Today is my last bike commute of 2011.  I’ll finish up with 154 rides, 20 fewer than 2010, but 10 more than 2009.  May and June were my most prolific months of the year, with 17 rides each month.  As usual, February was least prolific, with only 4 rides this year.  I rode 11 times in December, which beat both 2010 and 2009, and also 2008 if you don’t count 2 rides to UMBC I took during the holiday break and recorded as commutes.

I rode my 2 road bikes most of the time this year.  Both were tied with 60 rides each (actually, the Giant gets the slight edge with 60.5, due to a one-way commute back at the end of June).  The Rockhopper was a distant third with 34, with most of those coming in January-March.

With the long holiday break looming and its probable lack of rides (I always have good intentions, but the rides never seem to materialize) I wanted to take a slightly longer ride this morning.  I rode down Lawyers Hill Rd and through Patapsco State Park on the Grist Mill Trail, then left on Ilchester and right on Bonnie Branch.  I followed Bonnie Branch its entire length and turned right onto Montgomery, right on Baugher Farm, and right on New Cut.  I took New Cut into Ellicott City, turned right on Frederick, right on River, left on Thistle, and right back onto Frederick.  I followed Frederick about a mile towards Catonsville, turned right on Seminole, left on Idlewilde, right on Montrose, left back onto Idlewilde, right on Hilton, left on McCurley, left on Newburg, right on Pullen, right on Mellor, right on Montemar, left on Bloomsbury, right on Asylum, through Spring Grove, left on Valley, right on Wilkens, and finally left onto Walker into UMBC.  Total distance was about 18 miles.  I’d ridden all these roads before, but never this exact route, and it had been a long time (well over a year) since I rode through that particular area of Catonsville.  It’s not a bad route, with two long climbs (Bonnie Branch and Thistle Rd up to Seminole).  There are two potential bad traffic spots:  the light at Frederick and Rolling (where it’s necessary to take the lane because there’s no shoulder) and the intersection of Newburg and Rolling, where you have to cross Rolling to continue straight on Newburg.  However, traffic wasn’t bad this morning, and I may try riding through here a little more often to see what it’s like on different days.  I’m always looking for longer routes that don’t require long rides on Montgomery Rd.

Well, that about does it for 2011.  See you in 2012.  We’ll see what the new year has in store for riding.

So, it finally felt a little wintry this morning.  It was 35° out when I left the house at around 7:50am.  We got a lot of rain yesterday evening, and I’m told there were a few flakes mixed in, though by dawn, there was no evidence of snow anywhere.  In a true shocker, schools weren’t even delayed.  All the same, I trotted out the mountain bike with the studded tires this morning.  The only really slick spots on my commute this morning were on the wooden bridges in Patapsco State Park.  I took River Rd. out to Frederick Rd. and into Ellicott City.  Parts of River Rd. were very washed out, so my fenders got a good workout.  But it wasn’t cold enough for widespread ice.

The only real problem with today’s ride was that my toes got really cold.  I’ve got SPD pedals on this bike, and my regular neoprene shoe covers don’t fit over the shoes.  In the dead of winter, I switch to standard pedals and straps, and ride with hiking boots.  This was my first time riding the SPD shoes in colder weather, and my toes were pretty frosty by the end of the ride.  It looks like my cheapo Performance toe covers do fit over the shoes (though it’s a tight squeeze), so I may try riding with them to see if they help.  But in any case, if this is going to by my everyday winter bike, I need a good way to keep my feet warm with the SPD shoes.

As hoped, I’m finishing November with a total of 13 rides, smashing my previous record of 12, set in 2009.  I almost always take the first week of November off work, which combined with the Thanksgiving holiday, cuts down significantly on the potential ride total for the month.  For November 2011, out of 14 total work days, I biked 13 times and took the car once.

I rode north on Landing Rd.  this morning for the first time since June.  Landing is a great workout, and it’s a good shortcut to Ilchester Rd., but every time I ride it, I’m reminded why I don’t take it very often.  It’s very narrow, and the traffic in the morning is almost as bad as the traffic on Montgomery Rd.  If I’m going to deal with the traffic, I might as well do it on Montgomery, which is relatively flat.  There are other, less traveled back roads that I can ride on if I want to do hills.

