50voltphantom

I'm planning on doing my first (9 mile) commute to and from work next week on my Steamroller over fairly hilly terrain. Should be interesting.

mstraus

Well my ride home was interesting. After a nice tail wind this AM, I was treated with a STRONG headwind and side wind over the Golden Gate. My coworker who rides the same route as me (but goes even further past me) was leaving about he same time as me and suggested riding together and taking turns drafting in the windy parts. Overall it worked quite well, though I think he took a larger part of the burden as the stronger rider. Definitely makes a difference having someone in front blocking the wind though!

dude72

was interesting for me aswell :-)

todays commute was with my lht. due to the rain a bike equipped with fenders is necessary.

dcb23

Headwind...hate 'em. 60F / 16C

cplager

Well, the bad news is that it rained a bit (which I wasn't expecting but wasn't horrible).

The good news is that, for the first time this year, I rode my bike to work and didn't end up horizontally. I'm now 1 for 3! (It's been a long winter! ).

jrickards

Cold this morning, -4C/25F with a stiff wind (24kmh/15mph) from the north resulting in a wind chill of -11C/12F or colder during the part when I was riding in to it. Light gloves so my hands started out cold but warmed up partway through the ride; light socks but not so lucky with warmth, arrived with cold toes. However, it was clear and sunny and it forecast to be nice this afternoon.

mgw4jc

Got a ride home from the wife last night since she was already in the area doing some errands. The original threat of rain turned to be a bust. A ride home would have been nice.

Nice ride in this morning. Local schools are on spring break which means less traffic on my way in.

wphamilton

I am faced with a decision every morning as soon as I roll out of the parking lot. Straight ahead the Greenway, 7 miles of calm forest and wetlands, dead flat along the creek and encountering more forest animals than people in the early mornings. Turn left and I'm instantly in fast traffic, a shorter stretch with short rolling hills, morning sunlight, stoplights, and dealing with the traffic dynamic of the manic dash to work.

This morning I just felt good, exuberant almost, so I turned left intending to sprint the lights and own the hills. 35 minutes later I'm showered, coffee'd and at my desk. Life is good.

ill.clyde

Ummm ... brr!

37 degrees and sunny this morning with a chilly breeze out of the north, which means I had a headwind (around 9 mph) all the way to work. Got to work around the same time as a co-worker who said, "Little chilly out there, eh?" To which I replied, yeah, my feet are numb. Also ran into another very intermitant bike commuter (to be fair his round trip would be around 40 miles and he greeted me with an "Awesome! Good to see it!"

Taking Friday off from work because the weather is supposed to be so nice ... and I want to get a nice long ride in before a busy weekend with my kids.

ill.clyde

There is quite a rush about riding in an urban setting

Your choices sound like the two halfs of my ride ... "to work" - roads/hills and then a relatively flat MUP. "to home" - MUP and then rush hour on the roads.

arsprod 

Ride home yesterday sucked - headwinds gusting to 30mph. And of course I left late for an evening appointment so on the drops, head down, plowing into the wind spinning like mad, and barely moving. Argh! This morning was nice but cold, 37F - I'll take cold over headwinds ANY DAY!

dramiscram

Windy, yesterday I was Lucky with tailwind both ways but this morning I got a strong head Wind. If I'm Lucky it should stay the same and give me a strong tail Wind tonight.

The Habs sweapt the Bolts in 4 games!!! Now waiting for the Bruins or the Wings. Bring it on!!!

spivonious

Monster head/cross wind this morning. The good news is that if it stays the same direction, I should be flying home.

Got a flat tire yesterday. I really need to get new tires; they are acquiring lots of little holes from gravel bits in the road.

RidingMatthew

rode 33.5 miles yesterday! 22 commuting and 10.5 in a slower commmunity ride for for Earth day. My legs are starting to feel it from the mileage this week but the weather is so nice I can't stop riding.

