Monday, November 29, 2010

Maintenance riding

Sometimes you ride your bike for the sole purpose of getting it ridden. I doubt that's proper grammar, but at least I didn't end the sentence with a preposition. (Every time you do that a puppy dies.) This time of year, opportunities to go for a 150 mile day ride are few and far between. The bulk of my rides are commutes to work and back.

Sunday I rode into Gresham and back, in the rain, simply to ride the bike. This is to keep things moving and keep the battery charged. I rode to work today as well, being one of the only semi-dry days forecasted for the entire week.

Sometimes you ride simply to get the bike ridden.

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

It was a dark and foggy night

Morning, actually. It was a dark and foggy morning on my commute to work today. I usually arrive at work before 7am so it's still completely dark when I leave the house. It had rained pretty hard the previous day, and apparently through most of the night as well. The ground and pavement was wet and there was a thick fog hugging the ground.

What was interesting, however, was the sky. Despite the fog, looking up I could see stars. Orion was on his head to the south and I could see Venus descending toward the western horizon. Once I got rolling the ride was fantastic. Despite being dark, there was no rain or road spray and the fog swirled around me in the gleam of my headlights.

It was magical.