Day Off

This Thursday was Veterans' Day, and everyone in my house (me, my sister Joni, my sister's fiance Brian) had the day off. Brian had some videos to return to Northampton, so we decided to all take a ride up there since the weather was beautiful.

Joni's bike in the garage.

Setting out!

We took Route 5 and even though it's a busy road (it IS a state highway, after all), I feel completely safe riding on it 95% of the time. There's one spot where the road narrows significantly, but most of the time it looks like this:

Just look at how wide that shoulder is! You could bike four across in that shoulder.

We locked up in some bike racks when we got to Noho. I hate this kind of rack since you either have to lift the wheel up over the top or do some tricky lock work to get more than just your front wheel secured. Joni chose both over-the-top AND fancy lock work.

Lock up that bike!

By the time we got to Northampton we were starving so we made a quick stop at Bueno. For anyone who ever went to school at UMass Amherst, Bueno is a must. I always feel a little like a cheater when I go to the Northampton location because Amherst feels like the true Bueno y Sano to me. And just before heading back home we decided we needed a little warm up. Hot cocoas at La Fiorentina solved that problem.

On our way home we decided to bike around Whiting Reservoir. It's a great place to walk or run or ride a bike. Joni and I often do "bike-runs" up there (as in, I bike and she runs).

Whiting Reservoir

Sometimes when I'm reading fellow bike bloggers' posts it seems as if every trip they make by bike is to get from point A to point B. And while I commend that they're trying to show how biking can really be a viable mode of transportation for most trips, isn't it just nice to ride your bike for fun sometimes? I hope even bike commuters still go for bike rides. I had read something from Mikael over at Copenhagen Cycle Chic that when he visited San Francisco he went for a bike ride with the women of Change Your Life Ride a Bike, and he said something along the lines of "bike rides are what people do in countries that don't have a strong bicycle culture." Does that mean people in Denmark don't ever just ride their bikes for the sake of riding? Yet here in the US it's not unusual to simply "go for a drive," so I don't see why it's such a novel idea to go for a ride. All you bikers out there don't forget that you don't have to know where you're going to ride your bike! Riding a bike is FUN!

I loved the way I could see the trees outside my window in the reflection of my tea. The color is long past now - I spent today trekking around a Disc Golf course covered in wet brown leaves for a tournament, and then we raked all the brown leaves off our lawn so that we can mow the lawn tomorrow. (FYI I am terrible at disc golf - my sister and I came in first in our division because we were the only ones in our division). As it gets colder I've been out on my bike less and less, mostly to my volunteer place and the YMCA.

One of my recent bike rides was to my parents' house for linner (too late to be lunch, too early to be dinner). It's about a 7.5 mile ride. The weather was great - I was actually too hot in the cardigan. Since I run I have a flourescent vest that lights up for night runs, so I packed that and attached it to my basket for the ride home since by that point it was getting dark.

I love my new boots! They are perfect for wearing over jeans or with sweater tights and they were great riding. Plus the chunkier heel makes for very comfortable walking.

The next pictures I post will involve coats, mittens and scarves I'm sure! Working up near the UMass campus I see a lot of college students biking and with the chill in the air there are a lot of kids biking around with their hoods up underneath their helmets. They look ridiculous but I bet they're warm!

Fall!

Every Wednesday I volunteer at Wistariahurst Museum. It's only about a mile from my house so I almost always bike there (the only times I don't are when I'm running incredibly late or it's raining). Last week as you know was horribly rainy here so since we had an interlude of sunshine on Wednesday I wanted to take full advantage of it by doing my errands by bike.

On my way home from the museum I stopped to put up my feet and people-watch in a park.
One of the things I love about my city is that there are little parks tucked into neighborhoods all over the place. Holyoke has rich history and it makes me sad to see how it's deteriorated over the years. People have these negative views of it and think of it as a bad or dangerous place to live, but I can think of 5 parks off the top of my head that are within a mile of my house. I've only been living here for just over a year, but I love it so far.

The leaves here are starting to change. I've been having a great time riding ever so slightly out of my way to run over the crunchy leaves in the gutters. That's something you don't get when you're driving. Crunch! Crunch crunch!

But despite the turn towards colder fall weather, I still have blossoms on my rose bush!

And Apparently Current King

After yesterday's post about The Once and Future King, it turns out the book was recently featured on NPR's "You Must Read This" segment.

Let me add this to what I said about it yesterday: I mentioned that it was episodic in nature (at least it is so far) and what I really admire about that style in this type of novel is that it emulates the original fantasy/epic genre. Stories like the Odyssey, Iliad, Niebelungenlied, or the Saga of the Volsungs. These are stories that don't solely follow a single plot arc - they're told in a "this adventure happened and then this adventure happened" sort of way. So I like that T.H. White mimics that to an extent in his own epic tale.

