Replacement blinky arrived today. I mounted it on the seat post rather than clip it on my bag, maybe it will hang around longer.

Commute today was just about at the limit of where I still feel cozy with my gear (about 20F). I biked with a coworker who is a much stronger biker than I am, so I raised my avg speed by 1.1 mph which is pretty nice.

In other news, my knee is still a bit wobbly, although it doesn't really hurt. Not entirely sure what to make of the whole thing.

40F wasn't bad but I wasn't expecting the drizzle too. Just enough to get my knees a little damp and chilly. I got to my work area early enough to take a warm-up break inside Panera Bread.

This will be short week #2 in a string of four 4 day work weeks for me. Only 8 more days of work (including today) until 2017.

3 degrees per the bank. Over dressed and got to hot though. Of course the roads weren't completely scrapped off. The bike did okay except for a bit of squirming due to the tracks.

Today was a good news/bad news kind of commute.

First the good news: For the first day in at least 2 1/2 weeks we should not see any negative temperatures. This last cold stretch has seen every day having the windchill below zero, if not the actual air temp. Most days the air temp high had been in the single digits or lower. Today, though, it was 8°F this morning with a balmy 1°F wind chill. High temp is supposed to climb into the low 20s. I'm going to feel like wearing my beach gear on the way home tonight.

And the bad news: we wound up getting 7" of snow on Friday through Saturday morning, after which the air temp dropped to -24°F with the windchill breaking -50°F. These temps turned any compacted snow (i.e. driven or walked upon) into solid chunks of rock hard ice. However by this morning the plows had pretty much taken care of everything and scraped off the top layer leaving a icy but smooth base on which to ride.

No problem on the 1 mile stretch of road I take to get to the MUP. When I arrived at the MUP I saw that it too had been plowed, so I followed the path on my usual route to work. Unfortunately, a 1/2 mile down the trail I came around a corner and discovered that they hadn't yet plowed the entire MUP. I didn't know how long the unplowed section would last, so I decided to just suck it up and ride on.

Turns out there was about 2 1/2 miles of unplowed MUP. By the time I realized what kind of ride I was in for, I was committed and was going to half to back-track a long way to take a different route. So I just pressed on.

The first half of the unplowed section had been heavily traveled by foot and bike traffic, leading to the aforementioned rutted ice. A few spots were so rough and rutted that I just couldn't maintain enough speed to ride through it, so I had to walk. The second half, however, was pretty much unmolested powdery snow which meant it was rideable but due to the depth I had to use a very low gear and couldn't maintain much more than 5 mph. Most of it was in the 7" depth range, but some of the drifts I broke through easily were 12" or more. A few spots where I'd only see my feet pop out at the top of the pedal stroke.

Well, it took a long time but I made it. Wound up getting a much greater workout and a lot sweatier than I'd expected. But my commuting streak stays alive at 203.

our version of snowpocalypse out there right now, an inch or two of snow fell during the night and now it's encased/dissolving by slush/sleet driven by 10-20 mph winds and 35mph gusts

Cold morning! For here, anyhow The reservoirs are still running at a pretty high rate due to last week's pineapple express, and I think the water is warmer than the air, so it was very foggy between Nimbus and Hazel. CDEC says Nimbus is still running at 28,000 cfs. That's not as high as a few days ago when they were running 34,000 cfs. But it's still very unusual. I saw one exceptionally dedicated or perhaps under-informed fisherman headed down the trail. The news has featured the yearly crop of stories about how the American River is dumping even though there's a drought. Panorama from the ARBT, northbound on the left to southbound on the right. It actually cleared up a bit in the moments that I stopped to take the photo. Photo taken about here, the bar shown in the Google Earth image has become an island.



Untitledby Darth Lefty, on Flickr

[MENTION=194972]esmith2039[/MENTION] you were overdressed for 3 degrees?

Waited an hour and the gusts were gone, so just steady slog through an inch or two of slush. Could not clip in for the first mile due to clogged up cleat. Luckily did not shift enough to regret not switching over to SS/FG rear wheel over the weekend.

[MENTION=339610]Darth Lefty[/MENTION] That is a great photo.
[MENTION=60072]HardyWeinberg[/MENTION] We also got heavy winds, which happened sometime after 2 am. I didn't hear them but both my son and mother in law heard them and said they were really heavy and with heavy rainfall. It calmed down so my wife and son were able to get off the island to go to their weekly routine.

My poor son has school all week. That being said I hope to work at least a few days, though I am not sure how many teachers call in the week before vacation.

Our kids' school ended Friday so they were still asleep when their mom & I left the house. May still be asleep now.

[MENTION=60072]HardyWeinberg[/MENTION] With visions of sugar plums?

[MENTION=190611]joeyduck[/MENTION] thanks

Sweet image. Nice to see evidence of another Sacramento area rider. My ride thru South Sacramento was nice. Probably last commute of the year due to meetings and kiddo deliveries. Looking forward to 2017.

