Neil Fein's Blog

Averaged 9mph on my way home yesterday, I'm getting better.



Link to flickr screenshot

The ride home was just as good. Cool! I'm getting better. I don't think I'll get all that much faster on a this mountain bike, but I'm looking to maintain an average of 10mph on asphalt.

Labels: bicycle, bike, commute

Got up a few minutes early today, to try an experiment. Martha drives me to my carpool in the morning, and picks me up after work. We threw my bike on the bike rack this morning and took it to the carpool (it's sitting in Rick's garage) and I'll bike home from there after work.

It's not much of a ride, but it's step one in an attempt to commute at least a little bit by bicycle. If I can get this to work smoothly I may try driving to the carpool in the morning as well. I'm a little leery about that one, since I'd rather not get to work in a post-biking sweaty smelly state. (There are showers but I;m not sure if I can use them.)

On the other hand, the ride is only a couple of miles. And it is a way of finding time I'm already using up sitting in a car and turnign into quality time with my bike. Don't want to neglect that relationship, do I? Bad relationships with metal and rubber machines raise my blood pressure.


When we got to Rick's, I threw my pants and shirt into my backpack (I had put shorts and a T-shirt underneath before leaving work) and pedaled away. I took 35 minutes to travel 4.35 miles. I know I've hit better speeds, but to be fair the route I took has a lot of hills.

But biking home even a little bit is a lot of fun. Tearing off my work clothes and jumping on the bike almost instantly is pretty cool, also.

Labels: bicycle, bike, commute

Map of a bike ride. Google Earth is so very cool. Best viewed very large.

Labels: bike, google earth, route

Rode on a little bit of the Raritan towpath today, starting at Landing Lane Bridge. It was great fun, but I won't go back without a patch kit and a pump! (I have them on order.) I was expecting a flat tire any minute.


There was a turtle I missed seeing by a few seconds. (The stranger who took the above photo and his friend tried to point it out to me.)

The paved path along the Raritan in New Brunswick has a lot of cool graffiti on it. I didn't look closely last time I was there, because I was busy dodging branches and potholes. (It's been cleaned up a little since.)

I took a lot of pics of this one, if I have time to stitch them into a panorama I'll post it. In the meantime, click on it to get to a bigger flickriffic version.

Edit: 14.25 miles today in 140 minutes, I need to work on speed going over flat ground. Here's the route. Alternate link if the embed code doesn't work.

Labels: bike, graffiti

Riding up to the park today, I saw that the suns rays were either catching lots of dust or a frightening amount of pollen. After we got the bikes off the bike rack, we realized that it wasn't dust or pollen. It was clouds of bugs.

We started riding in Johnson Park, and saw how buggy the Delaware towpath was so just gave up and rode around the park a little. Bruce and Martha wanted to give up and go home, so I told them I'd meet them there.



I swallowed a dozen bugs, and one got stuck in my eye, but once I got out of the park the bugs weren't too bad.

When I got home I showered in as hot water as I could stand, and I think I scrubbed a layer of skin off exposed-to-disease-laden-bugs areas (face, neck, ears, arms and hands, mostly).



Here's the route at mapmyride.

... and here are the bugs. This photo really doesn't do the sheer volume of bugs justice (here's a huge-o version).

Labels: bike, bugs

Labels: bike

Ben looking at terrapins in the interpretive center at Cheesequake State Park. Gotta say he was cute walking on the hiking trail. Four adults (thw two of us and his parents) were barely adequate to keep him away from poison ivy, sheer drops, and the general hazards of the great outdoors.

Labels: hike, notbike

First ride in the rain today.





New Brunswick is to the left, the Raritan River on the right. This is near the end of one of the skinny peninsulas that line the river here.





Pedestrian bridge. It feels a little wobbly, but that could be intentional.





Aaaand... I'm home, after an 80 minute ride. I know that's not all that much (just under 9 miles) but I'm getting there!

Labels: bike

Pasta fresh out of the cutting press. We made this last night from flour, eggs and water.

Labels: food, notbike