I have not ridden my bike to work once this week. :cry:

But I have ridden a bit.

Yesterday I took the subway to my departed mother's place which is between work and home. I met with my sister to begin dividing up Mom's property for donations and keeping and distributing among the extended family. It's a difficult job, and I got emotional, but it has to be done, and we have begun. Citi Bike has just expanded to that neighborhood, my childhood home, so I grabbed a bike and rode it home, about six miles. That's a long ride on these super klunkers, and it took 41 minutes. If I had exceeded 45 minutes, I would have been charged for overage. So it was a nice way to unwind after the emotional work.

It's a cloudy, windy and rainy day...
Went by bike to work between two clouds... put on my rain clothes... and finally I did not have rain at all.
Sweaty in the rain clothes arrived my destination.

I swapped my Labor Day off for a day off last week, so rode to work this morning. With schools out and many off work, I decided to take a route I normally avoid because of traffic. I stopped to get a couple of pictures of horses grazing in the morning fog.
https://scontent.cdninstagram.com/t5...81948491_n.jpg

Peaceful! .. No one on the roads due to the holiday. 10 degrees warmer than it has been but wasn't terrible.

A very nice picture mgw4jc! Thanks for sharing!

The ride this morning was damp due to the rain. My hat that I use when it rains does not allow me to see my mirror so I had to keep looking back over my shoulder to check for cars. I am not a fan of that method of checking. I feel much better using my mirror.

Beautiful ride this morning. 55 degrees, didn't see one car. South Dakota is so nice in the Fall.

Another cool morning with fog over some fields. 63F and tolerable humidity. Starting to feel like September.

70 degrees this morning! Couldn't believe it. Paid for it with very high humidity after a night of storms. Dark as coal so the dual headlights were on. Need to mount the helmet light so I can see where I'm looking too. Road my touring bike with fenders and a saddle bag for my lunch and a set of raingear. Light sprinkles was it riding in but lots of lightening to the east. Should all be cleared out by this ride home. Left at my usual time but noticed about triple the regular traffic. Not sure what brought the early commuters out today.

Took our bikes down to St Paul for the weekend. One day walking around the state fair and the next we rode through the Crosby Family Farm Park along the Mississippi River. Meandered around for 9 miles of gorgeous paved trails. Definitely worth taking the bikes.

Beautiful weather here this morning, almost perfect for commuting, with temps in the low 60s and relatively low humidity. Summer, however, doesn't want to go away and high temperatures are supposed to be in the 90s all week with humidity rising as well. No rain in the forecast for now, so it should be a good week for commuting here, despite the heat.

We dodged a bullet from Tropical Storm Hermine over the weekend, and the rainy weather on Thursday and Friday had cleared out by Saturday morning.

What a difference a month makes. Less so regarding weather, as the heat and humidity came back, and the ride in today was through soup just like it was in early August. But, the traffic pattern has taken a 180.

I guess everyone is back at work again. Traffic today was triple, quadruple, maybe even 5x the volume I experienced a month ago. Cars behind me, cars at the cross roads, hell there were so many damned cars out this morning I actually had to stop at the red lights.

Recovered!
 

At last, no pain at all on the bicycle, and I'm walking normally again. Almost, just some lingering weakness in the ankles but no more limping around. It made the commute that much sweeter.

Today was the first day of school here in my city. Once again this year my son made the high school golf team, however he's still in middle school. They have a tournament this afternoon. The high school kids get taken to the tournament via bus, however the two middle school boys on the team have to provide their own way to the golf course.

Due to my wife's work schedule, she's unable to leave work in the afternoons to take him from his school to the tournaments. So the responsibility falls on me to provide him transportation as my work schedule can be more flexible. However, I don't want to just drive a car to work a few times each week.

So I resumed the same routine I used last year: early this morning I loaded my bicycle and my son's golf equipment into my truck. I then drove to his school and parked my truck. From there, I rode my bike 9 miles to work. My son will ride the bus to school in a couple hours.

Later this afternoon I will leave work and ride back to the school. I'll load my bike back into the truck and take it and my son to the golf course. Then, while he's playing in the tournament I'll ride by bike from the golf course back to work. (He doesn't like me watching him play because I make him nervous, lol.) When it's time to pick him back up I'll ride back to the golf course and then we'll drive home. In the end I'll wind up putting on my bike miles than my normal commute.

