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After my solo early morning ride today, which wasn’t supposed to be solo but after one of my riding buddies suggested yesterday evening we leave at 6:00 or 6:15 and then failing to show up by 6:40 when I was finally awake and motivated enough to ride by myself, I uploaded my last few days commuting and this mornings’ ride to Motionbased, and noticed I logged exactly 100 miles this week and 1000 miles so far this year.

No, I didn’t ride circles around the court to get the numbers to work out like that. I play numbers games in my head when I ride, so I knew if I made 35 miles this morning, I’d end up with 100 miles for the week, but I had no idea about the other benchmark, and I wasn’t trying to make it work out exactly, I was going for more of an “at least” type of thing.

May is National Bike Month. The League of American Bicyclists is promoting it with Bike to Work Week, from 14-18 May, and Bike to Work Day, Friday 18 May. I’ve been riding my bike to work since last Monday and enjoying it pretty well. The body shop tells us the minivan should be ready to pick up tomorrow, so I’m not certain I’ll actually end up riding to work for the entirety of Bike to Work Week. So far I haven’t seen a single other bicyclist along my commute route, which covers parts of Hardy McManus Road, Halali Farm Road, Blanchard Road, Hereford Farm Road, and Bel Air Road.

Today I missed getting got in a pretty good soaker of a rain shower by about three minutes. My neighbor pulled up next to me just as it was starting to sprinkle and I was hammering down the hill towards our neighborhood. He rolled down his window and started chatting with me! It was kind of entertaining but I’m not used to trying to look to the side and talk like that to someone in an SUV. I wonder if it’s easier to converse with the driver of a sedan or wagon, since they’re lower to the ground and you don’t have to crane your neck up? You don’t see too many big vehicles supporting the pro peleton; even in the USA it’s mostly sedans and wagons. My favorite at the Tour de Georgia last year was Jittery Joe’s convertible Mini Cooper.

Can a $95 Saab roof rack replace a $220 Thule rack?

Last week I sold one of the cars, but didn’t mention it was one I used to transport my bikes to mountain bike trails and to some longer road rides. It’s been six years since we bought the roof rack for the car we just sold, so I’d forgotten how expensive they can be. A Thule rack with the fit kit, towers, load bars, and two bike trays costs in the neighborhood of $400, which seems like a lot to me now! The load bars, fit kit and towers by themselves were $220.

Luckily I stumbled on a discussion of bike racks on a Saab owner’s forum while investigating an unrelated problem, and found that Saab has a branded roof rack system. They looked exactly like the Thule bars I already have, and sure enough, I found posts by two separate people stating the bars were sourced by Saab from Thule, and were compatible with all Thule accessories. Even better, the Saab rack cost $95 and mounted to existing holes in the roof of the car.

I’ve seen several brands such as BMW and Mercedes with obvious roof mount points for an accessory rack, but never knew the Saab 9-3 had them, because Saab cleverly put them beneath the weather stripping. Open the doors and peel back the weather stripping from the top, and you’ll see two nice little mount points for each door!

The rack took minutes to install, goes on without tools, and because it’s mounting inside the door, the rack is secured to the roof whenever the doors are closed and locked. The integrated mount points for this rack give it a clean look; sedans never look quite right with a roof rack, but this one is less goofy than most. Highly recommended if you want to cart some bikes around on a Saab 900, 9-3, or 9-5 sedan or hatchback.