Yesterday's ride home was just plain hot. Someone said it was the hottest day NC has seen this year. Wunderground showed 103, but Weather.com only showed 96. Either way it was tough.

There was another traffic jam on the MUP this morning. It slowed me down, but I managed to get around.
Attachment 531032

^ Heh. "Slow and steady wins the race." This morning was fairly hot at 79F. Preparing to shake and bake for the ride home since it supposed to go up to 90F. After today, I'll have more than 200 miles for this week. Have been riding from home since Tuesday and am getting tired. I need my car back from the mechanic so I can get the easier park and ride going for next week.

Muggy, humid morning. The haze was so thick, I decided to turn my blinkies on while on the roads. My clothes were sweat soaked by the time I got to work. I'm not a big fan of this time of year. I like 50 degrees and dry.

Left early this morning. So, I got to enjoy the haze at least. It's really beautiful when riding through it in farm country. That part was nice.

Lovely, thank you for asking :D
I recently moved into an apartment much closer to work, as in 2.7 flat miles close, with multiple grocery stores within a mile. So now I can actually use the bike as my primary form of transportation rather than riding to work as a physical challenge a few times a week, and I'll have time and energy to the evening to ride wherever I feel like. The heat finally let up here and this morning's ride was a really nice cloudy 72 degrees.

I'm surprised how many pedestrians just seem to completely ignore my bell, and not just the ones with headphones in. In the mornings this week I've been taking a nice shortcut past some soccer fields, but in the afternoon the path is full of kids/teenagers just standing there watching their friends play and no amount of dinging seems to get through to them. I can be patient with slow walkers, but please don't use any kind of path as a place to stand still :notamused:

sometimes you have to stop & smell the roses, or photo the tortoise? you give him a lift to the side of the trail?

95F on way in according to my bicycle thermometer. Nice ride in today.

Okay commute yesterday, seemed like I didn't get any help from wind either in the morning or in the afternoon. One **** in an Audi honked behind me after leaving a light because he had to wait 10 seconds to change lanes, and didn't have the forethought to change lanes prior to the light. :rolleyes:

I turned on Strava this time, to see how much I've lost from years past. Nowhere near any PR's :cry: but I can't complain too much since the long uninterrupted segment is right in around my other 2nd place times. Overall it still seems like I'm slipping although the 19.2 mph total doesn't seem that bad. (edited I found the likely culprit today: tires low at 50 psi - sometimes it's sloppiness not physical failing ...)

This by the way is my favorite part of strava, just a graph of times you've had on the particular segment.

Right. He was doing okay on his own. The path was pretty quiet so he wasn't in any danger.

Lighting lit my way home, but, the only times I got wet was going through a puddle and hit by a mis aimed lawn sprinkler.

90/110 No fear of hypothermia. Found a pair of hand pruning shears in the bike lane.

Overcast and high humidity. Back to work Monday.

I have a left turn into my office parking lot. There was a car coming that I was going to have to wait for, so I slowed and signaled. I hadn't taken the lane yet and glanced back. A car decided it didn't want to wait for me to make my left turn, ignored my hand pointing left and blew on past me. The oncoming car had to slow down and get over to give room. Luckily this is a wide enough road that it wasn't too close of a call.

Muggy and warm this morning but the threat of storms this afternoon is supposed to be low. I'll take it.

We've had a tremendous amount of rain lately, making the last 3 years of above-normal rain seem like a dry spell. Over the past month, we've had about 12" of rain. We are about 8" above normal over the past month, 10.5" above normal since Jan. 1, and 21" above normal over the past year.

It rained every afternoon or evening over the weekend, including some torrential storms on Saturday that caused flash flooding all over the metro area. I rode with a friend on Sunday morning, and we had planned to take the greenways downtown or to a neighboring town for lunch. The first trail that we rode on was flooded under deep muddy water within the first mile. We detoured around that spot, but kept encountering deep mud, sand and debris on the trails. Finally we reached a point where the trail was blocked by a large downed tree, in addition to flooding and mud 3" deep. We changed our planned route onto side streets and managed to make into downtown for lunch, and then rode home on streets. No telling how long it will take the city to clear all of the greenways. Our greenways generally follow streams, creeks and rivers so the trails all muddy, flooded or impassible all over town.

Fortunately, my commute route doesn't involve in greenways, so it doesn't affect my travel to work and back.

Hot this morning, we're in for another warm day. Was mostly sunny this morning, with "marginal" chance of rain and thunderstorms this evening. I'm taking the gamble that I can get home before any poor weather starts.

