Commuting - Very long commute club: week 5

Thought I'd give Mars a break and start this week post. Here last weeks Excel sheet. enjoy your week of commuting. When I'm going to work with a east wind it's a head wind, and comming back with a west wind it's also a head wind.

OK I'm just going to turn a blind eye to your average speeds -- its too early on an Monday for such ego deflation.

Nothing like a 50 degree rainy morning to clear the tourists off the MUP. It was a pleasantly uneventful ride, but for some reason couldn't get up to full speed. Probably still recovering from a weekend of too much wine and too much song.

Whoops :o . Forgot about the thread last night. Thanks CigTech!

OK I'm just going to turn a blind eye to your average speeds -- its too early on an Monday for such ego deflation.

Nothing like a 50 degree rainy morning to clear the tourists off the MUP. It was a pleasantly uneventful ride, but for some reason couldn't get up to full speed. Probably still recovering from a weekend of too much wine and too much song.

+1 on both counts.
I've actually reduced how much I pay attention to my cyclocomputer. Much more relaxing.

We had a few days of rainy (or drizzly) weather last week. High 40s to the low 50s and no one was on the mups! So nice.
This week should be nice temps and weather. Back to dodging joggers, walkers, slow moving cyclists, people walking their dogs, etc

Took it a bit easy this morning. Made decent time, 1h 17 12.5 miles....found a minor shortcut that saves about 1/8 mile or so, an easier road. Chilly this morning, took the jacket. Leaving late tonight (10pm), so I'll get the bus back most likeley....

I have my commute of 12.1 down to exactly 45 minutes .....
16.1333 mph
25.9640 kmh
7.2122 meters/sec
1419.7333 feet/minute

This is on the Surley though because 7b would twist the fixies 23's
into pretzels ! :eek: When 7a is finished being paved I will fix-it again
and will be interested in comparing the averages.

They say it happens to all men eventually....I couldnt get it up :eek:
Yesterday, for the first time I couldnt get my fixie up a hill. I had to walk. :cry:
I did do a nice 24 mile ride with lots of big hills but the end of N. Creek road was
just too much !!! I stood on the pedals with all 155lbs of my heft and it was as if
the bike was bolted to the road. Oh well.....I actually suspected I might at mile
2o so I was prepared for the emasculation somewhat .

they make a little blue pill for that :p

I've had to walk before. Was on a gravel path with a junky MTB pulling my son in his trailer. I could not get up the hill and started going the opposite direction. Tossed my pride and dismounted.

Not A Problem Mars, I got your back.

Well this morning a guy come up the hump on the friendship bridge as I was doing a drink stop and lock up his back tire on his Trek Madone SSL 5.9. I know he had to have flat sided his back tire. Then backs up to my bike and starts saying "wow, that's a 1989 Peugeot PB-14, I had one of this." and tells me how much he loved his etc. etc. etc. I was thinking you just flat sided your tire to have a better look at my $10.00 Peugeot?:eek: His tire cost more then my bike LOL. So we talk for a few minutes then he start off down the hump.

I put the Dr Pepper in my drink holder and take off down the hump after him. I pass him at about the 1/2 mile mark from the hump and pass him doing 36.4 mph. He did tire to stay up with me but I just keep it at 32 mph till he faded off. By the time I made the 2 miles to the end of the bridge I was 1/2 of a mile in front of him and just keep on going. I just love deflating a ego of these guys in full bike outfits on high dollar bikes.:D

So I get to work and tell my boss about the ego deflating and about the Peugeot I just got, He had not seen it till today. Then show him the bike and told him that some day soon I am going to paint it. So he takes me over to Paint and tells me to get anything I need to paint the bike (I work at Home Depot). Then takes me to the office and writes off all the paint and tools. Now that's a good boss. So I have the next two days off and well be painting my Peugeot Metallic Cobalt Blue and Metallic Silver on the butt joints.

Well no commute for me today as I am recovering from 15 hours of a plumbing project yesterday. Hope to be on the bike tomorrow.

Cigtech, intersting story. Those types of riders are called posers......

Tibike -- condolences on the plumbing project. Every plumbing project seems to take much longer than anticipated.

