Dropped the car off at the dealership for an oil change this morning and biked to work from there. The 4.5 mile ride from there to the office was only about a third of my normal distance. I'm okay with that since it was only 24F this morning.

There was some serious fog starting about 2 miles north of the car dealer and on south. I took the attached picture below while driving down. I had to come right back up the same road on my bike. It seems everyone was driving carefully enough though and I had no issues.

Traffic cam from interstate close by.

Coming home last night, about a mile from my house at the bottom of a big hill I dropped a chain. I was trying to shift into my lowest gear and the chain fell between the cassette and the spokes (no dork disk.) The rear derailleur had been adjusted after my complete winter bike rebuild in October, but apparently things have settled in and need to be tweaked.

I put the bike on the kickstand and figured I'd just pull the chain out and get it back in place. No such luck. The chain was wedged to a degree I've never before seen a chain wedged. I didn't have the physical strength to pull it out. It would have been impressive if it weren't so frustrating.

I messed with it for about five minutes. In that space of time two cars stopped and asked if I needed a ride (gotta love the friendly people in South Dakota.) I politely declined, half of me thinking I could still get the chain free, and the other half not wanting my consecutive commuting streak to contain an asterisk stating I got a ride home in a car.

Eventually I came to the realization that the chain wasn't coming out, so I pushed the bike up the hill for a mile to my house. It was a warmer day so our icy packed snow base had turned into a slick sandy mush that made it tough to roll a bike through. The bike kept wanting to slide out sideways. If I were riding, my weight would have been pushing straight down and I wouldn't have any trouble. Walking though, the bike didn't have enough weight to dig in so I was fighting to keep it upright.

20 minutes later I got home. I wound up having to break the chain, remove the rear wheel with the chain still jammed in place and then remove the cassette to free it. Crazy. Then I put it all back together. Didn't have time to re-adjust the derailleur so I just have to remember not to use that bottom gear until I do.

Adventures in biking!

Last year I replaced all my nuts and bolts with stainless - cost about $35 and an amazing difference. Most of the rust on components comes from the hardware. Since replacement everything's clean as can be!

Happy winter (that's funny)! A balmy 23F for the first day and still lots of ice. Forecast for near 40 this afternoon so looking for most of the ice to melt. It's actually my last day of work for the year so if it doesn't all melt I don't really care! This caught my attention this morning - enough to take a picture... "what it takes to commute in the winter"

First time commuting all the way to work and all the way home. 33km each way.

Trip to work

Trip home

Only problem was that my handlebars got loose but I managed to borrow a allen key from a trades-person at a service station. I usually have one but took it out of my saddle bag to do something and didn't put it back again...

I am hoping to do this more often, maybe once a month.

Today is probably my last bike commute of 2016, but it looks to be a good one. The weather is beautiful, sunny and cool. The low got down to about 27 F on my ride to work, but it's supposed to warm up the mid-50s this afternoon. I rode at an easy pace because it will be a long day. After work, I am meeting some friends on my way home for our annual Christmas light ride, which will probably add about 15 miles to my commute. That is always a lot of fun, and we will head to a local pub for beer and food afterwards.

I hope everyone here has a great Christmas holidays and takes some time off work. I've got about 5 days of vacation leave that I need to use by the end of the year, in addition to several paid holidays, so I won't be returning to work until Jan. 3.

Clear, cold, and beautiful (when I looked up at the sky anyway). It was just below freezing but the roads weren't icy, just well-graveled from the previous days' snow. I'm taking off work early so that I can catch an earlier bus out to Monmouth and enjoy a longer ride home, in the daylight.

Frost on the ground, only the second time I've seen it since this summer. I feel like a hard as nails winter road warrior now

take a minute to think about this :/

28F, icy, clear at first then foggy. No real catastrophic black ice but my foot did slip at one red light when I put it down. Running tires pretty low pressure, so continue to skate (so to speak) w/o pulling out the studded tires.

I got the bike back to a usable state for the morning ride. Due to the walk home and the repairs I was already 45 minutes behind schedule. My son was standing waiting for me, so I chose to help him with his homework instead of tweaking the derailleur right then and there. Then supper was ready. After supper was done I had to go to the store for my wife. By the time I got home I was ready for bed.

I'll adjust the derailleur tonight. Sometimes life forces you to compromise. To me it was worth it to go a day without my granny gear because I'd made my son wait long enough. Your priorities may be different, and that's fine.

of course just would hate to see that all happen again. I've had dropped chains myself & not adjusted them & then regretted it. like with a drop bar friction shift bike I recently got rid of. I thought I could remember not to crank on the lever to get into low gear but sometimes I don't have enough control & jammed my chain too. cursing myself for not adjusting the r der. funny what extreme temps changes will do to cables

broke a spoke or so I thought last Friday during a Christmas lights / gathering toys of tots ride. brakes were rubbing and took the bike to the shop because I thought it was just a broken spoke. Turns out I ovalized the wheel and no amount of tightening was going to fix it. Or he said it would be so tight that when it does break it will break more spokes. Sure sucks but Looks like I am purchasing my second set of wheels in 2016. Thinking about these


the nipples are corroding on the spokes. any advice as to ways to prevent this?