Feeling pretty proud of myself! I've finally found a reasonable route from my house to the train that gets me off the darn sidewalk, so most the majority of my route this morning was in the road. Cars in Malden are (so far) respectful of me, haven't had any honking or people buzzing me. WAY faster commute, but I hit some nasty potholes that had me coming off my seat quite a bit.
Bit of a nervous moment at a stop light, I was needing to go straight and saw the car in front of me had it's right blinker on. Not a problem except then I noticed they were completely missing their right side mirror D: I was able to hang back a little when the light turned green so that they didn't side swipe me.

Going to stop by my LBS this evening to pick up a new light and a mirror for my handlebars. I'm hoping by the end of the summer I can be set up with a rear rack as well, make it easier to carry my school stuff once classes start up again.

Yea, it's best to be either in front of or behind any turning vehicle. If I can, I will get up to the front of the line, making sure the right turning driver sees me out of his windshield. If you're not comfortable enough (or the lanes make it difficult) to filter to the front of the line at an intersection, you do have to watch for anyone turning right into your path.

Ah, my understanding was that it's somewhat considered poor form to pass stopped cars to get to the front. In any case, I've been opting to stop behind the last car in line, that way I can see what's happening in front of me, and any other cars that come up to the line have seen me already (and at that point I do look over my shoulder and try to make eye contact to make sure they REALLY know I'm there).
I'm concerned that if I try to filter to the front that the front-most car (or any other car I pass) just won't see me.

Don't feel pressured to do things you are not comfortable doing. It sounds like your awareness is great and it is smart to observe and learn and see what works best for you. If you can see their mirrors they can see you (they don't always but can), the same goes for driving and truckers.
If you do filter just watch for sudden non-signaled right merges or turns, passenger doors, and if there are any parked cars, their drivers doors. A good tip I got many years ago is to look at the wheels of the car, where they point is where they go. Never go along the right side of a long wheel base vehicle like a bus, dump truck, or semi. They always turn and close the gap really fast as their rear wheels follow the shortest path, many cyclists have been run over by the rear wheels of big vehicles. From experience it is not fun.

If I approach two lanes, one straight and one right turn I tend to get to the left side of the right turn lane to let impatient turners have enough room to go and to not have the worry that anyone will right hook you on the start.

Good on the eye contact with the driver behind you, I always think that helps them realize you're aware and just doing the daily grind, just in a different way.

I thought it was going to be uncomfortably hot this morning, but it wasn't that bad. The humidity levels are supposed to drop this afternoon making for a more pleasant ride home too.

Pretty good. 33.3 mi RT on the prairie paths. The paths were a bit wet as there was a good rain last night, but it kept the dust down. It was a bit muggy on the way home, the humidity was way up there and in the high eighties but felt OK.

The ride home was special yesterday. Dark looming clouds to the north and sweltering afternoon humidity. "How bad can it get?"


Whoomp. Thunder and flashes. Light hail, pouring rain and wind all made for a drenching experience. Thank goodness I was on a fairly aero bike. I felt thrown about at times.


But in the end, I arrived home just wet, so...

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a58...psmft7p2un.jpg

About normal.. cool starting out.. sweating like a pig once I get to hospital hill!

Felt hotter this morning as there weren't any clouds slowing the sun's rays. I had a dog follow me on my run this morning. I think I know which house he belongs to and rang their doorbell, but no answer, even though there were 3 cars in the driveway.

As I was leaving on my bike, he was excited to follow and was getting in my way, worrying me that he may knock me down. Then he had to go sniff a Coke can and I sprinted off, dropping him like Cavendish drops Kittel.

As [MENTION=190611]joeyduck[/MENTION] said, do what you are comfortable doing. I tend to filter to the front because I feel like I'm less in the way there and to ensure I can make the light. If I was several cars back when the light turns green, I would feel like my slow acceleration was preventing those behind me from making the green light. If there is not a bike lane or decent shoulder, an intersection is not an easy place for cars to get around me.

And it really does depend on the intersection, turning lanes (if any), amount of traffic, speed limit after the light, etc. Lots of variables. If there is a right turn lane and I'm going straight, I definitely get in between those two lanes (left of the right turn lane).

It was a very nice commute this morning. I did see some turkeys on the side of the road. I went closer than I would have normally had I been watching the road.

I did not ride yesterday due to the weathermen forecasting bad thunderstorms, which turned out to be correct. It was raining very hard yesterday when I left work.