Cigtech -- I think I need a bigger hill -- a much bigger hill if I'm going to break 30 mph! It is nice to take the poseurs down a notch. The tough part is differentiating poseurs from real riders with an overdeveloped fashion sense.

A cool cloudy but pleasant commute today. There were a lot more riders this morning. I'm not sure what was going on, but it looked almost like Bike to Work day. Have a good ride everybody.

By the way has anybody seen Longhorn on any of the forums? She seems to be one VLCer who has not emerged from winter hibernation.

The bridge hump is 1/4 long on each side and a 120 foot height above sea level. So you can get quite a run started off of it. One day with a 20-mph tail wind I hit 37 mph coming off that hump. This is way I call it the Wall. I have seen a lot of fast bikers having to walk there bikes up this hill because here this is the only type of hill there is. Most of the land is only 10 to 30 feet abover sea level.

I'm am one of the fastest commuters on the bridge. I have seen one other commuter that is my equal. We took turns drafting each other all the way down Gandy RD. (6.25 miles) at 24 mph into a 8 mph head wind. I have not seen him again.

CigTech, you're one fast puppy! Can't wait to see the pics of the Peugeot.

I had a pleasant ride in today. I don't have a cyclocomputer, so I can't report on my speed, but I made it to the coffee shop in the usual time. Perhaps this evening I'll push my time a bit.

I did see lots of commuters in DC, even some in NE.

CigTech...I'll be seeing you soon on the Gandy. I'm moving to Saint Pete when I find a house. Commute will be 20-25 miles to Ybor.

Can I get a draft? That is IF I can keep up.

Marylandnewbie - You're right about a little bit of rain scaring everybody off. Yesterday, I didn't see a soul for the first 12 miles - today was fender to fender bike traffic.

I couldn't catch a break yesterday on the way in. I thought I would slip in between showers, but with about 3 miles to go it started coming down pretty good. I didn't have any ww gear one, so I was soaked. Then at the one spot where I have to get off my bike an walk it across the George Washington Parkway - in a very well marked crosswalk(but without a signal), I must have waited 5 minutes (in the rain) before I could get across. No one even thought about stopping for me (I counted 3 cops and at least 10 cars with bike racks) finally when there was a small break in the near lane I walked out into it and just stood holding up traffic pointing at the crosswalk sign until someone in the other lane finally stopped. Nobody ever stops at that crosswalk, but usually there is enough breaks in traffic that it doesn't matter.

Great ride home today dispite the extra bike and foot traffic on the path, not getting any faster though.

O-town, I'd slow down for you. I really only normally ride at 18 to 20 mph. But if a poser comes around I may just have deflate a ego. Ride with me for a while and we'll get you up to speed, or put you in the hospital.

Velogirl, your wish is my command. Here is a picture of the PB-14 with a fresh skin. It's not done just yet. I have to paint the logos and PEUGEOT back on it then clear coat the whole thing. Or I could just keep it as a sleeper, that way on one will know it's a Peugeot.:rolleyes: Was thing about painting CigTech Express on it.:D here a before and after shots

Well I commuted for the first time on my new schedule (6am to 6pm) and it was sure a different experience then on my old shift (7am to 4pm).

First of all I got up at 3:30am and left about 3:50. I played raquettball until 9pm last night so I rushed home and didnt really prepare for the next days ride so I had to take a little extra time to get ready in the morning.

What a difference and hour makes. It was A LOT darker commute. On the old shift The first 10 mile were on main roads so even though it was dark it was still decently lit. By the time I got to the MUP it started get light out so I could almost ride the remaining 15 miles without a light. Well When I got to the trail this morning it was still completely dark. It was creepy being on a totally unlit MUP in total darkness. It was erie seeing eyes looking at me in the distance but not being able to tell what animal they were on. I only passed 2 other commuters heading in the other direction. I usually see about a dozen or so on the W&OD trail. At least on the roads I have the company of cars. I also got to see exactly how long my light would be good for. It last about 24 miles before it really got too dim to be of much use and by then it was a little lighter out and I didnt really need it since I was only a mile from work.

