Mars

Hi all! I am not going to be commuting very much this week, more sailing ahead for me. The weather has been awesome here in Vermont for the past week or so, really sunny and hot. Now that it is summer, I don't carry my messenger bag, just a seat bag with a tube and some tools. I have a "wardrobe" at work. How do you carry your stuff and solve your clothing problems for work?

I will try and see what I can do about pictures from my sailing. I would also like to take some of my commute to share. It really is a nice ride.

Good riding everybody, be safe!

JavaMan

There is a shower and locker room at my workplace. Tomorrow I will take clothes and food for the entire week to work in my car. I won't be riding my bike because I hurt my knee while bowling on Saturday. What a stupid injury! I hope it feels well enough for me to start riding on Tuesday.

Wishing good weather and safe travel for all commuters!

Marylandnewbie

I leave shoes at work, but otherwise I bring in pants and shirt and such everyday. It wouldn't be that convenient to store more clothes at my office. What I carry hasn't changed that much from winter when I started other than I can leave the light rig at home.

Mars enjoy your sailing. I should try to take pics of my commute as well (or at least the nice parts). Maybe later this week. For the next three days it will be like biking through a sauna. Its already 75 degrees and 90% humidity.

tibikefor2

Mars, have fun with the sailing.

I have a closet in my office where I keep a weeks worth of clothes and a gym with a shower on the top floor of my building.

I decided to take the day off from commuting as I did a 102 mile ride with one long climb.

Last week was also a first for me, as I was able to ride faster to and from work than I can do driving to the subway and then taking the subway to work. 59 minutes into work and 1 hour and 5 minutes returning home. Approximately 18 miles each way with most of the time spent on the W&OD and the Custis Bike trails. (On average Driving / Metro / Walk = 1 hour and 10 minutes)

Hope everyone has a good week and keep the rubber on the road.

jur

How far does one have to commute to qualify for this club?

Marylandnewbie

Jur, I don't think we ever really defined the Very long commute club minimum distance. My impression is that on the low end are people doing 18-20 mi roundtrip commutes and at the upper end there are those doing 30 or 40 or more miles round trip. We're not a terribly rule bound group so if you see something interensting and want to join in just jump on in. Or just join in and tell us about your commute -- we like living vicariously through the stories of others almost as much as we like bike commuting . Some of the advice and discussions here may not be very relevant if you only commute a couple of miles, but some of it is useful to all commuters.

I think this was the first inbound ride when traffic lights added significantly to my time. Normally the ones I breeze through cancel out those that I have to stop at -- not this morning. All the major lights were red, so it added several minutes to the trip. Otherwise the ride was pretty fast. There was actually traffic on the gravel part of the MUP today. At one point there were even 4 bikers in sight of each other at one time, not to mention the joggers and dog walkers. I guess summer is really upon us now.

AndrewP

Hot (29C) fast ride in as there was a following wind and I was lucky with the traffic lights. I think the headwind will be a good thing for the ride home as it will help keep me cool. There were masses of empty water bottles lying around on St Helens island, left by the F1 spectators.

Mars

The definition that I first came up with is that if YOU think that your commute is very long, then you are in I hope you join us and share your commuting/cycling war stories and wisdom.

Sloth

An excellent ride today, toalling about 25 miles. I had to head back after a couple of miles to fix a mis-installed cassette. After that, it was smooth sailing. Very hot, but just about perfect for riding. Tons and tons of pine pollen - my water bottles were coated with fine yellow dust after just a few miles.

I broke through 2000 miles for the spring last week, and did a major overhaul of my bike last weekend. I was very pleased with the results. I started waxing my chain about 1000 miles ago. This seems to last about a week, which is exactly what I want, and the chain and everything else stay clean as can be. My cassette now has about 2200 miles on it, and I can't detect any major wear (maybe one tooth that I might file down a bit), and the chain has less than 1/32" of "stretch" after about 1200 miles. Most excellent. I have another cassette on order and a new pair of chains ready to go, but I'm going to ride what I have for a while longer.

Monument Man

Ah Mars, I've been waiting and waiting and waiting to sail but the weather and timing just hasn't been on my side this year. I sail out of a club in Boston with a fleet of J22s and Rhodes 19s. Boston Harbor under the skyline and then all the uninhabited islands out in the Atlantic is just great. Lighthouses, bird sanctuaries, etc. Got to be careful on the ocean though. Where do you sail? Lake Champlain? My wife hates both sailing and cycling (and skiing and hiking and snowboarding) so you're lucky to enjoy it with your family.

Unfortunately cycling is taking lots of time this year.

Today is a steambath!

