It's been a while...

...since I have made a bike related post, but now that the bustle of the semester has subsided, and the cycling season has officially gotten into full-swing, I really should take a few minutes and do that!

You may or may not know that, even though I have not been blogging about it, I have been riding -- everyday, as a matter of fact! Well... I DO bike-commute, and I also tend to ride around as my primary means of transportation AND ride my mountain bike (more soon, I promise!!) and road bike for pleasure, fun, and fitness!!

So that's a lot of biking I haven't been talking about!!

What can I say? Over the last few moths there have been close-calls, yelling, honking, a "bike-to-work" week, a few broken spokes, a mysterious knocking from somewhere on my bike (traced to a bad bearing in my front wheel hub), thunderstorms, lovely rides, sun, things being lost (and found again) out of my basket, "fixter" encounters, and a myriad of other velo-related (some bad, most good) goings on... far too many to really rehash here today, and most are minutiae lost in the shuffle which only had relevance in the immediacy of their occurrence. 

Coming up there are a multitude of local biking events, and I am participating in the

Cape Cod Getaway to benefit Multiple Sclerosis research

, 175 miles over 2 days, in a mere 3 weeks!
(If you would like to donate, please feel free to click the above link!)

Well... onto a few recent things:

The photos above are the Southern edge of the storm cell of a thunderstorm we had last week, while the images below are about 3 blocks North, over the Charles... I saw several lighting bolts but was unable to capture any "on film".

We here in the Boston area have been experiencing a pretty impressive amount of Thunderstorms as of late -- this makes biking a little more exciting than usual... now, I don't much care for rain or riding in said rain, but when it's 90º+ and oppressively humid, a little water can feel pretty damned good on the face... though I can do without the hurricane force wind gusts and booming thunder and lightning!

A day or two later, I come out of work to find that someone has used my bike as a trash receptacle. Now, you may be surprised, but this happens at least once a week! Normally it's a soda can or piece of paper trash tossed in my basket, and not something standing on my front rack.

 

What baffles me the MOST, is that there is a city trashcan (rarely full) not 10 feet from where I park my bike... so these people are either specifically choosing to deface a bicycle, or they are the epitome of LAZY... either way it annoys me no end...

So, over the weekend we had yet another round of thunderstorms, and also 2 days of tornado warnings!! We here in New England rarely get these... but this weekend there was an actual tornado in New Hampshire! So I guess it was warranted... Now micro bursts and downdrafts are often confused with tornadoes, are far more common in New England, and often still rather destructive...

...after watching the news last night, and riding to work this morning, I think the area was hit with more than a few of these; here are some pics from my ride into the City along the Esplanade:

And all this is after all the clean-up from the Winter!