I made it too work in record time. Under a hour and forty minutes. Pretty close to an hour and a half I think. I think it was because I was creeped out on the trail. It must have made me ride faster.

Im hoping in 2 weeks I will be able to ride in 2 days a week. Next week is a short week so I only work 3 days and I want to have 2 days in between commutes while I am still adjusting to all the miles.

Riskus, congrats on the successful commute although I do not envy your schedule. During the winter I ride a MUP in the dark and in bad weather I am often alone. Its a little disconcerting at first, but you get used to it. After a while the solitude is actually kind of enjoyable.

Cigtech -- that is a nice looking paint job. I definitely need a bigger hill on my ride to get near your speed. On my best hill I topped out at 24 mph this morning. Even if I pushed hard I doubt I could make 30mph on that hill.

Xroader -- you should move to the Free State where cars and bikes frolic in a tolerant, law abiding paradise! Actually I've generally had good luck at the spots where the MUP crosses roads. Often cars stop to let bike traffic cross. Although for some reason during the winter cars were routinely running the red light at one crossing. Now that it is daylight during the commute cagers are once again stopping -- who knew you couldn't see stoplights in the dark? You're going to have to get used to carrying raingear and other backup stuff on your commute -- think gypsy caravan rather than Lance Armstrong lycra.

Boy, mornings are almost like riding on a bicycle beltway you have to watch for bike traffic and cyclists merging on and off the MUP. I guess its good to see so much support for bike commuting, but I miss the solitary winter rides. Other than the increased traffic my commute was simply lovely ;) -- can you tell I wore tights on my ride this morning!

I wore tights also!
Nothing to be excited about. More bumed than anything.
It was 55F Monday morning: jersey and shorts
Tuesday: 49: tights and jersey
Wed: 33 tights, jersey, jacket, and another poly layer up top.
You have to love Colorado's temps.

Legs are starting to feel the commute again. Every couple weeks my endurance level bumps up a tad.
At the start I was only energetic for the first day. Now I am fine until the third day. In a few weeks I hope to postpone my exhaustion to the 4th day. :p

Congrats on the successful commute riskus. The rails to trails path I take for much of my commute is mostly tree lined. I start getting tunnel vision when riding on that in darkness. I have enough wattage to see where I am going just fine, but since my light(s) is the only one out there, I find myself getting hypnotized sometimes.

This morning I was actually able to draft off of another rider for a short while. I rarely encounter other riders going my direction in the morning. We got stopped by some traffic, so I took the opportunity to ask if he was going somewhere particular or just out for some morning exercise. It was the latter, though he mentioned that he does ride to work pretty frequently. Thunderstorms predicted for this afternoon scared him off of it today though. Whoops :o I should have checked the weather this morning. And here I am without rain gear today. I think I do have arm warmers in my pannier, so that counts for something, right?

I met a fellow commuter in NE DC on yesterday's way home. I don't see many commuters once I cross N. Capitol Street. We had a chat, it was nice.

Today's commute was fine, but I got yelled at by a taxi driver. Oh well, can't make everyone happy.

It's a rare day that I see another commuter type. I sometimes see guys wobbling up the sidewalk with garbage bags filled with soda cans and the like, but that is about it for cyclists.

For some reason, I have been really lazy on my commutes for the past couple of weeks. I just loaf along, at a just lightly panting level of exertion. Last year at this time, I was riding in my aerobic zone (breathing to hard to have a conversation, only single words between gasps of air) nearly every day. I guess I am just digging the green, warm air, and blue skies too much to want to ride real fast. When I am really hauling the mail, my whole world is a grey blur of pavement and all of my attention is on the pain I am feeling. Hmm, makes me wonder if riding so fast is really worth it.

I'm am one of the fastest commuters on the bridge. I have seen one other commuter that is my equal. We took turns drafting each other all the way down Gandy RD. (6.25 miles) at 24 mph into a 8 mph head wind. I have not seen him again.

All this talk of hard core racing behavior has led to a race game I have invented for us next week. The idea is to be able to compare our speeds within the format I have created. We have some pretty speedy folks here: Cyclaholic, TiBike, CigTech are some obvious favorites. And maybe some speedster who is lurking around, just waiting fo rtheir chance. Who will be fastest????

