I am Spam, Spam I am

I am back! They shut my blog down for a bit because they thought it was a spam blog. I can't figure out that one. Biking to work and randonneuring just doesn't seem like the subject of spam somehow. Also as Bruce's work has done, mine has blocked blogspot.com too so it is a little harder to post now but stay tuned! I will be updating it still.

First off let me post the commute I had last week which was a follow up to the dog commute-

This morning's commute was much better than Monday's. I discovered the tire I had patched last night was flat when I entered the garage at 6AM. I figured it had to be a slow leak though as I thoroughly listened to the tube and only heard one hole. That last hole (which was indeed slow) will have to be discovered in a wash basin full of water I am afraid. I had the tire pumped up and after I reset my bike computer to mph instead of kph (I don't know how that happened) I was off into the night with a brief adjustment of my hub light.

It was not too cold this morning with a temperature of 50 degrees and a wind out of the NE. It would be a pain on the northbound parts of the route but nice for the eastbound. I kept up a good speed but not as good as I was before the knee thing. It will take time. In the meantime I am just happy I can do 2 40 mile commutes within a week plus a Saturday ride. I am not too broken up that the ride across Mesa is in the dark. The stretch on Val Vista is unusually warm in the Orange groves for some reason.

On the reservation I turned on Oak street instead of going North on Extension. It was not devoid of dogs, neither was it as bad as Extensiont though. I ran into 3 dogs working together on Oak but they weren't very fast and gave up quickly. On Dobson I ran into another set of dogs and a large old white dog that was pretty slow and gave up quickly. I did not run into any pitbulls or feral packs of dogs so I think this might be the better route. The parts without dogs are wide open smooth pavement so It is definitely a keeper I think. Perhaps I'll take up Bruce's suggestion on Doggy Treats (I wonder how they make your jersey pocket smell?). I could also use them as opportunities for Interval training as well I guess.

I still can't get over the fact I get to commute through the mountains in Paradise Valley to get to work. This is just cool even if I have to put up with some traffic on Lincoln. I realized this morning that this section is the middle of the GABA mummy mountain saturday cycling route I used to ride in yesteryear. On top of the beautiful scenery I cut 7 minutes off my ride time from Monday.



I missed the bus by seconds so I decided to ride downtown and catch the next bus there. Here are some photos I took while I waited and before I realized I had sat down in somebody's yogurt they had left out.

Two eras collide. The small building is a 1950's era diner building and it is surrounded by skyscrapers now.

I wonder how they built that skywalk.