We got about 8" of snow at our weekend house on Saturday. The city got about three inches, and it melted fast.

No pictures of the city. Here is a shot out of my window on Sunday morning.



I rode Citi Bike 1.4 miles from home to the post office and from the post office to my subway stop. It was cold and windy. Sixth avenue doesn't have a bike lane until 9th St, and the left lane (where cyclists usually ride in NYC) isn't sufficiently wide for a bike and a car, so I "took" the lane. Unfortunately, motorists tried to take it back from me by nearly sideswiping me.

Got home, went for my garage door opener and realized I'd forgotten my entire backpack! Never done that before. Good thing I didn't need a patch.

Just plain cold at 27F/-3C however it was perfectly still out there so not that bad.

Yeah I know odd to say. Excessive heat really drags you down. Alot of factors to layering even down to the bike. Would of been fine on Trek with a higher average speed. The extra drag and weight of the Specialized adds a bit of heat.

Was a bit hot today also but there wasn't any alternative. Last commute of the year ending up at 2100 miles, 6.7 mile one way and all the vacations I took didn't miss too many days besides those. Shooting for over 3k next year but with my short commute even if I rode everyday would be 3.5k, and I get 6 weeks of vacation.

Low 30s this morning, but I'm used to it already. Just layer up and go. I left about an hour early and went to the gym on the way in today.

A running friend told me about a new MUP that could be an option for me to use on my commute. He said it isn't fully paved yet and not road bike ready, but getting close. I had seen one end of it before because it is about one-tenth of a mile from my office, but I didn't know where it went or how close to completion it was. Very cool though.

Chapeau to you sir. It sounds like you have some "real snow" fit for a fat tire bike. I haven't experienced conditions even close to that since I lived in Glens Falls, NY as a kid.

Was a good ride in this morning around 22F. Have been using the balaklava first time this season starting yesterday. I had last week off on vacation so only rode two days from home. Was nice to see some of my old routes that I usually don't get to do often anymore. I got bronchitis starting last Friday. Went to the doc over the weekend and have been taking antibiotic (azithromycin) since then. Almost done with one pill left. I hope to kick it but had no luck with the same med over two years ago. I feel better (and felt good this morning). So I think its on its way out. Crossing fingers...

Edit: After I stopped at the light at 145th St and St Nicholas Ave, a guy with shorts (!) pulled up along side me. I said, "Your're a better man than me for wearing shorts!" He replied that he could not leave the bike alone today. Also said that "I see you couldn't either." Either he's a bad ass or he can't feel anything in his legs. I know that the legs don;t need to be covered up as much as the core. But shorts in 22F might be pushing it a bit, no?

Great news! I hope the new trail works out for you. Raleigh has been greatly expanding its greenway system over the past 5-10 years but unfortunately I have not been able to take advantage of it much on my commute. The trail that works best for me doubles my one-way commute from about 15-16 miles to 30 miles. That is too long for normal commuting, but I occasional ride the longer route on my way home during the months with longer days, and I once rode it both ways for my only metric-century commute.

My commute this morning was great with temps in the mid to low 30s, but not cold enough to worry about ice. I was dressed perfectly with hardly a drop of sweat on me when I arrived at work, which is very unusual. Tomorrow is likely to be my last commute of the year because I have a bunch of vacation time to use up by Dec. 31, or I will lose it without reimbursement. However, I might "commute" to work one day next week to start the process of clearing out my office. I am retiring at the end of January and have a lot of stuff to take home, much more than I can carry with my normal commute loads.

I drove yesterday because the weather was miserable with the possibility for freezing rain. Temps were in the low 30s with steady drizzle, and were forecasted to drop. It rained most of the day here, altho the ice never materialized. As it turned out, it was a good thing that I drove because I had forgotten about an office Christmas party after work that I would have had to skip if I bike commuted.

The salt and chemicals they put on the roads here quickly destroy bikes. In October I completely rebuilt my winter beater. I had to replace enough components that I seriously considered just replacing the whole bike. Of course the idea of going with a fat bike was intriguing.

Unfortunately by the time I bought it, put studded tires on the thing (I deal with ice more than snow), fenders and a rack I was looking at a hefty bill. Even worse is it would be destroyed within a couple seasons of riding. I opted to just stick with my old mountain bike and keep replacing the rusted out components. Not as fun as a new fat bike though.

Oh, to sleep like a teenager on school break!!

We're still somehow missing the the arctic air that's plaguing the rest of the country and I've been taking advantage with easy-going comfortable rides. I finished the tweaks on my faring this weekend, and now light street clothes are fine down to freezing. There's a slight draft flowing through but I actually need that above about 20° so I'm in no hurry to seal it up.

Three more work days and I'm done for the year, 228 days of commutes, and maybe the least challenging year of commuting that I can remember. Looking back, adding a cheap fixed gear configured as a commuting road bike has been an unqualified success - probably accounting for about 2,000 miles of my commutes, more than half. No incidents, no adversity or injury, it's been a great year.

I'm definitely jealous.