Same Car, Different Day

After making my report on the CloseCallDatabase something jogged my memory to go back and take a look at the footage from last Tuesday's Bike commute and lo and behold it was the same car that passed way to close on Cedar Road in Wilton, CT. 

Relive the Newtown Lunartics ride to Ovens of France

The weekly Newtown Lunartics Ride Before Work to Ovens of France was a day early on account that Steven was driving up to Burlington, VT to drop off his daughter at College. We headed out on our usual route departing from behind Cover II in Sandy Hook and heading out along Lake Zoar on West Purchase Brook.

We were riding with another new member who recently moved to Newtown and who I met at D2R2 earlier.  John comes to us by way of Rhode Island and the United States Marine Corps.  He is a couple of years younger than us old Farts and super fast. Trying to keep up with him is always fun. Of course his naivete came out earlier on our first ride when he asked whether or not he should have a blinky.

Another inattentive driver on my Bike Commute

Why all of a sudden am I having more close calls while riding to work? I have ridden this stretch all spring and summer and there were a few who passed kind of close but not to the extent to which I have seen on the last three rides?

Near miss on Rt 53 in Weston, CT from Mark on Vimeo.

Later in the video a silver Honda Element with Florida plates, passes a bit close, too.  I made another report to the CloseCallDatabase.

The car looks like a Hyundai Sonata, either grey or a dark gold, with Thule racks on top. Unfortunately, I can't get the plate from the video. I might have to try Ralph Pruitt's suggestion and mount a stick 3 feet out from my bike to show drivers how much clearance they are supposed to give me.  

Relive A Good Day to Dirt

There is this new Strava tool/feature/application called Relive that takes the track you upload into Strava and then emails a link to their website so that you can relive your ride in a video. You can then post it Facebook and Twitter, and it looks like it also connects to Whatsapp so you could send it to someone via that channel.  They don't offer any code to embed on a blog so I am attempting it below with a simple "iframe" command to embed their website on my blog post.  

What I would like to see them do is zoom in a bit and give a Bird's Eye or Drone View of the ride, perhaps even using some icon that represents the cyclist.  Just click on the play button and see how it goes. There is potential here for simplifying ride blog posts!  The site, however, has some limitations; for one thing I have yet to see a mountain bike Relived under ten miles and it ignores commutes.  However, there are other ways to display those that I am looking into.

A Good Day to Dirt

After the let down of the D2R2 Mystery ride I needed to back into the dirt of the Lower Litchfield Hills.  I put a post on the Bike Rides Facebook page to see if anyone wanted to come along and I got a few takers, like Andy Engel and the illustrious, dirt road denizen of the Lower Litchfield Hills, Jeff McKay!  Steven Tramposch joined as well. The route encompassed some of my favorites like Moosehorn, Judd's Bridge, Walker Brook and the old Shepaug Railroad roadbed. Nothing too killer; just a dirty, social ride.

Ride Before Work: Ovens of France c'est ouvret!

The weekly Newtown Lunartics Ride Before Work to Ovens of France was a day early on account that Steven was driving up to Burlington, VT to drop off his daughter at College. We headed out on our usual route departing from behind Cover II in Sandy Hook and heading out along Lake Zoar on West Purchase Brook.

We were riding with another new member who recently moved to Newtown and who I met at D2R2 earlier.  John comes to us by way of Rhode Island and the United States Marine Corps.  He is a couple of years younger than us old Farts and super fast. Trying to keep up with him is always fun. Of course his naivete came out earlier on our first ride when he asked whether or not he should have a blinky.

Bike to Work Update: 1000 miles in 18 rides.

Today was my 18th Bike Commute and I hit my goal of a 1000 miles of riding to work! The ride in was a bit nippy in which I hit a low point of 45 degrees 10 miles into the ride.  I knew it was going to be chilly so I wore arm warmers and gloves. I have also added to my commute my helmet cam because last week I had a blue Dodge Pickup intentionally swerve at me while on Newtown Turnpike in Weston.  I got his plate, CT License 2543-CE combination ironically the car was from Newtown (Rooster Sticker on the back of the car)!  I filed a report on the CloseCall Data base, too. 

Napoleon's Death March - D2R2 Mystery Ride

Will and I were going to do 160K ride for D2R2 this year because it has a lunch stop that is not collocated with all the other rides.  Last year, on 180K, the lunch lines were so long we ended up losing quite a bit of time at the Covered Bridge.  Then, earlier this year, Sandy offered up the first ever Mystery Ride which had it's lunch stop at the 160K spot so we decided to do it.  Some of the emails that went out mentioned there would be some dismounts and some hike-a-bike sections but little did we know that these sections of the ride would turn out to be a Napoleon's Death March.

Further Adventures in Fat Biking on Fire Island

I don't know what it is but I can never sleep past 6 AM when I know there is an opportunity to go riding.  Sunday morning was no exception and Will and I were off at ten after 6.  The intention of this morning's ride was to head down in the opposite direction towards Robert Moses State Park by way of the central access corridor, which to our delight was mostly a gravel road.

Fatties on Fire Island

Will's wife Sondra hooked us up with a deal to rent Fat Bikes from Ocean Beach Hardware when I took my family out to visit them on Fire Island in early August.  I had ridden a few fatties before, at NEMBAFest in the past but this would be the first time on a beach.

The only redeeming quality of this bike was it had four inch tires, otherwise it was just another cheaply made bike probably purchased from Dicks or Sports Authority to offer up the Fat Biking Beach Experience for the tourists who know nothing about bikes.  Not to mention, a singlespeed on the sands of Fire Island does a Fat Biking adventure enjoyable not make.