Mars, If I start out slow on my commute then I'll have a 85 to 90 min ride. So I just keep up the speed so I can do it in 60 min. I don't really like to go slow. But every now and again I'll just take breaks on the commute if I have time. I usly take two 5 min breaks on the way home and none on the way to work.

So what is your slowest spped every one? Mine is about 13 mph if a bonk or have a 20 mph head wind, anthing below that and I don't feel like I'm going any where.

Hello all. After tooling around in these forums a while, I think I would like to participate in this one, as I believe I have a commute that fits the criteria. I currently ride about 40 miles roundtrip. I am, however, only able to do this 2 or 3 times a week. I don't know how others do it, but I just can't seem to muster up the energy to do so more often. Today I rode in after riding yesterday (the first time I've rode back to back like that in a while) and I'm really feeling it.

I think there are a number of reasons for this, but mainly I can't seem to bring myself to relax the pace a little and I really have to work on this.

Anyways, hello.

CigTech, do you keep a detailled log of every ride like that?

Welcome French.Ace. You don't have to be fast just good, too keep up with this group. Mars is the fastest one here, but he has been enchanted with the spring weather.

I'm the same way, it's all or nothing. If I want to slow down a little, I down shift and keep on spinning. The downshift will limit your top speed. It will also take the pressure off your knees. Also force your self to stay in the upright position, this along will make you go slower. If you keep the spin high then you'll increase your stamina.

I only keep records of my commute ride. On fun rides I do the same speed or go a little faster.

The other day I rode to the doctors office (12miles) in 35 min and then seat down for 5 min before they called me back. right away they took my blood pressure and it was only 120/65. They could not beleave it and took it again. :lol: Even after my 17 mile commute I only need 10 min to cool down.

Beautiful day for my 32 mile commute home. A moderate headwind, so I was a little slower, doing the ride in 2:11. Last week was 2:07.

New things this week:
A new section of MUP has opened up, where there has been a detour around under-construction condos for a year. The condos were required to construct a new section of path, and it is very nice. It actually elminates a small uphill section, and has a few interesting swoop curves as it descends. But it has a hazard of a telephone right in the middle of the path near the end, with some yellow warning paint.

Also, there are a couple more buildings under demolition. Probably will be replaced by more condos or new houses as long as the housing boom doesn't end too suddenly.

-=$>Dave<$=-

uneventful ride home. Beautiful day for a bike ride.

What's the update on Cyclo? He a daddy yet?

My bike is off the road - hub flanges sheared off, chainstays possibly cracked.

On the happy side it gives me a chance to do my homebrew light and pannier setup.

Any VLC tips on battery mounts?

I'm using an old brake hood clamp to mount the front light - fits the bars, made to support lots of weight, i thought it was an elegant solution.

Panniers are canvas military bags, attached with bull clamps and a occy strap (bungy cord). Cost me 20 a side for panniers that should last longer than the bike - i have promised myself a new one (custom with campy) when i finish my PhD or i reach a 34 inch waist, whichever comes first.

So what is your slowest spped every one? Mine is about 13 mph if a bonk or have a 20 mph head wind, anthing below that and I don't feel like I'm going any where.

On Monday (in the rain w/out gear) I only averaged 12.2 mph that ride seemed to last forever.

my road home tonight was rough. At times my legs were completely dead. Then every once in a while I would get a burst of energy. I was fine taking it easy since my weekend starts today. Even though the ride was rough I still made it home between 1:40 and 1:50. I thought for sure I was going to be over 2 hours.

G'day VLCCers, good to see everyone's churning out the miles.

Gus, I'm a daddy for the 3rd and final time. Girl named Jackeline, born 5 weeks ago, on the 2nd contraction less than 15 minutes after we got to the hospital.... she's obviously going to be a time trial rider. :p

Check out my unscheduled dismount report in last weeks vlcc thread, I got lucky and walked away laughing after going down at 40-ish kph.:o

How did all that happen to your bike?:eek: and I want to see pics of your light setup. I carry my battery in the Topeak trunk bag, its a 12V 7.2AH SLA monster of a battery (a 'training aid' :p )

Cig, you're bluddy fast mate! wish you and I had the same commute, we'd hurt each other :D

french.ace, I do 60 miles a day 5 days a week, to recover I eat like a horse and sleep like a log - much to my wife's dismay :p

Hey c'holic! Blessings wished on you and your newly expanded family!!!!