Road my Cervelo this morning to work much faster and bit colder due to speed haha felt weird to have a bike respond even in the cold to 28F to acceleration etc.

I was so excited to ride this morning! The main trail along the river was great--it must have been plowed--so there were only patches of ice, totally doable for my hybrid bike with regular tires (700x35). It was about 32F, some wind.

But the real challenge came when I got to the gravel section. Nothing was plowed, tons of ice and ruts and . . . texture. It was boneshaking! I was able to ride on some of it, but I chose to get off and take streets (residential with bike lanes, pretty nice) the rest of the way to work.

Coming home was intense! I was optimistic that with highs in the mid-40s that all the ice and snow would be gone by afternoon. No such luck. I tried to ride for a while, but the weird, squishy, slippery deep snow and lots of thick ice just made it too squirrelly. I need to look into the Cyclocross Training that others have recommended to me, I think that would help me build a skill set where I'd feel more comfortable keeping myself and the bike upright.

So I ended up walking the bike a couple miles through that weirdness (and got pretty salty when I saw a lone fatbike trail cutting its way through everything like it was nothing! pah! I'm jealous!). Everything was fine once I got to the main (paved) MUP, and I was able to ride the rest of the 6 miles total back to my car.

From what I can tell, I'm not sure that studded tires would have made that much of a difference? Because the snow was about 3-4", and it's my understanding that once you get above about 2" of snow, you need a fatbike tire.

I should look into writing the city that maintains that section of trail and ask why they don't do snow removal. I imagine, because of the gravel nature of the path, plowing would potentially destroy the trail.

Anyway, I had a nice long amount of exercise and fresh air this afternoon, my 30 min ride took closer to an hour. But that's cool!

Leaving tomorrow to take my wife to see her family in Ohio, so my commute home today after work will be my last ride of the year. Been a very successful year commuting wise:

Total Miles: 3202
Drove To Work: 3 Times
Current Consecutive Commute Streak: 205 (since Feb 10th.)

Hopefully I can keep the streak going when I return on the 3rd. It's always a bit tough coming back from our Christmas visit every year as I lose a bit of my winter skin, due to a combination of not riding and the warmer temps in Ohio compared to home in South Dakota.

If they're not old, that's pretty strange. Most spoke nipples are brass. Are yours? Some are aluminum, and they do tend to freeze up. Do you ride in very wet or salty conditions?

Well I commute year round. They might have gotten wet once in a while. 😉I think they are brass. the old wheels are axis classic. $250 set I got for $150 from a local bike shop

That time when the roads and your bike were frozen solid, so you took your bike home in the back of the ambulance...

Finished my 2016 bike commuting with a bang, logging 46 miles on the first day of winter and shortest day of the year. Rode my usual route except that I joined some friends on a Christmas light ride on the way home, adding a very enjoyable 14 miles to my usual 32. Stopped for a couple of beers and a sandwich toward the end of the ride before heading home. Now I'm on leave until January 3.

A bit warmer this morning at 42F, but I still wore the same layers as I did for 32F and under. Needless to say I got a bit warm. I had to remove the balaclava part way through and then felt much better. I'm off tomorrow and Monday for Christmas. High of 60+ this afternoon!

I did have a quick fright when I saw a squirrel dart across the MUP and just miss my front tire by about 2 inches. I was looking down at the front tire at the moment and he was a blur zipping by.

OMG my cycling record for this December has been absolutely dismal compared to December of last year. Last year I commuted to work twice a week every week right up until Christmas vacation. Yesterday was only my 3rd commute of the month, and only my 4th and 5th rides altogether for the month of December. I haven't ridden anywhere else at all, not to the grocery store or anything, which sucks. Partly weather, partly time commitments. Hopefully when I get my e-bike conversion it'll be much easier.

So after low temps in the teens and highs in the 20's earlier this week, it was nice to ride to work in the upper 30's yesterday morning, and low 50's in the afternoon. No problems, other than being slower than expected both ways. Yesterday morning felt like my legs had lead in them or something.

You win!

32F, partly sunny, frosty

I got flu on December, 21st, and so I'm stuck at home as you can imagine, but nonetheless my last complete commute was quite funny, since I was blessed with a near miss at a roundabout, together with a flat on my way to work, and a precious and very rare triple right hook on the way to my home: next to a right turn, I was passed by a shaved cyclist on his road bike, who was passed by a scooter, which was passed by a car...

Luckily, nobody got hurt.

Should your new nickname be Mad Max? In your neck of the woods, I'd be more concerned about the summer temps. Do you still ride in over 100F temps? My parents have been trying to get me to move and look for IT (sysadmin) jobs in GA. Maybe more doable in or near Atlanta. But jobs in Athens are few and far between from what I've seen so far.

Edit: Just found out that the temp get over 100F last year in Atlanta. Highest I saw was 99F in June: https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/...th=6&year=2016

Was a good ride in with 39F temp this morning. Should go up a bit for the ride home. Am still wrestling with bronchitis even after finishing the meds yesterday. Might have to WFH tomorrow and go back to the doc if no real improvement. I'd usually take it easier but I don't really feel that bad and like to still ride in when possible. Just have the usual cough and trouble getting rid of the junk in the lungs.