This weekend I went on a 60 mile ride with the team I'm riding with on my 150 mile ride (which is in 2 weeks) and man I'm really getting strong. It was fun to punish my friends with a blistering pace and dropping them on hills. There were a few other strong guys on the ride and we did a crazy fast paceline for a while. And I attacked at the end and kept a 30+ pace down and a 26-27mph pace UPhill for a few miles to the end. Yehaw. Commuting has made me very strong in the saddle! Who knew that the guy on the steel cross bike with Sora components could ride that fast.

Today's AM 5 mile sprint averaged 20.5 mph, a new record.

Have fun riding this week. Going to try to do 4 commutes this week, might be tough though. 32 miles home today. Pray I don't melt. I need to buy a white helmet instead of this black one I've got.

Mars

Holy crap, Monument, that is really impressive. Good for you and very inspiring! I would love to hear a more detailed, blow by blow account of your triumphs!

I do sail on Lake Champlain, mostly. My wife likes to sail as long as it doesn't get to be too much work or overly scary. She doesn't care for beating (going upwind for you non-sailors, I don't beat my wife ) in winds much over 10 knots. Personally, I love high wind sailing, but as you observe, got to keep her happy or she won't come out anymore. Then, no more bikinis She will sail in those conditions if we must, like having to be a certain place at a certain time, but would prefer to stayed anchored in a bay with the Margaritas when it's blowing or cold.

Went for a nice ride today. Unlike Monument, I am getting slwer because I am not riding as much as in the spring. I kept up an average of 18 mph, though, respectable for me. On a MUP, I was passing a teenager and a friend of his suddenly stepped on the path with him. I did a full emergency stop, tires skidding, bike swerving around under me. Theri faces looked just like this: , which kind of made it worthwhile. Hot out here again today, but the forecast is calling for temps in the 70's for the rest of the week.

Marylandnewbie

I Monument really just a nom de cycling for Hammer Bob? Could there be two such men of steel?

Anyway, very impressive Monument. Just a note to any new members to this thread -- most of us do not rack up the massive distances and speed records of Monument and Mars. They are our inspiration and nice enough to let us mortals tag along for the vicarious thrill. So even if your commute is like mine (a cake walk on a rail to trail MUP), you can still join in.

It is going to be hot, steamy and sunny on the trip home and probably like that for the next couple of days. I'm almost ready to pray for rain -- although that never reduces the humidity around here. Oh well it should bring out the rollerbladers (or as someone on another thread described them, "rolling pieces of art") so that's an incentive to sweat my way home.

Monument Man

Yeah my wife doesn't like beatings either!

Seriously though, the first time I brought her out it was VERY windy on the ocean and I was a bit "green" and things got a bit scary for her. So now in order to get her on the boat it has to be like 5 knot winds with 80 degrees, no humidity, and lots of promises of safekeeping from yours truly.

Didn't melt on the way home today but boy that humidity is really something else. I've got a new issue to contend with: glove stink. Oh yes my friends, the foul sweaty hands are just too much for my new gloves (which I don't like BTW and I just bought) Those puppies soak right through which makes it impossible to wipe my brow. They've got fleece instead of terry and it wicks the sweat from my hands. And the new heat is causing some major stink. Gross, I know. I need to start washing them every day. I was ashamed of them in the office today, and worried I'd get nasty comments from the coworkers.

New England is funny: one day it's 45 degrees and raining in May. Then it turns to June and we're 90+!

Raced a wickid crazy mountain bike guy with no helmet and absolutely wild long SoCal streaming hair. White sneaks and jorts (that's blue Jean shORTS) ,and this guy was hammering a 25-26mph pace on the MUP. He's a crazy city traffic rider too. Yelling at cars, etc. **it's always the guys you least suspect** I passed two guys with matching pro kit and Orbea Orca bikes (one had orange and one had green) and even these guys couldn't hold a candle to the crazy mountain bike dude.

Dentist appointment tomorrow so no commute.



Maybe I'll try to go for a ride, or possibly a sail!

Sloth

I'm pretty sure I know this dude. If it's who I think it is, he absolutely flies, both on the minuteman and in traffic.

I think I prefer my direction, MonumentMan, from the city out. It cools off something serious by the time I hit Lexington.

jur

Thanks for the welcome. My commute is 50km round trip (31 miles), been doing it every day for 5 months now. My route is quite hilly; my best time so far is 59 minutes despite being quite fit IMO.

Cyclaholic

This will make the weight weenies cringe....

Last night, after getting myself organised for this morning's commute I decided to weigh my bike. In non-commute trim she comes in at 33lb and with my commute load onboard she's a chubby 53lb, yep, 53 pounds. No wonder I'm barely averaging 16mph

She's a bit of a porker, but I do love her so how much weight do you guys & gals pedal around?