I was chatting to Tony one of the regulars on the path this morning when we saw a roadie come hurtling towards us. Suddenly a noise from a blowout, the guy sort of kept control and slowed right down but forgot to unclip and did a bit of a face plant with his chin. I think he was quite stunned because he just lay there looking puzzled for about 10 seconds or so. He was sore and peeved but OK.

Otherwise an uneventful VL commuting week is drawing to a close. Morning temperatures are hovering around 10degC.

Apparently all weather for Oz has been cancelled.

Well this morning did not start off well. I was about 1.5 miles from my home when I got a flat. So I think no big problem. I patch it and got ready to go again. The back tire was flat again. so patch it and got ready to go, and it's flat again. So walk it back to the house and took off the tire to find that I hade 5 staples in my tire. Called work and told them I was going to be a little late (2 hours). Now I'm off to the LBS to get two tubes.

I only keep records of my commute ride. On fun rides I do the same speed or go a little faster.


CigTech, if you had a free piece of software to record your rides (ie, in a calendar format), would you try it to see if you liked it as much as your spreadsheet?

Last year I grew tired of doing the spreadsheet thing like you and I wrote my own calendar to record just about everything you're tracking on your spreadsheet. If one of your benefits of working at HomeDepot is getting free paint to paint your ride, a benefit of being a programmer is writing your own bike-specific software.

I've never had an opportunity to see what another cyclist thinks of it.

Well an uneventful commute this morning and best of all I got in before the rain swept through. The threat of rain really cleared people off the MUP this morning -- just a bunch of wussy-muters. Hopefully I'll get to the LBS tonight to have them start on building a new rear wheel for me. I'm riding on the stock wheel that I replaced last year, so its not a good long term solution.

Cyclaholic -- congrats on your new cyclist.

Xroader -- I think I've had a couple of rides home that were down to 11.8 or 11.9 mph and they felt slow, but usually those were days when I was feeling dead anyway.

Riskus -- I think everyone (with the possible exception of Cigtech and Cyclaholic) have had dead leg days. If you have a string of those days in a row you might want to look at seat height, hydration, nutrition to make sure you're not robbing yourself of zip.

Ride safe everyone.

Yeah! I just beat the rain home today. I had to work late so I thought I was in for it, but I caught a gap in the storms and rolled in five minutes before it started. Really - I'm going to buy rain gear any day now. On the bad side I am on travel next week, so I won't be able to ride. I'll be stuck spinning in a hotel gym in the best case. Worst case, I'll have to go (ack!)running every day. I hate running. I do it once a week just to work some other muscles, and I used to enjoy it, but now it is just too much work.

Cycaholic - congrats on the ankle biter, but three is tough, now you have to switch from a man-on-man to a zone defense - the kids have you out numbered!

I know the wind was bad comming home to night. I would be going 16 mph then a gust of wind would hit me and slow me down to 13.5 mph. I did the 17.83 miles in 78 minutes. After I got home I look at Weather. com and the winds are SW 15 mph gusting to 24 mph. See for your self.

French.Ace, I would be glade to see the software you wrote. Can you keep the wind speed and driction, humidity and such? If you want to seen it on and I'll kick the tires for you. :lol:

Gus, I'm a daddy for the 3rd and final time. Girl named Jackeline, born 5 weeks ago, on the 2nd contraction less than 15 minutes after we got to the hospital.... she's obviously going to be a time trial rider. :p

Mate, between making babies and riding 1 billion miles a day, where do you get time to sleep? :D



Check out my unscheduled dismount report in last weeks vlcc thread, I got lucky and walked away laughing after going down at 40-ish kph.:o


Heh, like the name mate. Good thing about only minor damage! The Xenon strobe is from jaycar?



