Well, that was a ridiculously quick month…

As we march ever onwards towards the months where snow and ice dominate the landscape, the weather has definitely taken a turn for the “worse”. There is much more of a bite in the air, and I need to keep reminding myself that 7 degrees in October is nowhere near the same thing as 7 degrees in July. Snow fell (and stayed) on my path for the first time earlier this week, but by this morning it was down to isolated patches that manage to avoid the sun enough to remain a solid.

While I struggle to accept that long pants, gloves and long sleeves are now required equipment for the morning commute, I have to say that this has been a most productive and enjoyable month of riding. In fact, I’d even go so far as to call it one of the best months since I got my bike. The colors of fall were spectacular, the bike is humming along (almost time for a pre-winter tune up), I feel great physically, I only got caught in really ugly weather once, and many more miles were put on the bike.

This morning I decided to take a picture of one part of my commute that makes me happy I don’t drive to work every day:

I usually pick a car when I get close and see if I can make it to the end of this section before they do, and I am successful about 80% of the time. I can avoid riding beside this traffic by altering my route a bit, but looking over and smiling at all those grumpy car commuters pretty much makes my day.

I also discovered a much easier way to clean my bike than with a pail of water and some rags… take it to the car wash. 2 bucks and everything is so clean it looks like it just came out of the shop. I then take it home, dry it off and apply a new coat of oil to the chain and I’m good to go. I also tried the shower trick that someone in the ORG had a picture of (cafeind?), but with white tiles and a white tub it made far too much work for the post cleanup to be worthwhile.

To end things off, here is a sunrise picture for you all to enjoy:

This is a tree I ride by on almost every commute, and when it looks like it did this morning the first thing that enters my head is a section of the book American Gods by Neil Gaiman. In this book (one I would recommend to everyone I know, and even complete strangers) the main character named Shadow gets tied to this tree and.. well, stuff happens. I’m not going to ruin the book for people, so go read it already!

76 rides, 2000km, no end in sight.

check the map for “locations”.