Gettin' Slapped Around by the Flakes

Man, I can't believe it, it's snowing AGAIN. Big wet flakes slapping me in the eyes like small dripping wet kitchen sponges.

From Boston.com: "The snow pushes the total this December up to 21 inches, an amount almost three times the monthly average of 7.8 inches. Last winter, Boston only had 17 inches of snow the entire season. Temperatures are expected to dip into the 20s overnight, refreezing the lingering snow pack that finally started to melt."

Sweet! "Refreezing the lingering snow pack..." Aye carumba!

The real misery in all this is that the roads get so squeezed by the snow that there's no margin for bikes. Yesterday I was literally stuck in traffic, standing in a line of cars waiting at a light because there was absolutely no room at all on either side.

Check out my angled parking job in front of the Wine Press on Beacon St.

Anyway, enough complaining, on to brighter things...OK I can't really think of anything.

Make it Stop

12 degrees this morning. Bitter, icy. The sidewalks are horrendous. Man, I can't believe this. Last year on this date it was 55. We've been hit early and hit hard. Had a snowstorm last Thursday that started around 1pm. I rode in, but had to walk the bike back. Everything was gridlocked in the city. I mean NOBODY was moving. See the bus in that picture? It wasn't even running. He was sitting there with the engine off. And that silver car in the lower left side was honking his horn! I couldn't believe it. Then we got socked again on Sunday. I'm telling you, it's not even Christmas yet, and I feel like it's February.

Winter Light

Well it's not winter yet, but it's almost the beginning of December and this is what the ride looks like in the morning. It's all riding straight into the low sun that just gets lower every day. I need to get prepared for the dead of winter riding but I keep putting it off. Need some new tires, new chain, new freewheel, new bottom bracket. I'm sure I'll have that all squared away by April.

This is one of my favorite biking hazards.

Tooosday Jooon Twenteee Sixth

Here's a pic of Kenmore this morning (and a random cyclist). This construction has been going on for eons. So check out the new link on the right hand side there - rightride.org. Pretty good. You can contribute your own 2 cents on all your favorite horror-show intersections etc. All the usual suspects have been added already. I have one or two that I'm going to add.

At least I don't have to carry a load like this.

So I haven't been posting, but I have been riding every damn day. The weather has been getting better, so it's nice. Yeah, very nice. My route sucks though. And I can't seem to find a good one. I've been over every road from Brookline to the South End and NONE of them are good. I even rode out to Melnea Cass Blvd on one trip home. But enough complaining, because at least I don't have to haul the stuff that this guy in the picture is hauling. This picture is from India in March.

The True Suicide Bicycle Ride

I'm in India right now, right outside of Delhi, and let me tell you, this is the land of the true Suicide Bicycle Ride. First of all, there are a ton of bikes and bicycle rickshaws. Second, there are a ton of everything else on the road: motorcycles, scooters, pedestrians, cows, cars, camels, donkeys, push-carts, tractors. And, most importantly, everyone drives as fast as they can, and uses both sides of the road. This applies to ALL roads - regular city streets as well as on the highways.

OK

Yeah, this is quite alright with me. 50 degrees, the sun is still up when I leave work at 6pm. Yes, this is OK.

The Winter of My Discontent is Waning

The good thing about today was that it was the LAST extremely cold day of 2007. I believe this with all my heart. Saturday is supposed to be 50 degrees and everday after that will just get warmer. I know it, I am sure of it. It was about 9 degrees on the ride home and once again the tips of my fingers were stinging with the cold when I got home. The picture is Comm Ave in the gloaming.

I Don't Care

It was 10 degrees on the ride to work, and 15 on the ride home. I don't care. That was nothing. At least I wasn't the white car in this picture - broken down and stopped dead on Mass Ave just south of the Boylston St intersection in Wedneday night rush-hour traffic. Cars behind him were laying on their horns, no mercy, cause they couldn't see his flashers. Sad sight. For all the crap that cyclists take, I'd ride a bike any day over a car or public trans. (Temp last year on this day: 35)

Number 9

Jeez, what a day. Ride in was about 10 degrees, ride back was 9. The ride in was good for the first half - rode/raced with a guy from Beacon to Comm to the Mass Ave underpass where he bailed to Mass ave and I took The Plunge.

Then I was on Clarendon and almost got hit by a black BMW guy making a right from Clarendon (and driving RIGHT BESIDE ME) on to St James. He came within about 2.5 inches (I had my nuclear yellow jacket on - can't miss me). I yelled, passed, and looked back to see him giving me the "not my fault" shrug - plus he yelled that he had the right lane. I flipped and went mental - besides unleashing a torrent of vitriol at him, I turned around and raced up St James after him to where he was ultimately stuck at the light.

Friends, my words to this gentleman were not honorable or right, but sometimes the fear that a near-injury experience produces makes me act in injudicious ways.

