I’ve already continued bike commuting much farther into the winter season than I ever had before. I overcame darkness with my 6 volt rechargeable 10 watt halogen headlight, illuminite jacket and helmet cover, and an array of blinky lights. I overcame freezing temperatures, wind and rain with my windproof balaclava, lobster gloves, neoprene shoe covers and rain pants. (The Nashbar/Performance Bike Gods own me.) Now I’m ready for anything, including snow and ice.

I made my own home-made studded tires for my mountain bike. I followed the instructions at Icebike.org. I used my super-cheap $7 knobbie mountain bike tires from performance bike, #8 by 1/2″ hex head self-drilling zinc metal screws ($4/100), and cut up some extra tubes ($4 each) to use as tire liners. It took a nice long time and my hands are pretty worn out, but I put 52 studs in my front tire, and 39 in the rear. Total cost for two studded tires: $26 - most of the brand name studded tires (not that many out there) are around $50 to $100 each.

I’ll continue to ride my road bike in most weather as I have been doing. But in the event of snow and ice (should come soon I hope!) I’ll be out on my mountain bike.

Talking about saving the planet. A few days ago I got a piece of paper in my mailbox as did the 3,000 or so other people who work at my office. The paper was promoting the use of compact florescent bulbs to save energy and help the environment. It boggled my mind that a group who was intent on saving the earth would make such extraneous use of paper, its was like robbing Peter to pay Paul. This group had an event a few days later in our cafeteria, where you could bring your signed paper and you would get a free light bulb. Of course, they also had a bajillion more copies available right there. It turned out one of my friends was working the event, so I mentioned I thought their use of paper was completely against the point of saving the planet. She agreed, and mentioned that of the 3,000 or so copies they distributed, only about 10 had been returned - everyone else was just picking up a new copy at the event.

In any case, to help make up for this I made up my mind to do even more. Before I left the office on Friday, I turned off the TV over my cube (which has been on since I started 7 years ago) and turned off my Mac and my MacBuntu (which I hardly even use anyway). I usually leave my computers on so I can remote access them, but I really only need my one Windows desktop. I’m going to look into a way to turn that off too and remotely wake it up if need be. Today my family went to Home Depot and we bought enough compact florescent bulbs to finish off every light in our house, which really didn’t have that much left. I had to remove a dimmer switch to avoid killing some of the new bulbs, but now I can say we do not have any halogen or incandescent lighting in use in our house.

I figured that when summer was over all our activities would cool down, and I could get back to writing blog posts every other day. Right.

October is just full of releases, birthdays, birthday parties, biking and Halloween strolls, Halloween parties, and Halloween night. My children’s birthdays are both in October, two weeks apart. We couldn’t possibly be organized enough to actually have the birthday parties near the birthdays. And, now that the kids are older and have their own friends, we actually have to throw two parties. So, not only do we celebrate each birthday on the birthday, going out for dinner and opening presents, but we have to throw two separate parties.

Then there is Halloween. I remember Halloween in my childhood being a one night event. There was a little preparation ahead of time getting the costume ready and such. Now there are town Halloween events, company events, and parties. This year we went to the Hudson event, but skipped the Marlborough one. We also went to my company’s party. Both of those were jam-packed with kids, waiting waiting waiting in line to play games, get candy, etc. etc. Then of course there is Halloween night. Erica took the kids out, I stayed at home and manned the door.

On the biking front, I am still trying to bike daily to work. I’m getting all my winter-wear ready, and my headlight charged for next week (post-daylight savings). I’ve even taken the smoothy tires off my mountain bike and put, gasp, mountain bike tires on. There is a big difference between my 700×23 road tires and my 26×2.1 mountain bike knobbies.

This past weekend I got a chance to climb Wachusett Mountain again with my friend Sanjay. At the beginning of the season he was riding a mountain bike, and our first ride we couldn’t even get around the reservoir. Since then, he’s found himself a road bike, gotten owned by Nashbar, done the Middlesex Century and now climbed the highest point in Massachusetts east of the Connecticut river. Way to go Sanjay!

