Well, here it is May 1 and I’ve biked to work 6 times now (well, 5-1/2 times actually, since I’m at work now and still have to ride home today). The weather has been almost perfect for biking. It’d be nice if it were ever-so-slightly warmer in the mornings, because then I could lose the jacket. But other than that, it’s been hard to complain.

This past weekend I fiddled around a bit with my front derailleur. For more than a year now, it’s had this habit of occasionally dumping the chain when I shift to the smallest chainring. Every time it did it, I swore I was going to adjust it, but I never seemed to get around to it. Anyhow, all I did was tighten the inner limit screw about 1/4 turn, and it seems to have done the trick. Today it was very consistent shifting into the granny. Only thing now, is it seems to “hunt” a bit more when I shift out of the granny into the middle chainring. However, it’s still within the limits of what I’d consider acceptable, so I’m going to leave it like this for the time being. After the season, I’ll take it to the shop for a complete tune-up, and they can worry about it at that point.

Today I did find a good article on derailleur adjustment, so if I’m feeling up to it one day, I might fiddle with it some more.

On another topic, today we found out when our health benefits open enrollment starts at work. So soon, we’ll find out how much more the state is going to spank us for benefits in FY 2007. Cue up the “Imperial Death March” theme now..

The summer ritual officially began today: I rode my bike to work for the first time. I’m admittedly a fair-weather biker; I bike when it’s warm, sunny and light outside. So, today was my first time on the bike since, oh, last October or so. Combine that with two weeks or so of relative inactivity while I was home helping care for our newborn, and well, suffice it to say that I didn’t break any speed records getting here this morning. And then there’s the ride home looming, with its dreadded mile-long grind up Lawyers Hill Road. But I’ve got 8 hours or so before I have to worry about that.

With gas pushing $3 a gallon, the financial incentive to bike in (and avoid driving) is stronger than ever. The commute to work is about 15 miles round trip, and my car gets roughly 30 miles to the gallon (actually that’s being generous, it’s probably more like 25-28), so I save about 1/2 gallon of gas every time I commute by bike. At $3 per gallon, that’s around $1.50 extra in my pocket for each ride. And the more expensive gas gets, the bigger the payoff gets.

Last year, I biked to work 22 times, but I didn’t start doing it until early August. So hopefully this year I can do it a lot more. This year I plan on keeping a log so I can track my times, average speed etc. At the end of the season we’ll see how I did.