I am hungry all the time now.

tarwheel 

Beautiful weather today with temps in the 60s F, making for a pleasant morning ride and hopefully the same this afternoon, altho headwinds could be a problem. Took the day off yesterday because my legs needed a break, and they felt much better today.

I've been riding my Bob Jackson World Tour a lot lately in preparation for a week-long tour on the GAP-C&O Canal trails that I'm riding with friends in June. It's heavier than my other commuting bikes but a joy to ride with its 32 mm Vittoria Hyper tires. Pretty soon I need to start riding it some with loaded panniers so I get used to that. Usually I just use a rack-top bag.

jrickards

Nice bike and nice tour choice, I'd love to do that one day (ok, week).

andyprough

I had been doing a 15-mile commute each way, but recently road construction had ripped up the first five miles of it and made me decide each day whether to deal with heavy traffic on a narrow road with no bike lanes or grind my way off-road for a couple of miles along the construction site. Finally, yesterday I threw the bike in my truck, drove past the construction zone to a public park, parked the truck and commuted to and from that point. Much nicer.

caloso

Another day, another eventless commute.

PennyTheDog

OK, this was last week, but I forgot to mention it and it was super cool! I was biking along in the morning, in a southern suburb of minneapolis, and I saw a big bird soaring nearby. I'm don't know anything about birds, but I know that big birds that soar are unusual, so I looked more closely, and it was a bald eagle. I've never seen one in the city, so I stopped to watch. It was pretty close, and it looked like it was being "guarded" by about five seagulls as it did a long, slow circle in the sky-- I was pretty curious what they were doing. They were surrounding the eagle, all within a couple meters of it, just flying along. After circling like that for a long time, suddenly the eagle swooped down and picked something up off the ground. And all of a sudden all the seagulls attacked the eagle! The eagle dropped the object, and they all flew away. I went over to look at the object, and it was a newly-killed seagull. The other seagulls were trying to save it. I've never seen a nature event in person like that!

Happy riding.

treadtread

Wow, never read about seagulls teaming up like that. Elephants, yes - seagulls, no. Bet you wish you had a Go Pro

PennyTheDog

I'm probably lucky I didn't-- I probably would have missed the shot and not seen it either!

tarwheel 

I was riding with a friend on a local MUT that parallels the Neuse River in our city a few months ago. We came upon a group of people who were looking at something off the trail, so we stopped to see what was going on. There were a pair of bald eagles roosting in a tree beside the river, not more than 50 feet away. One of them swooped down and grabbed a fish out of the river while we were watching. It's amazing how large they are when you see them up close.

andyprough

Amazing the number of things I see each day that I would miss if I was driving. That's a great story.

datsme40

I've been working up to commuting from home (20-22 mi each way) by driving part way (15 mi each way).

I put the bike in the truck yesterday and rode all the way home. Great ride and cleared the head.

Got 1/3 of the way to work this morning and CRASH. me vs gravity is the short version. I'm ok, bike ok. scrapes and a very sore shoulder. Only weird part was . I think I had some kind of allergic reaction, eye was swollen half the day.

I made it back home easily. Sick day for me today

GriddleCakes

Still mid-30s on the ride in, not so warm today coming home, sunny and 45°. On the upside, I rode the MUP the entire way home, and it's about 90% slush and ice free. Not enough to ditch the studs, but more than enough to ditch the road route. I do like riding through Fairview and Downtown, so I think I might jump off the MUP early so as to keep the more fun section of the road route.

Gulls love ganging up on eagles. I used to pass many a summer evening at fish camp watching gulls harass eagles, trying to drive them off or get them to drop prey; and you can frequently catch hot gull on eagle action down at Westchester Lagoon here in Anch. There's a nesting pair of eagles that summer on the shore opposite the park every year, and sometimes when they come in over the lagoon, they'll have tail of up to two dozen gulls swarming and squawking around them. It's the old fighter versus bomber paradigm: gulls are too fast and agile for eagles to do anything about, unless the gull is stupid enough to fly directly into the eagle's talons