, the road bike has been my go-to bike lately.  After today’s ride, it’s only 2 slots off the leaderboard for most-used bike of the year, behind my mountain bike.  If the current weather patterns hold up through the summer, the road bike could build up a pretty healthy lead, though it’ll likely lose ground in the fall.  And hey, as hot as it is, my average ride-time temperature is still only 53°.  That would feel pretty darned nice this time of year…

Today is “Bike to Work Day” in central Maryland, so I did what I do pretty much every other day:  I biked to work.  Unfortunately there are no BtWD “rallies” anywhere near where I commute, so I didn’t register for the event, nor did I attend a rally.  My hope is that eventually, this will get popular enough that there will be more rallies in convenient spots.

Here’s the route I took:  starting on Montgomery Rd near Elkridge Elementary School, I headed westbound, and turned right to stay on Montgomery at the intersection with Marshallee Dr.  I rode out past Rockburn Elementary and turned right onto Rockburn Dr.  At the end of Rockburn Dr., I took a right back onto Montgomery, right on Kerger, and right on Ilchester.  I passed Ilchester Elementary and OLPH Church, turned left onto Beechwood, right on Bonnie Branch, left on Ilchester, and then hung a right onto the Grist Mill Trail and into Patapsco State Park.  I followed the trail to the end where it turns into Glen Artney Rd, followed that to the end, turned right onto Gun Rd, left onto the park entrance road, exited the park, and turned left onto South St in Relay.  I followed that to South Rolling Rd, turned right on Francis Ave, left on Selford Rd, right on Sulphur Spring Rd, left on Shelbourne Rd, left on Poplar Ave, and into UMBC.  I take this route fairly often, maybe once a week or so.  I saw a grand total of zero other riders until I got into the park.  I saw two people riding through the park, and passed another going the opposite direction on Selford.  Grand total:  3 riders, 1 male, 2 female.   Of those, I knew one, and 2 were obviously commuting, and the third I couldn’t tell.  On a typical (non-Bike-to-work-day) morning, I’ll see one or 2 riders, so today was about par for the course.  Not overwhelming, but not too surprising either, given the lack of events in the area.  Too bad we’re not in Baltimore City, which sounds like it’s going to be bike central today.

Next week is “Bike to Work Week” in Maryland, and the weather looks like a carbon copy of last year’s Bike to Work Week: rain as far as the eye can see.  With any luck, we’ll dry out by Friday, which is “Bike to Work Day.”  But unfortunately, it’s not the kind of weather that is going to inspire first-time bike commuters to hit the streets.

I’m not quite as enthused about “Bike to Work Day” this year as I was last, mainly due to the complete lack of rallies and events anywhere near me.  The Howard County rally is at Columbia Mall again, which is 10 miles in the opposite direction of work.  There’s one at Northrop Grumman, near BWI Airport, which could work for me if it wasn’t for employees only.  All of the Baltimore County events are north of the city, and the only AA County rally is in Annapolis.  I suppose I could organize a rally myself, but event planning is decidedly not my strong suit (although I’d be more than happy to get involved if someone were to step up to the plate).  I think an ideal location for a rally would be the BWI Airport business district (Airport Square), as there are a lot of office parks nearby, and the surrounding area is very bike friendly thanks to the trail that circles the airport.

I found myself in an uncommon situation this morning.  Normally I ride for about an hour to work each morning, taking various routes, and ultimately arriving at work between 8:30am and 9:00am.  It works out great because I typically don’t have meetings before 10am, which allows plenty of time to cool off, freshen up, change clothes, etc. after the ride.  Today, I had an 8:15am meeting at location a few miles from my office.  I had to get to my office by 7:30 to catch a shuttle bus to take me where I needed to go.  I left the house at 7:00am, took the most direct route to work possible, and went as fast as I could.  It ended up taking 27 minutes at an average of 16.6mph.  Not too bad given the hilly terrain, and the fact that I’m not race conditioned (or even anything resembling it).  It was a pretty nice ride, aided by the perfect mid-May weather.  Too bad it can’t be May or October all year long.

The ironic thing is that the site of the meeting was actually closer to my house than my office.  It’s actually right along one of my usual routes to work.  The problem is, I’m not really set up for commuting to anywhere but my office.  I don’t carry a lock regularly, and I store clean clothes and shoes in my office.  If I were to go directly to the meeting site, I’d need to carry a full change of clothes and a pair of shoes, find somewhere to change, and find somewhere safe to leave my bike, helmet, etc.  The logistics would be somewhat easier if I could commute in street clothes, but that’s kind of a non-starter for me because I just sweat too much.  So it ended up being easier to go to the office, change there, leave my bike there, and catch the shuttle bus.  It ended up working out OK, but I’m glad I don’t have to do it every day.