The ride home was, as I mentioned, in 9 degrees of frigid pain (wind chill = -14). When I got home I could not feel the tips of my right-hand middle and ring fingers.

I took a similar route home as I did last night. The picture is at the whole Christian Science complex. The trees look the way my fingers felt taking the picture (I had to take off my gloves), spindly, brittle branches.

Monday, March 5, 2007 Batten Down The Hatches

Great ride into work (nice weather, sunny), but a crazy ride home. There's an arctic front coming down on us like a hammer, and it's causing quite a bit of wind. I rode up from the South End via Fromaggio's Kitchen and biked around the Christian Science center. The wind was really bad here, but I'm sure it was worse at Copley. I was almost stopped dead in my tracks a couple of times from the icy gusts. Tomorrow morning is supposed to feel like -13, with the whole wind/arctic-front thing reaching a crescendo.

Friday, March 2, 2007 Downpour Hell

All right, enough of this stuff. This day made it in to the top 10 of worst days riding. It sucked, pure and simple. Rain and sleet, with the sleet pinging and stinging my face. Drenching downpour, but still the colossal ice caps at the side of the road. Pain. Suffering. I took a different route today - down Mass Ave to Harrison. The picture is Mass Ave right before Harrison at Boston City Hospital.

Also, I got to work and had a conversation about riding that went like this: "Oh, you rode today? Wow. Musta been wet. I really don't like cyclists, they're always running red lights." He says this so casually, so offhand. HE WILL SUFFER for his blasphemy. I'll make sure of it.

Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Great weather this morning, around 38 degrees or so, although snow is coming Friday. Look at this jam on Clarendon St right after the Prudential Center. I never got hung up like this on the way to Cambridge. But the caked-up ice and snow has constricted the roadway, so I had to wait right in the middle of this muddle for the light.

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Well, there it is. Copley in all its 6:30pm glory. It can be a little nerve-wracking here, especially if you're in the mind of not taking any guff from cars and plunging right into the middle of things. This can be a tough light to blow, as well; four lanes accross with a feeder from a Mass Pike off-ramp/Hintington Ave off to the right. I was dressed head to toe in bright yellow tonight. I felt invicible. I felt ridiculous. I felt dry. Good thing is that the temp is somewhat balmy. This date last year according to my blog was 10 degrees. Today it was around 40.

Thursday, February 22, 2007

All right, so now I have to navigate this thing, the Mass Ave underpass, every morning. In my old commute to Cambridge I'd bypass this on the way to banging a left on Mass Ave from Comm Ave. I used to see a few brave souls (including my friend JW) take the underpass and have secret feelings of jealousy and inadequacy. The bravery! The daring! The aplomb!....But now I have to put those childish feelings away and put on my adult diaper and take the Underpass Plunge myself. I could wuss out and just cross Mass Ave via Comm. No. I rode The Cheese Grater. I will not back down. No. I will go, one hand on the bars, one hand on the camera. The thing that really sucks about this is that there's a light about 1/2 a block before, and you have to be first out of the gate so that you can assert yourself in the sea of cars to make it known that you, the cyclist, are taking the Plunge.

One last comment for this evening: I've decided that the Brookline to South End commute is far more dangerous that the old Brookline to Cambridge. SAPs and POPs abound in profusion, Copley is a hellacious nightmare at night, the outbound merge from Comm Ave into Kenmore is particularly bracing since you've got the Beacon Street traffic coming in from your left, and the list goes on....On the plus side, though, is the digital camera. Look at the detail. Everything looks so much crisper than pics taken with the Pocket PC. Look at the glacial ice by the side of Comm Ave, look at the ass-end of the cab that honked at me, look at the white crap leaking out of the Mass Ave overpass (what the hell is that?? how can an overpass leak?), look at the Prudential and the Hancock...it's all so beautiful.

Monday, February 19, 2007

Wow, the new job and the Arctic temps have definitely cut into blogging time. Not that I've ever let the weather keep me off the bike. But I have been sick as a dog for several weeks and am only now starting to come around. Plus I started the new job, so I have to get used to my new route through the city and down to the South End, as well as figure out the new job.

This picture is of Clarendon St about two weeks ago. The new route definitely has a few moments that are scarier than the old route. But all-in-all, they seem pretty equal. I now have to take the Mass Ave underpass on Comm Ave - you definitely have to be ahead of the auto pack to navigate that with any aplomb. Copley at 6pm can be a nuts. I'm not using the pocket PC anymore for pictures (had to leave that with the old job) - I'm using a real honest-to-goodness digital camera instead. The only down-side is that I own it. If the Pocket PC went skittering under a Brookline Ice & Coal truck it wouldn't have mattered. Not so with the digital. Anyway, once I get on top of this new job I'll be back to my old Suicide Bicycle Ride self.