Just goes to show, if you're really committed to bicycle commuting you'll figure out a way around challenges. Or it shows that I really should be committed. Not sure. :D

[MENTION=175954]Tundra_Man[/MENTION]: I need to train this and next week for a charity ride at the end of next week and I'm doing something similar but for different reasons. I head out on the bike at about 6am and arrive at my workplace after 20km of cycling at about 7am. My wife will drive to my workplace (we live 3km from work but I take a longer route for training) and meet me there at about 7:10am and I will drive her to work and bring the car back to my workplace for free parking (vs $6/day for hers) and when she's done, before me, I will drive the car to her on my afternoon break, she will return me to work and I will ride home, the route will vary depending on how I feel.

Full rack at work today. Temperatures are cooling off slightly, which makes it perfect commuting weather.

Home w/ the kids today for last day of summer vacation although they are old enough now not to need me around (15 & 11). Did do a dry run of the 11 yr old's commute to her new middle school. 2.5 miles each way. I will ride with her tomorrow morning, but hopefully she'll be able to follow the trail of kids toward landmarks that will get her the rest of the way home in the pm. I can actually meet her tomorrow for the trip home if she wants me to, but not on Thursday.

For the last day of summer vacation, by the way, it is definitely cold and wet. What seemed like a nice mist left us pretty soaked through after the 5 mile round trip.

I think that is it too cool that your 11 yr old daughter will ride a bike 2.5 miles to school. Go her!

The commute today was mist when I left the house to a heavier rain back to mist and another round of heavier rain. So by the time I reached work I was pretty much soaked.

A bit warmer this morning. Another steady wind out of the SW which makes the morning a bit rougher.. the evening is a blast though! The tire liners are working found a piece of wire in the front tire last night.

A nice ride in this morning. The lower temps and dew points have been nice lately.

I've seen one guy out jogging several mornings in the past couple of weeks. He is pushing a double stroller with two little ones in it and has a dog on a leash. Pretty impressive!

A pleasantly cool 60 this morning. Loaded up both panniers which definitely slows me down some. Or maybe it's my attitude of just ride easy and enjoy the scenery when I ride my touring bike. What a difference a day makes. Yesterday traffic was at least triple the norm, today less than normal. Miffed at myself because I can't find my best headlight. Found the handlebar and helmet mounts for it but no sign of the light. Ugh, miss not being able to see where I'm looking.

When I left home at 6am this morning in dark with mist and fog at times, I was undecided as to whether I was going to take Regent Street with overhead street lights or Southview that is unlit and I decided to avoid the possibility of a dark encounter with a bear so I took Regent. Well, it worked perfectly: the bear that ran across the road 15m/yd in front of me did so at 7am in bright rising sunlight.

It was a great ride, I felt good, despite having been off the bike for over 2 weeks while on holiday (and no options for taking or using a bike).

My light was stolen! Was in McDs 3 or 4 min came out and the light was gone.

Darn it! Now I'm going to have to remove the light when I get my coffee.

A new bike commute in the family! This is my son's first bike commute to his Georgia State University classes. As he was tying up the campus security officer came with some good mornings asking about the ride in - he was laughing and explained that he and Parker usually park next to each other so they "look out for each other" in his words. I'm not sure if that means he's parking in a Security spot or next to one, but whatever works is OK with me.

Check out that wide empty road, it doesn't get any better than that.

It was perfect weather for it and a relaxed ride at around 12 mph. We came across a downed cyclist, which I haven't had happen in 3 or 4 years on that path. She was flat on her back at the edge of the path, her bike in the grass. Another cyclist was beside her straddling his bike. Several hundred feet back we'd just passed another stopped cyclist castigating a jogger - I didn't catch what about - but it was polite and not heated so we just went by them. We stopped at the accident though. The man there said she was fine just getting her bearings back (and I'd also caught that much in passing from the other guy's lecture). The girl said she was OK and didn't seem in any distress, other than laying on the ground. So we left them to it.

I don't know if it made an impression on the kid, but it was a reminder to me and we briefly discussed the proclivities some joggers have for randomly veering in front of you, and why I ring my bell at them.

Alarm went off this morning and I wanted nothing more than to stay in bed. I got up and prepared to go out for a run. When I got out of the bedroom I realized it was raining (wife keeps the window shades pulled so I didn't notice until then.) I secretly said a prayer of thanks, laid down and took an hour long nap.

Still raining when I got up, but it was a decent temp and overall a pleasant ride to work. Took the rain bike and was once again reminded my Ortlieb waterproof panniers were worth the money.