This weekend was a whirlwind of activity. It all started last weekend, when Brian and I biked up to Wachusett Mountain for the kids fest. Our families met us up there. When we were done filling up on all the free junk food, I went up to the mountain peak. My wife and kids met me at the top, then we all drove home. Monday through Wednesday I did training rides with various team mates, in preparation for the Rodman Ride on Saturday.

On Saturday, Ken and I carpooled to Foxborough, leaving my house at 5:45 AM, on the bikes and moving at 7. The weather was fantastic and the route was mostly flat. The Staples Soul team finished our 100 miles around 3:30 pm (I also hit 7,000 miles on my odometer during the ride!). We managed to raise over $4,000 for the Mazie Foundation, and our matching shirts attracted a lot of attention and hopefully a lot of awareness. At the end of the ride I had a cheeseburger, hot dog and a beer, then went over to the health club to get cleaned up. We drove from there into Boston, and made it to the Boston Billiard Club for Bill’s bachelor party at 7:30pm. We had some fun trying to play pool, had a beer and lots of coffee. Great food too. We left around 10:30 and I got home by 12:30. Erica managed to convince our friend Gordon to babysit the kids while she went to my other biking buddy Tom’s big 4-0 party. At the end of the night we were both wiped out.

I woke up at 6am to prepare for my niece and nephew to visit. We all went to church, then came back, had lunch, and went to the Marlborough Heritage Festival. After Erica’s sister left with her kids, we got packed up and went over to Sanjay and Divya’s house for playtime, beer, pizza, beer, movie and cake.

I woke up this morning at a leisurely 6:30am. I helped get the kids ready for school, then got back on my bike and made, what I hope will be, my daily winter route to work.

Saturday was an awesome biking day. I left my house at 6:50 and got to Bill’s around 7:30. We started the Middlesex Century around 8:10. It was hot and humid, but felt good most of the day as long as I kept on moving.

I guess I’m strange (perhaps the mohawk gives it away?), but after lunch I got an energy boost - just when everyone else was starting to drag. After taking an impromptu break, we learned that the other crew of bikers was already at the meeting point - so I booked it from there and met up with everyone around 3:40. I arrived at the meeting point reading just over 100 miles on the odometer. Ah, time for a break. Ok, time’s up. Switch bikes, connect the tag-a-long and trailer, put the helmets on the kids, and back on the road for another 15 hilly miles.

We ended the day with an awesome BBQ and lots of pictures. On Sunday my daughter and I went to church and had our first service with our new minister, then we had dinner and a awesome jam session over at Gordon’s. I think we’ve got a little band formed - gotta start thinking of names. Maybe, “Bike Me,” or “Fraggle Hair.”

Now I’ve got to start training for the Rodman Ride for Kids in late September. The Staples Soul team is riding for the John Andrew Mazie foundation. This century happens to be on the same day as Bill’s bachelor party, but I figure I should be able to fit everything in. Start biking at 7, be done by 5ish, have a shower, some BBQ, then dash up to Boston and eat and drink some more!

This past weekend I joined in on the Charles River Wheelmen Climb to the Clouds. I pedaled 115 miles and climbed 2,000 feet to the summit of Mt. Wachusett. I did this along with 2 weeks of 30 mile days in order to hit my goal of 6,000 miles by 7/23. I hit my goal a few days early, and now I can continue to quote my average of 3,000 miles per year.

So, what’s next? I need to start planning what kind of big rides and vacations I’ll be doing the next year. I’d like to do more family friendly vacations, taking the wife and kids with me. I’m trying to convince my wife that we should take our Labor Day cape vacation without car. We could bike to Boston, take the ferry to Provincetown, then rail-trail it down to Nickerson State Park. Read this story: 6 Ferries and a Bike (PDF) by Tony Barrett.

Currently, the next big bike event is the Middlesex Century. This is the ride that my friend Bill arranges every year to raise money for AA&MDSIF for bone marrow disorders. As you will recall, last year I had a goal of raising $300. That was aiming a little low, as I quickly received much more than that - and also quickly received a mohawk. This year my goal is $900 - if you’d like to be one of the first to donate please either let me know our go directly to our donation page.

Thanks go to Carl for the action shot.