Rainy Day Reading

Here's what my weather forecast is looking like this week:

But the rain isn't keep everyone off the streets. I saw this young boy waiting to cross the street while I was driving home from work. Sorry for the fuzzy picture - there were a ton of raindrops on my window preventing a clear shot.
Marin will probably stay in the garage until it gets sunny again. I'll admit I'm a fair weather bicyclist. Without a chain guard I worry about rust and my brakes always squeal for several days after getting wet. Does anyone else have this problem or is there just something wrong with my bike? Plus I don't like the rain in my eyes and the coldness involved.

So instead of going out for a bike ride I will stay in and read. Currently, I'm on this:

I'm liking it so far, but the episodic nature of it makes it hard to really get into one of those reading time warps. You know when you sit down to read and the book is so interesting you want to forego any other commitments and simply read all day and then suddenly 4 hours have passed and you missed lunch? Not happening with this. But that's not necessarily bad. It's a great book to read during breakfast or lunch when you only have a set amount of time before you have to leave for work or go run errands.

Since I'm a big reader and everyone who knows me is aware of this, I often get bookmarks for gifts or seek them out myself. My mom got me this one this past summer on a trip to Cape Cod. I love the boat. Once I finish this book I'll probably take another bookmark out of my collection. I have to be fair to them, after all.

To those staying in, happy reading!

Rail Trail Break Pic

Snapped this picture while I took a mid-ride snack break Friday. I think he thought I was interested in the fact that he was shirtless, but I was just interested in the fact that he was on a bike!
This woman picked up some food at the Polish restaurant/ice cream place located next to the trail. She knows how to get her dinner shopping done right - via bike!

It's Not Easy Being Green

I have to quote my friend Kermit the Frog in regards to yesterday's work commute. Yes - I did it. And yes - I loved it. But it wasn't easy. While I want to encourage other people to try bicycling instead of driving from time to time, I'm not going to pretend it's simple. For example: I've got my bike equipped with a rack and detachable basket, which makes it easier for me to carry the things I need without getting the horrible backsweat that a backpack would leave me with.

Full as it can get!

I've got my lunch cooler in there (alas, my pear got rather banged up going over bumps), a pair of shorts to change into for the ride home since it was supposed to be 87 degrees in the afternoon, purse, dress shoes, camera, and sweatshirt.

Now, I've ridden my bike in those shoes before. It's not difficult, but with 36 miles round trip and some long hills on the way home I figured I should stick to my trusty sneakers:

Sneaks.

Saving these for the shorter rides.

One commuting difficulty that can come up no matter how you get there: directions. The bike trail in my area was recently extended, and I had never ridden on the extension before. I thought it was pretty straightforward, but it turns out I was wrong. After getting off one portion, I got on another part in the wrong direction. Rode about 1.5 miles before I stopped a woman walking the opposite way if I was going the right way. Turns out I wasn't.

Bike Commuting Tip #1: if it you're trying to go east,

don't follow the signs that say "West."

Total commute time there: 1 hour 44 minutes (including time spent getting lost).

Total commute time home: 1 hour 40 minutes (last 6 miles or so are uphill and I was tired).

This probably isn't feasible for most people. And that's fine. I admit I had to give my legs a pep talk with about 2.5 miles to go. They were tired but they made it. So what makes sense for me may not make sense for others. I get that people have kids or other commitments and can't afford to spend 3 hours on their commute. But instead of thinking about what you can't do, think about what you can do. Can you drive partway and bike the rest? Can you use your bike to do some errands, like going to the bank or out for coffee? Even if you don't have a bike, could you take public transportation more? Do what works for you.

So, do you commute by bike? If so, what's your commute like? If not, what's stopping you?

Happy riding!

Commuting in the Suburbs

I've recently started a new job. It's actually farther from my house than my old job but significantly more convenient to bike to. 18 Miles from my house. So far I've tried doing a combination of driving the first half and biking the second. It requires bike deconstruction since my car is too small to fit it and I don't have a bike rack.

Bike in the back seat of my car - tight squeeze!

Have to take the front wheel on and off every time I commute to make it fit.

I have to admit I only did this two days before I got tired of the hassle and just drove (although it was in part due to rainy forecasts and then it was hard to get myself started again). Tomorrow I'm going to bike the entire eighteen miles. I feel like I have to because so much of the US is not bike-friendly, and here I get to live in a part that does have some decent bike infrastructure in places. We have several miles of bike trail that leads pretty much right from close to the highway to my office. Here's a video for you:

It's going to be so beautiful over the next few weeks - hooray fall!