How did all that happen to your bike?:eek: and I want to see pics of your light setup. I carry my battery in the Topeak trunk bag, its a 12V 7.2AH SLA monster of a battery (a 'training aid' :p )


I dunno mate, i've never seen a hub flange sheer off, and the crack looks like the bloke who owned it first was a little rough on the bike. I'll get those pics. Its gonna be the same batt as yours, with a 20 w 12 degree halogen. Xenon on the back. undercar neon mounted under the down tube (very brighton le sands of me). I just don't know how to keep the battery from bouncing around inside my rack bag.

Beer o'clock boys and girls. Enjoy the weekend.

Congrats on the new family member Cyclaholic! How exciting!

Rain today and for the next few days here in Vermont. Rode in through a steady, but not too hard rain. I have decided to use my road bike during rainy days instead of the bent. ON the recumbent, the rear tire sprays the back of my head and neck with water and grime >:(. On the roadie, just my butt gets sprayed...

doh! I had my first flat tire in 4 YEARS today! Not to worry, I can change a flat. But for some reason I had a 26x1.38 (is that a wierd size?) extra tube, and my wheels are 700x28. I've been carrying that tube around for several years...I don't know where it came from. So I went on to patching the old tube, but couldn't find a hole. Oh well, says I, I'll just pump it up and see how far it gets me. I was ony about 4 miles from work. It got me there, and I was able to hop down to the bike shop and pick up a couple of real 700x28s.

Other than that, I had a 25 mile commute this morning, as opposed to my usual 14. I had to go check out a job site (see if some trees we had planted were still alive--they were not) up in Silver Spring, and then I went down to Alexandria where I work via Rock Creek Park. RCP is really not very good for bikes. That's probably where the flat originated. I think I went over so many huge potholes that the valve got loose, cause there's no hole in that tube. It wasn't flat until near the airport, though.

Now I'm going to ride home, 14 miles, making it a 39-mile RT commute for the day. Not much compared to Cycleholic, but more than usual for me. Taking tomorrow off, but I have a 50-mile road ride planned for Mothers Day.

Have a good weekend.

Had a good ride again today, I had to be at a meeting at 7:00 so I left home a 5:30 - not a soul on the trail at that time of day, but by 6:00 north of Alexandria, the people were starting to come out. I had extra gear with me today, making my bag almost 40lbs - that is getting a bit old. The bike won't even rest on the kick stand with that much weight, it pivots the front wheel off the ground and falls over.

I've attached my chart for the week. I averaged 1 mph slower this week than last, and my average heart rate was lower too - but both my max speed and max heart rate were higher. No commute next week because of travel - I'll try to get my average speed up next week.

French.Ace, I'll try out a copy of your software also. I probably wouldn't use it regularly since my log entry is automated with the garmin forerunner, but I'm a geek, so I'll put it through beta paces for you. Now if you could make it download the data from my garmin, and pull in weather data off the internet, that would be something. i like the calendar format.

Everyone have a good weekend, and I'll see you in a week.

fast commute home: 1:10, and that's the long route and uphill and post-25 miles this morning. Yip!

I have my commute of 12.1 down to exactly 45 minutes .....
16.1333 mph
25.9640 kmh
7.2122 meters/sec
1419.7333 feet/minute

This is on the Surley though because 7b would twist the fixies 23's
into pretzels ! :eek: When 7a is finished being paved I will fix-it again
and will be interested in comparing the averages.

They say it happens to all men eventually....I couldnt get it up :eek:
Yesterday, for the first time I couldnt get my fixie up a hill. I had to walk. :cry:
I did do a nice 24 mile ride with lots of big hills but the end of N. Creek road was
just too much !!! I stood on the pedals with all 155lbs of my heft and it was as if
the bike was bolted to the road. Oh well.....I actually suspected I might at mile
2o so I was prepared for the emasculation somewhat .


Well, I don't know about N. Creek road, but the repaving of East Clarendon road last summer took FOREVER !!! :D .....nice ride now though


Hey, was that you walkn?:D

Xroader, too bad you’re off the bike next week. But the following week you'll have to average 24 mph every day to make up for next week, OK?