I changed things up a bit for my ride home yesterday.  I typically mix my routes up on my commute to work in the morning, but for the ride home, I take the same route every day.  It’s relatively fast, traffic is not too bad, and it gets me home right around dinner time, so I’ve never seen much point in messing with it.  However, part of my route home involves crossing a small bridge which is slated for replacement in the near future, which I may need to route around if it’s closed during the construction.  I have 2 options for bypassing this bridge:  the short way, which includes a brief detour on U.S. 1, and the long way, where I ride all the way through Patapsco State Park, up Bonnie Branch Rd, up Beechwood Rd, then down Landing Rd and left on Montgomery Rd.  I tried the long way yesterday, to see how it was.  Beechwood Rd. is a steeper climb than Lawyers Hill Rd., and I was on my single speed bike, which made it quite a workout.  It’s still easier than the alternative of going straight up Ilchester Rd., though.  Landing Rd. in the eastbound direction is not a very pleasant ride.  The pavement condition leaves a lot to be desired, there’s no shoulder at all, and there’s lots of traffic that time of day.  All in all, an OK ride, but wouldn’t be my first choice of routes.  An alternative would be to bypass Beechwood Rd. and take Bonnie Branch all the way up to Montgomery, and ride home on Montgomery.  That adds several left turns to the route, though, and there’s even more traffic on Montgomery than on Landing, although Montgomery likely has better pavement and shoulders in that direction.  I’ll have to try it and see, but I don’t think it’ll be too much of an improvement.

Another post-accident first for me today:  I rode Landing Road, which is where I wiped out back in February.  I have a rough idea where I crashed.  I was headed westbound (towards Ilchester Rd) just a bit shy of the entrance to Rockburn Branch Park.  There’s a downhill stretch in the area that curves to the right.  If there was black ice in the area, and I hit it while banking to my right, the front wheel would lose traction and I’d fall on my right side, with the bike falling to my left.  That’s pretty much what happened, though I had a concussion, so everything was a little hazy.  Suffice it to say that come winter, I’ll either be avoiding this area, or riding with studded tires and extreme caution.

So, a couple weeks ago I got a flat on my single-speed bike, which has a new rear rim and new wire-bead Bontrager “Hard Case” 700cx28 tires.  I gave myself a blister trying to get the tire back on the rim.  I tried to use a tire lever to help, and ended up poking a hole in the tube.  The tire lever didn’t help, anyhow: every time I’d pop part of the tire over the rim, an equal amount would come unseated on the opposite side.  It was an exercise in frustration.  So I ordered a couple of Kool Stop “Bead Jack” tools, hoping they’d help.  They arrived yesterday, and they made quick work of the tire.  No blisters, no punctured tubes, no swearing.  I used both tools to keep the bead from unseating itself, but I could probably have done it with one.  In any case, looks like I’ll need to carry one of these with me when I ride this bike.  As for the tool itself, it’s made in Holland, and it’s good quality, sturdy plastic.  The weak link is probably the hinge where the pivoting piece attaches to the shaft, so we’ll see how it holds up.  In any case, I’m hoping I don’t have to use it that often.

Yet another year going straight from Winter to Summer in Maryland.  The heat came on briefly in our house yesterday morning, and later today we may need to switch on the air conditioning.

I’m back to the routine today, following a week in Cape Hatteras, which is pretty high up on my list of “places I’d like to live after I retire.”  Didn’t do any biking there, but I did introduce myself to jogging barefoot on the beach, which to my surprise, I really enjoyed.  I used to run a lot in the past, but I haven’t done it regularly in recent years, partly because after awhile of doing it, I realized I just didn’t like it all that much.  I tried running on the beach a few times before, always with shoes, and didn’t like that much either.  To avoid getting the shoes wet, I had to run on drier, looser sand, which is somewhat akin to running through snow, and seemed like more work than fun.  This year it finally dawned on me to try it barefoot, and it was much nicer.  I actually found myself running farther than I had originally planned, because I didn’t want to stop.  I didn’t have to worry about getting my feet wet, and could actually run right through the surf.  The weather was perfect for running, which I’m sure was a contributing factor, but I could definitely get used to running on the beach like this.

Today it was back to biking, and I took my mountain bike, with fenders, because the roads were still wet from last night’s storms.  Today was my 5th or 6th ride with my new SPD pedals, and the first time riding them when it wasn’t raining.  My single speed road bike is still out of commission because I can’t get the rear tire mounted back on the rim.  I have 2 “Kool Stop Bead Jack” tools on order from Amazon, which I’m hoping will help me get the tire mounted without puncturing the tube, and without giving me a blister on my thumb.  I’m itching to get the single speed back into the riding rotation, so I’m hoping Amazon gets them to me soon, and that they work as advertised.

Lesson of the day (reiterated):  Just because there’s no green on the NWS radar, doesn’t mean it’s not raining.  This morning, instead of a steady rain, we had a persistent mist with a steady wind.  I’d take a downpour over the mist any day.  The mist is relentless, hits you everywhere (as opposed to just falling on top of you) and gets you 10 times wetter than a steady rain.  I arrived at work completely soaked.

This was my third ride on SPD pedals, and my third time riding them in the rain.  I like them so far, but the shoes I got to go with them are decidedly not waterproof, and unfortunately my existing neoprene shoe covers don’t fit over them.  I’m going to need to pick up a larger pair, because the mist completely soaked my shoes, and by the time I got to work, it was starting to work its way through my wool socks.  Advice of the day:  when your shoes get wet, stuff them with newspaper (or in my case, recycled paper towels) to dry them out faster.  I did this as soon as I arrived at work, and hopefully they’ll be dry in a couple of hours.

In addition to a set of shoe covers, I think I need to pick up a waterproof helmet cover.  Today I rode without a hood, and I kept wishing I had something to keep the rain off my helmet.

It has certainly been a damp April.  Hopefully we’ll start to dry out over the next few weeks