I modified my route this morning to avoid a couple of stretches of busy highway that I never enjoyed... it made a world of difference to my peace of mind for the same milage. Life is good

Thomasd

hi all, as requested i snapped a few photos this morning on my way to work. not necessarily the best photos as a) i had to take them when it was safe to do so, b) i'm not much of a photographer, c) i took them with the camera on my phone. but anyway, here are some photos of my morning commute through Kyoto, Japan. to add some balance, i should probably add some pictures of the urban hell section of the ride... Kyoto's nice but it aint all rice fields and temples!!!
enjoy,
tom

neighborhood-yeah, that's how big some of the older streets are...

temple gate

newly planted rice field

tibikefor2

Thomasd nice pictures.
How long are you going to be in Japan?
Have you made it out to the countryside?
Some pictures of country riding would also be nice.....

Morning commute in DC was quite nice and just the right temp (low in the 70s). Did my extended morning commute (30miles) in 1 hour 35 minutes.

Will be scorcher this afternoon, as DC is supposed to be at 93 degrees when I commute home. I guess I will have to take the jids to the pool to cool off....

An interesting note is that when the days are either very hot or extermly cold the fair weather commuters seem to dissapear..... atleast it makes for less traffic on the path

Hope everyone has a nice day.

JavaMan

Hello to all. Welcome, jur. Knee is still a little swolen today. I hope I can start riding again tomorrow.

Ride well, because (as Marylandnewbie said) I'm living vicariously through your posts this week!

AndrewP

Ride home was very hot. About 3/4 the way home I stopped at a water fountain to refill my water bottles. Also took off my shoes to let my feet cool off. I had been dreading the little hill near the end of the ride, but after that cool-down break I felt really refreshed and the hill was no problem.

-=(8)=-

I was in Vermont the past few days filling out the paperwork on our new houseand boy
was it HOT AND HUMID !! Yikes !
My job is very relaxed. I sit in a cubicle sending files. I take a clean shirt in my backpack.
when I get to work I have wintergreen alcohol and Dr. Scholls from the $1.oo store. I
just sponge off and put on the fresh shirt. I never really perspire on the morning run in so
this simple routine seems to work. I am looking for ways to ditch the backpack. My love
of it has been chronicled in previous weeks threads. I did go buy a real nice Blackburn rack
on Friday but it doesnt fit my Surly so when my abreviated week starts tomorrow I
will be backpacking with the Jansport ball & chain but after 4 days away from my beloved
steed I am ready to ride and dont care about anything else !

P.S. Mars....After athe few houses we had interest in didnt look that good in
person we ended up in Proctor. About 7 miles outside of Rutland. Some great riding roads
right outside my front door! I cant wait to get there !

-=(8)=-

Im a commute blog voyuer and love reading all of you peoples exploits no matter
how simple you think they might be. When I read of some of the daily or
weekly feats here I am truly impressed !
I was having a discussion with my Son on some bike related issues and it came
to my attention that we good standing members of the Commutist Party get no
respect ! We pound out miles, we look for better ways to make time and personal
bests, etc. ride in weather a Serrota will never see and yet because we are not in
Lycra on 'training rides' catching a from draft groups of 'real' ridiers we are just lowly
shlubs....the Box turtles of our species. Thats OK though.....riding unencumbered
by the sweaty mental backpack is something few 'real' riders will enjoy like we do !

Marylandnewbie

I like that "the box turtles of our species". It seems kind of fitting they live a long time, have little environmental impact and generally don't bother their neighbors -- all in all an appropriate image. I do believe I saw a box turtle Monday night on the way home. Sitting right beside the trail. I'm not sure if it was the famed Maryland terrapin (since I wouldn't know one without a name tag) but it was interesting.

In answer to the recurring question of how sick is too sick to commute I am adding when you wake up and throw up. I was hit by a stomach bug yesterday and am still operating at half speed today. So it will be at least tomorrow before I am back in the saddle. My 1K milestone will have to wait until next week. I think if I didn't feel so poorly I'd be missing the ride. I raised my handlebars Monday night but haven't had a chance to try it out and see if it is more comfortable. I'm thinking that it should take some weight off my hands from my new higher seat position.

Welcome Jur, you certainly have enough of a commute to join our little band.

I haven't mustered the nerve of Cyclaholic to weigh my bike as loaded to commute, but it has got me thinking about it. Maybe this weekend I'll get a chance to weigh my rig. I do wonder how much weight I'm hauling along.

Monument Man

WOW! That's one full figured bike. You're going to have tree trunks for legs at the end of summer.

No commute for me today. 48 degrees this morning and very windy. Drove into work and the sky opened up with rain, thus validating my sloth. Now I absolutely HAVE to go Thursday and Friday.

Sloth

It was 48 and windy, but it was a blast. I made excellent time despite the wind being in my face a good chunk of the way. Cold, but not as cold as last night - Monday night it was HOT - in the 90s when I left and very humid.

Last night was about 50. And I was in a tank top. Freezing!