Taking the bike to go exercise

 

One of the parents on my daughter's soccer team has gotten the girls together over the summer to work on strength and fitness. He's modeled it after the various fitness boot camps that have become popular over the last decade. Player participation has been high partly because the parents come along for their workout and compete against their kids.

Since I ride with many of the same soccer dads on Sunday mornings, it is fitting that we ride with our daughters over to Piedmont Park where we gather for boot camp.

Ride (and workout) Summary

Round Trip Distance: 3.5 miles
Number of planks: 3 sets at 40 seconds for each of front, back and sides for 12 total.
Number of 'suicides': 1 more than I should have done.
Post-workout Meal: Willy's at Piedmont Park (with three refills of lemonade)
Weather: Open your windows and let the breeze come through the house.

Making Way - Part 2

 

Barry had commented that the great big overhead limb was slowly sinking to where you couldn't fit under. The cyclist in the photo above (#4 on the day's commute) had to dismount to get under the limb on Friday (June 5).

By Monday afternoon, a crew cut out the limb and the limbo log was gone:

Commute Summary

Round Trip Distance: 18.7
Number of Cyclists seen: 18
In-bound Route: Goofin' 9.6
Out-bound Route: Emory via Clifton
Weather:Warm, but not as warm as usual for June

Something out of Nothing?

On my way home today, I rode along with cyclists #4 and #5. Together we counted cyclist #6 on the Freedom Park Trail. They were headed to the Pizza Ride. I was making my usual commute home, but the route afforded us a few miles of chatting.

As I approached the intersection of Springdale and the By Way, I came across cyclists numbered 15-19 headed down the By Way to the CVS ride. I frequently ride with these guys, but I didn't get the chance to chat since we were headed in opposite directions. Exchanging greetings would have to do.

On one hand, seeing our fellow cyclists on the road is nothing. We should expect see each other from time to time.

On the other hand, why are we so happy to see cyclists and especially those we know? Is it simply seeing and being seen? Is it the conversation? Is it a bond we share with our fellow cyclists?

I really don't know why it feels good, but I'm going to keep doing it.

Commute Summary

Round Trip Distance: 18.7
Number of Cyclists seen: 26 (only 6 inbound, but 20 on the way home)
In-bound Route: Lullwater/PATH trail
Out-bound Route: Emory via Clifton
Weather: No rain for a change, but still rather humid

Make way for Bicycles

 

Don't they know May is National Bicycle Month? Whenever a tree falls across a bicycle facility during National Bicycle Month, a path should be cleared within 18 hours. This was more like 18 days.

I am kidding because it was no big deal to take a detour for a couple of weeks. Riding the other side of Candler Park allowed my path to overlap Mike's path. He's a professor at Georgia Tech with whom I've ridden along to the office on occasion.

I like to include this picture for a couple of reasons:

1. It's cool how you go under one of the branches.
   
2. It shows -- despite almost no photo evidence on this blog to the contrary -- that I do ride in the rain.
   

Here are a couple of panoramas. This first taken from the bridge shows how backed up the stream has gotten from the tree limbs blocking the flow.



This second panorama shows the length of the tree alongside the path. Bicycle is directly under the overhead branch.

Commute Summary

Round Trip Distance: 17.1
Number of Cyclists seen: 11 (numbers do drop when it rains)
In-bound Route: Lullwater/PATH trail
Out-bound Route: Emory via Clifton
Weather: Repeated stretches of rain

Bike to Work Day, 2009

 

The Atlanta Bicycle Coalition organized a number of refreshment stations called "Energizer" stations around town. A group of us decided to try to visit as many as possible by following this route. The photo above is East Atlanta Village which had coffee, fruit bars and water.

All of my commutes are recreational, but this one was especially fun. This could become habit forming. In fact, there is some talk about resurrecting the Third Friday Commute.

Commute Summary

Round Trip Distance: 21.2 (2.5 of them walking)
Number of Cyclists seen: Mass quantities
In-bound Route: Tour of Intown "Energizer" Stations
Out-bound Route: via Intown Bicycles to repair drive train
Weather: Pleasantly cool, yet still in short sleeves.

Tree Climbing on my Commute

It's unusual to see more cyclists in the morning than the afternoon, but then, on the afternoon's route, the cyclists had to climb over fallen trees. The one blocking the PATH trail would make a good cyclo-cross course.

Three trees on Clifton were down within a few hundred yards.

These came down during Monday morning's storm. I've taken pictures of the ones blocking my path, but many others were also down. More storms on the way. Perhaps more tree climbing on my way to the office.

Commute Summary

Round Trip Distance: 19.8
Number of Cyclists seen: 15 inbound, 10 outbound.
In-bound Route: Goofin' 9.6 with detour around fallen tree
Out-bound Route: Emory via Clifton (climbed over the tree on the way back)
Weather: humid and warm

Contributing Commuting Routes to a Visual Catalog

I've added a big step forward with the ability for others to add their routes to the visual catalog. Routes in bikely.com routes may be added directly. Leave a comment if you've got a route in a different tool if you'd like me to upload your route.

These are the steps for adding your route from Bikely.com:

1. If you're using Firefox, drag the following link to the Bookmark Toolbar. If you're using IE, right-click the following link and "Add to Favorites ...". IE will prompt you asking if the link is safe because it contains the javascript for saving the bikely route. You'll click on this bookmark later to save the bikely.com route that is being displayed (Add to Catalog).
   
2. Visit the bikely.com page that displays the route you want to add to the catalog.
   
3. Click on the bookmark and your route is saved to the catalog. The browser then shows the complete catalog.
   
4. You may add as many as you like.
   

You can also view the current catalog without adding a new route.

This is being published on the Facebook page "Bike Commuters of Atlanta" so routes for bicycle commutes in Atlanta would certainly be preferred, but it would be good to see other utility cycling routes. I plan to add a second catalog of routes for recreational and group rides. Who knows, if this takes off, I may add more categories, but I'd like to start with commuting and utility routes.

There's a performance reason for starting with this type of catalog. Commuting and utility routes are generally much shorter and load much faster. When the catalog has long routes (50+ miles), the performance is sluggish. If your commute is 50 miles however, I'd like to see it in here.