The truth in "modified" advertising!

A fuzzy tour of 2nd St.

I left a little early this morning and changed up my route.  Today I chose to ride all the way down second street (from Keystone Ave. to Rock Blvd.).  Not exactly a bike friendly route, as there isn't a single section of bike lane on the whole thing.  It does however take you right through downtown Reno and is all 30 mph speed limits or less.

For some reason my camera is not focusing well....so enjoy the fuzzy picture show!

Headed East on Second St. through downtown.  If it wasn't so fuzzy you could see all the traffic signals ahead.  They turned out be the theme of the ride.

Looks like you can finally purchase some of those vacant condos they developed!  If you want the urban lifestyle please sign up.  They would be great for the car free lifestyle!

More lights....

The allures of downtown....gambling and women?  Reno still needs to rethink it's identity in my mind.

The baseball stadium....which as of this morning is no longer getting 30 million in tax payer dollars to subsidize the billionaire are owner!   Good first vote new city council members!  This one basket is not where we should put all our eggs for redevelopment in my opinion.

A glimpse of the path I could be on....notice it does not have traffic signals.

More traffic signals on 2nd St.  They always seem to be red.

Another passing of the river path.  It should be noted, at this point it has taken me 8 minutes longer to get here than it takes me to get all the way to work on the path.  The route via 2nd Street is technically 1/2 mile shorter but in the end took me 12 minutes longer to ride due to all the stop lights.

I didn't take any pictures once I turned onto Rock Blvd.  This is not a road for the faint of heart when on a bicycle and no place to be fumbling with a camera.  No room for cars to pass,  no shoulders, two lanes in either direction.  A whole lot of people in a hurry to get somewhere they don't want to be....and they aren't in the mood to tolerate anyone. 

Anyway, it was a different ride and it did make for something to write about.  I don't think I'll ever take this as a regular route, but the section through downtown is at least interesting and shows that all of downtown is at your disposal on a bicycle!

Rembering the bike is on the roof rack.

I haven't done this (yet)....I suppose because I don't have a garage.  I do have a few friends who have tried it, although I don't suppose it turned out quite like this!

Bicycle.....nothing.....breakfast....great!

Well, I didn't ride today.  Not exactly news worthy.  Instead wifey and I went out for breakfast at the Squeeze In (in north Reno).  They had a Veterans day special for a free breakfast, and since wifey is indeed a veteran it seemed like a no brainer.  The food was fantastic (as usual). 

So I don't really have anything for you....I hope you rode today and that your path looked like this:

Enjoy those chilly fall rides while they last....soon it will be all studded tires and winter days!

Secret Love Affair....with the bike path.

If you've read this blog for any length of time you might get the idea that I am secretly in love with the river path.  Even I notice how often I post about it....and the fact that we tend to get together almost every day (and even on the weekends sometimes).  Wifey has always managed to turn a blind eye to this....and as of the last few years she has even made friends with the path herself.

This morning however, I encountered something I didn't really ever expect.  The river path seems to return the sentiment!!

Now, I'm not sure who the "artist" is....but it appears their medium is torn up discarded t-shirt, carefully rolled and aligned with, well let's just say love.  I wonder who the message is actually for, but since I'll never know, I'm going to assume that it is a general message to all cyclists from the path itself.  So if you were out on a bicycle on this chilly morning, just remember the ride loves you just was much as you love it!

Someone had a bad morning.

I changed up my route this morning and was cruising down 4th Street on the way to work when some colorful lights caught my attention.  Unfortunately, for somebody it wasn't the good kind of colorful lights!

So keep a wary eye out there on the streets...they can't even seem to see the other people in cars, so they probably won't see you on that bicycle.  On the up side drivers never fail to make a bicycle commute more interesting!

Sorry, My weekend was better than yours!

Last weekend was the 1st Annual Great Basin Beer Relay (benefiting the one and only Nevada Land Trust).  Basically it's a 40 mile race with teams of four people.  Each person runs two 5 mile legs and you get a Great Basin beer for free at the end.  Oh, and it's along the river path.....so you know I'm up for it!

Since it's my commute...and the river path....our team decided to ride bikes in between our legs rather than drive.  Yep, if you're doing the math, that's ride 30 miles, run 10 miles.  It turned out awesome, and looked like this.

The bicycle line up.....note two xtracycles, one with a prepped beer!

At the start, the 55 teams in the ready!

The course included the new cycle track on Nichols Blvd.!

Rolling support crew at the ready.  Yep, it was 35 degrees at the start!

The runners hit their stride early!  Nine minute miles out of the gate!

The first hand off of the wrist band!  From rider to runner!

The reason we're here....word number 3!

Duel xtracycle support means cold beer and hot coffee at the ready....along with all the treats you can eat!

Oh, I mean Gatorade.....yeah, Gatorade on the fly!

At the finish....beer was definitely the only thing getting me across this line!

The rewards!

Ok, so that was one day of my weekend.  Hope you had as much fun and suffered as much as we did!