Thread Drift

[Crankin]

My liberated feeling from dropping BJ continued after my ride. I was only concerned with miles, not speed, and how good/bad I felt for my first outdoor ride. This is how I felt when I first started.
Getting ready to go out and ride again now. It's 50 degrees! And sunny.

[Selkie]

Enjoy, Crankin!

It's gloomy and raining here in the DC area. I ended up slogging out 43 miles in mist/drizzle this morning (it was about 40 degrees). Luckily, it was light enough that I didn't end up too wet or cold, and I was thankful that it wasn't snow or cold enough to freeze.

My magnolia trees are just starting to bloom and my camelias are looking gorgeous. All the bulbs are popping up and daffodils are in bloom. Trees are starting to get that first blush of green, right before the leaves pop. Now if we can get some consistent nice, warm spring weather with sunshine!

[Zen]

ha! I don't think it was the poker putting you back in bed!

Karen

I had one and a half beers.
Three bowls of chili and two slices of cake

[Blueberry]

We're on day 3 of heavy (for us) rain and 40-ish degrees. I haven't even been on the trainer. In 2 weeks, we've gone from snow to 80 degrees to 40 degrees and rain. I'm ready for spring to come and stay (but not summer - that can stay away thankyouverymuch).

CA

[Selkie]

I log my miles in BikeJournal primarily so I can keep track of bike maintenance stuff, particularly, how many miles I have on my tires.

[Crankin]

I have nothing against Bike Journal. It's just that it made me feel bad when my average was not as high as others, or what I wanted it to be. This way, I only look at my trusty computer.
As far as maintenance, I use the visual method. My husband is my mechanic, he is very good and so far, after almost 9 years, I have been very lucky. I am easy on parts! Only 2 flats on the road, one broken deurailler cable, about half a mile from my house, and one time on a commute home, something happened with my gears, so I couldn't get out of the little ring after going up a hill (also close to my house).
I just decided I needed to make cycling more fun again. At the end of last year, I was starting to hate my road bike. I'm also changing the way I train a bit and am mixing up some running, too. Last summer, I used my commuter to do errands a lot and I was starting to enjoy that more than anything else, so I knew things needed to change.

[Zen]

Yay, Crankin!

I dread the first graph posting of the season

[divingbiker]

I've given up Bike Journal this year, too. I don't care how many times I commute, or how many miles I ride, and I don't care to compare myself to others. It's just one more thing to keep track of, and I'm not going to do it any more, darnit. Feels so good!

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

I just decided I needed to make cycling more fun again. At the end of last year, I was starting to hate my road bike. I'm also changing the way I train a bit and am mixing up some running, too. Last summer, I used my commuter to do errands a lot and I was starting to enjoy that more than anything else, so I knew things needed to change.

I don't care how many times I commute, or how many miles I ride, and I don't care to compare myself to others. It's just one more thing to keep track of, and I'm not going to do it any more, darnit. Feels so good!

You ladies rock!

Crankin- I too began really enjoying using my bike for errands a lot more last year. I'm ready for errand biking bigtime this year!

[salsabike]

I am such a geek sometimes. I think this is fascinating; it's by my favorite weather guy on KOMO4's website:


How do snowflakes get so large?


Story Updated: Mar 15, 2009 at 12:03 PM PDT
By Scott Sistek

One of the most remarkable facets from Sunday morning's snow was the unusually large size of the snowflakes. In fact, a reader from Shoreline described it as "it looked like someone was plucking chickens in the sky."

As to why they're so large, it's a factor of both temperature and intensity of the precipitation.

First, let's tie it to rain. You've noticed most of the time around here, the rain is generally light and the raindrops are small enough that you won't get too wet if you're caught outside. But then there are sometimes when the raindrops seem considerably larger and can leave you soaked in seconds.

Large raindrops mean that there are strong updrafts inside the clouds above your head. These upward blowing winds can hold raindrops inside the clouds for a longer period, allowing them to continue to grow in size until they finally become heavy enough for gravity to finally win the battle over the updraft, allowing the raindrop to fall to the ground.

That's why thunderstorms tend to have large raindrops, as they tend to also have strong updrafts. It's also why rain in the Midwest and East Coast can quickly leave you drenched.

Now, it works for snow too, and it helps to have warm temperatures as warmer air can hold more moisture than colder air. So when you've got temperatures on the fringe of freezing, as we did Sunday, *and* a heavy precipitation event, that can lead to big snowflakes. Had it been, say, 40 degrees Sunday it would have been like a tropical downpour.

[Zen]

Hmm. How about that.
I thought it was going to be something about hydrogen bonding.
Now who's a geek?

[salsabike]

Geeks have more fun.

[OakLeaf]

Okay, well here's geeky

Are the individual snowflakes really larger? Or is it just that there are a lot of them stuck together? (I know it's at least partially the latter. But in addition to wet snowflakes getting stuck together in updrafts, do larger raindrops then crystallize into larger snowflakes as well?)

[Crankin]

One geek in my family is enough.
But, he doesn't do Bike Journal and he doesn't even wear his Garmin half the time. But we do have a home filled with every technological thing you can imagine. I can't use half the stuff we have and the rest I don't care to or need to use. As long as I can use the expresso machine and put air in my tires, I am good.

The snowflake thing would be mildly interesting to me, though. But only after I finish reading my research article about (please, no one get offended, this is real) how Asian American Gay people identify themselves (i.e. as Gay or Asian).

[Tuckervill]

I've just got to post this--I got a book called Artisan Bread in 5 minutes a day. This week we have eaten fresh bread with every meal, and literally only 5 minutes of prep time before each meal. mmmmmm....

Karen