Monday, March 10, 2008

Errands on the way home

Friday I thought I'd check out a yarn shop on my commute home - I needed wool for the next project (Nancy Bush's Conwy socks). Farm House Yarns is on Farmington, pretty much 2 miles directly south of my work. It was raining a bit. The ride was uneventful, other than traffic does zip right along on Millkan Way heading west (I can see why many cyclists choose to ride on the sidewalk, even though it is two lanes both ways, and not heavily trafficked), and 160th gets very narrow south of the railroad tracks . Once I turned left onto Farmington it was nice, but I was at my destination in a couple of blocks.

Farm House Yarns is indeed a converted house, with a really nice covered porch (locked the bike there), and yarn everywhere inside. "oh, a biker!" as I walked in. Me: "cyclist" :-) They pointed me at the sock yarn room, with the warning that it wasn't as stocked as it would be in a few weeks. That said, I found a small group knitting socks, and a decent selection of yarns.

Visited with the knitting group, and picked out some Colinette Cadenza, which will probably turn into some Thuja socks for me.

Colinette Cadenza

Another nice visit at the cash register - Sandy wants to ride, but just around. She wanted to know if REI was a good bike shop. They are, but I give my money to Bike Gallery - I can easily ride over there there, and the mechanics are excellent.

Headed east on Farmington until I could turn right to get onto Division/6th/5th, which is the peaceful way to ride through central Beaverton. When I eventually turned left onto Lombard, I could see another cyclist coming up behind me in the gloom.

From behind me: "Nice Honjos!"
I turned around: "Nice Ostrich bag!"

And we followed each other all the way to the northern terminus of Lombard, where we went our separate ways.

5 comments:

Mitch said...

Hi Lynne,

I'm the "Nice Honjos!" rider with the Ostrich bag. I read your blog occasionally, and at the time I thought you (and your honjos) looked familiar. Our paths separated before I got a chance to confirm. I was on my daily commute home (Cedar Hills area).

I think you're the first Rivendell-ized rider I've seen on the west side...

Mitch

lynnef said...

Mitch,

You were certainly the first *commuter* I'd seen with an Ostrich bag, or even a front rack and rack bag!

Nice intersecting with you!

Mitch said...

Lynne,

Likewise! Next time our paths cross, I'll probably have my V.O. smooth aluminum fenders installed too. I see a handful of commuters on the "Lombard corridor", but not many. It seems like points west (near Murray) have a higher commuter density.

Do you like your IQ Fly? I'm building a dynohub and am considering an IQ fly as one of the two lights it will run (the other being a homebrew LED light).

Mitch

lynnef said...

Our paths will only cross if I visit the yarn store again - normally I ride north of Walker. But I'll look for you!

I do like my IQ Fly. I hear that Schmidt is coming out with an even brighter light, though.

Mitch said...

Thanks, Lynne. Yes, I've seen photos of the new Schmidt light.

Keep 'em rolling!