Velogirl, that is a very good speed with a extra long morning commute. You go girl.

Mars, I can design you a snap-on seat plate that will fit on the top of your seat. That way it will block the spray. And by the way you off the hook on the boxes. Some one stole the hornet. So now I have to start over on the project. I was able to ride it to work and back on a day off with the NTB tires. It averaged 14.5 MPH. I did see what needed to be changed on the headstay. I needed to take the angle out a little more. So it's not a total lost and it did not coast me anything to make. I had all the parts on hand to make it. I still have parts for the new one also. If I every see it again I'll just run them down with the Peugeot and beat the living %$##@#@#$%#$#$%^ out of them.

Xroader, too bad you’re off the bike next week. But the following week you'll have to average 24 mph every day to make up for next week, OK?

Velogirl, that is a very good speed with a extra long morning commute. You go girl.

Mars, I can design you a snap-on seat plate that will fit on the top of your seat. That way it will block the spray. And by the way you off the hook on the boxes. Some one stole the hornet. So now I have to start over on the project. I was able to ride it to work and back on a day off with the NTB tires. It averaged 14.5 MPH. I did see what needed to be changed on the headstay. I needed to take the angle out a little more. So it's not a total lost and it did not coast me anything to make. I had all the parts on hand to make it. I still have parts for the new one also. If I every see it again I'll just run them down with the Peugeot and beat the living %$##@#@#$%#$#$%^ out of them.

Cig, that really sucks :mad: . After all that work you put into it! Don't give up, though, you can improve your design from what you learned from the first, like you mentioned. Regarding your average speed, it's hard to compare your bent speed with your roadie at first. That's because you need to develop your "recumbent muscles". You use slightly different muscles than on the upright, so your initial speeds will be down.

I'm interested in your idea about the spray blocking plate. Let me know what you come up with.

Stay tuned everybody. Next week is VLC Speed Week where we will establish what really would happen if guys like CigTech, Cyclaholic, and Tibike all met on the road. End of the universe? Sonic booms disrupting little old ladies' at there bridge game? We will soon know!

Or does it mean that some of us have to ride even slower so as not to disrupt some basic law of physics -- conservation of energy or some such thing?

Maryland- Your interpretation of physics and karma may be a little muddled, but it works for me:) . Since I'm off my bike next week, you can figure 0 mph for me, that alone ought to bring Cigtech down below the speed of sound. This week I feel I was slowed down too much by my work bag and a draggin disc brake, so I going to ride tomorrow morning for some speed work.

A Co-Worker saw me ridding in to work, about a mile away from work. As I walked by his desk I hear him say "Man you where flying. How fast where you going?" I asked him where he seen me at. Then he just keep saying "You where flying man, you where just gone." I just laugh and told him "I was just coming to work, that's all." I think I was doing like 24mph when he seen me at the 16 mile mark of my commute.

I know, if well all take off next week going in to the east, the rotation of the Earth will speed up. Causing the Moon to be pulled into the Earth. Which will end all life on Earth, as we know it. So build those booms shelter this weekend. But, If Cyclaholic and I take off at the same time. With Cyclaholic going west, and me going east. Then we may just rip the Earth in half at the equator.:eek: :roflmao:

Very nice ride this morning. I had a ARTS of 18.59 mph going to work. On the way home, I found out that 6 of my back wheel spokes where loss. So I had to stop and fix them. I ended up with an ART of 16.19 mph coming home. Other then that very nice day for commute. Oh, I did help out this girl ridding the bridge this morning. She had her seat all the way down to the frame of her MTB. So I came up beside her and asked if her knees where hurting. She said, "YES". So we stop and I raised her seat 3 1/2" and then we rode on. About 1 mile later she said that her knees where all ready feeling better and thank me for help her out. She was doing like 12 mph before I fixed her seat, and about 16mph after. I all so told her to get some better tires so it would be easer to ride on the bridge. I try to help out any one I can, this way they will learn to love bike riding.

So, what's the milage requirement for a long commute? I currently do 12mi one-way or 23mi when I manage round trips. If I get the new job next month it will be 18mi one-way. I'm actually looking forward to it.