Of course, another reason I avoid Landing is the fact that I wiped out there last February.  Today was the first time I rode it with the same bike I was riding when I crashed.  My crash was caused by ice, which wasn’t a factor today, but I’ll still admit to being a little nervous, and going really slowly, past the spot where I crashed!

Last weekend I recharged the batteries for my Planet Bike “Blaze” headlights, and I noticed right away on Monday that they were noticeably brighter.  I had ridden them quite a bit in “flash” mode during early autumn, and I guess I went a little too long without recharging them.  I’m going to try to make a point to recharge the batteries every weekend, just to keep them fresh.

We’ll see what December brings on the riding front.  I have 13 work days in December, so I’m going to try for 13 rides, weather, schedule and health permitting.

I always find it noteworthy when one of my bike’s odometers turns over another thousand miles.  Given that I have three bikes that I ride regularly, it’s kind of a meaningless stat.  Nonetheless, it’s a good excuse to note where I was when it happened, go back over previous ride logs, etc.  Anyhow, this morning I hit 3000 on my single-speed.  It was on the way to work, likely on the Patapsco State Park entrance road near the South St. gate.  I say “likely” because I didn’t actually see it flip over to 3000.  I noticed I was at 3002 while I was riding up Selford Rd, around 2 miles from the park entrance.

It took almost a full year to log 1000 miles on this bike.  I hit 2000 back on December 13, 2010.  After being my go-to bike for 95+ rides in 2010, it was out of commission for a good part of early 2011 due to various issues, but lately it’s been seeing a lot of action again.

If I can ride on all 4 of the remaining work days in November (excluding today), I’ll finish up with 13 rides for the month, which will be a new November record.  The previous record of 12 was set in 2009.  I’m currently on pace to finish 2011 with 156 rides.  That’s significantly fewer than last year’s 174, but it’s still enough to to put 2011 in second place for total rides since I began keeping records in 2006.  Not too bad, given all the setbacks I had this year with injuries etc.

We had a few early-season snowflakes fall over this past weekend, so to get in the spirit, I mounted my new Schwalbe “Marathon Winter” studded tires on my mountain bike.  They were a bit of a pain to mount, but I was able to wrestle them on eventually.   Unfortunately, my “bead jack” tool is not designed for larger tires, so it was no help with these.  I also installed a new set of grips on the bike.  My old setup was a set of standard-issue 1990s-vintage handlebar grips with metal bar-ends.  Looking for something more comfortable, I replaced them with a pair of Ergon GC-2 grips with integrated bar-ends.  Yesterday, I took the bike out for a spin to try out the new tires and grips.

Most manufacturers of studded bike tires recommend “breaking in” the tires for 25-30 miles, so this was the start of my “break in” period.  I just wanted to see how the tires rode; there was no ice or really any reason to ride with studs.   The tires ride fine, and as expected, they’re noisy, because the studs chatter against the ground as the tires rotate.  It sounds kind of like riding on a road that’s been over-treated with road salt.  On the trail, pedestrians can actually hear me coming.  I could get used to this.

The Ergons seem like they’re going to be pretty nice.  I still have to play around with the positioning of the grips, to get the most “natural” ergonomic hand position.  One tip: make sure the grips are pushed ALL THE WAY onto the bar.  Initially, I didn’t get one of the grips on far enough, and it kept slipping on the bar.  I unscrewed it, made sure it was fully seated, and re-tightened, and no more slipping.

I’ll be posting more on this stuff (particularly the tires) as the winter wears on, I’m sure.

Today was my first sub-40° ride of the season, and my first ride since last spring where I had to wear something to keep my head warm.  Usually I’m good without anything extra on my head (other than my helmet) down to around 45°, give or take a couple of degrees depending on wind, precipitation, and other weather factors.  This morning was a crisp 38°, and it was the first morning in awhile that actually felt cold.

I gave my new helmet-mounted rear flasher a spin today.  It’s a Planet Bike Blinky 3H.  It fits on my Bell Sweep helmet just fine, and stayed put through the entire 11.5 mile ride to work.  Other than occasionally hearing it pivot on its bracket, I didn’t really notice it was there.  It gives me extra visibility up high, which I think will help with safety while riding at night.  There’s a bit of a dork factor to it, but you gotta take the bad with the good.  🙂