Chilly (5C/41F) but nice ride overall. Uneventful.

Rode with my daughter to her first day at middle school today; dropped her at the last crossing guard and she continued on. I am supposed to meet her at that crossing guard (NOT at the school bike rack!!!) in the afternoon.

First time riding in for a long time today.

Yesterday, I rode about two or three miles on Citi Bike before getting on the subway to work. A little riding is better than none at all. I decided not to ride the whole way because the edge of Tropical Storm Hermine is whipping through, creating tremendous winds from the north, so I avoided them. Today doesn't seem better, but I braved the immense winds. We dodged a disaster this year. In 2012, Hurricane Sandy did some impressive damage to this area, and it rattled a lot of nerves. Life will never be the same. We got a scare about half as big as 9/11, but the enemy is internal as well as external. Hermine is mighty, too; I can feel it. It just happened to swing out to the east so as not to do any harm, but another one will come before long, and I wonder if we're ready.

It took a lot of effort to ride today, but it was also delightful. I've come to be aware that I make a lot of heat with my legs, feet, and ankles, and they were bare today. I wore sandals, so that helped me pedal hard without fatigue. I'll try to remember this as the weather turns colder. The temperature was in the 70s (ºF), so not too hot, but very humid. I still sweated a lot from the increased effort required to fight these winds.

My route today

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/TT...w1804-h1352-no

Here is my view of the river halfway along, with the marina in the foreground. A cyclist ahead on the right stretches against a bench. In the distance, you see the George Washington Bridge which spans the Hudson River between New Jersey and New York City.

A couple of interesting sounds:

1. Sometimes the wind swirls around the buildings and cliffs of Manhattan and I get an occasional tail wind. When it happened today, it was strong, and I was able to move quite fast. Moving fast and with oncoming bike traffic, someone moving towards me was passing someone moving in the same direction as he was. He rang his bell three times. The big speed difference between his bike and mine gave me a pronounced dopler shift on the pitch of his bell.

2. There are portions of my route which are right next to the West Side Highway and the Henry Hudson Parkway, where cars go fast. It makes for a loud sound with the car noises bouncing off the cliffs, barriers, and buildings. Still, there are some trees in patches, and the sound of cicadas -- a sound I love -- was still able to pierce over the very loud highway noises.

An interesting smell:

A middle aged man who appeared to be out for his pre-workday fitness ride passed me on his Pinarello racing bike. I won't make the gauche mistake of drafting anyone, but I tried to hang behind him so I could follow his pace. I had to let him go quickly. He had a gigantic cloud of body odor trailing him. I had to stay way back. I really hope I don't smell like that when I come into the office. I suspect I don't, and I change clothes and wash up after I arrive anyway.

I'm probably off bikes until November, awaiting a surgery and then six weeks recovery

Man I haven't posted in here in awhile. This past month has been a whirlwind of car problems from both my wife's old car, and my old car, and buying a new car for wifey. Add in some sickness and other things and I've just been commuting sort of off and on. My car was out for several days while I awaited a warranty replacement for a new distributor (those old things cars used to have lol). I rode to work one day, then tried to ride the next day but was too exhausted. Got a ride from wifey in new car but that meant 2 extra 25-mile round trips that day in addition to her stuff.

Monday I did a 40 mile Labor Day club ride, and tried too hard at keeping up with others. In the past I've rode to and from the ride, which usually ends up being over 60 miles, but I didn't have the time this year, and I'm glad because I was beat down after that 40 miles. I also ran out of my beta-blocker heart meds, which made for an elevated heart rate all Monday evening into Tuesday morning until I got to my last pill at the office, and then picked up my prescription yesterday afternoon. All is good now.

Rode to work this morning (instead of the usual Tu/Th commute this week). I suspect I will try to split commute tomorrow and Friday, leaving the car at work Thursday night. Nothing really to report this morning, just humid as all heck.

I also made a couple of videos. This one is from my commute on Monday, 22 August, where I had to leave the house at 5 AM to be at work and be ready for a 7 AM staff meeting. On the way home coming out of a side street, I had to wait 3 solid minutes to turn left, until SIXTY cars had passed my location. It was super annoying.


And then this one from last Thursday where I had the same van pass me at the same time of day, at the exact same location on the same hill, with oncoming traffic right in front of them, just like they did several months ago.


Fun times. :)

Bummer. Best wishes for a speedy recovery!

The morning was a bit chilly, but I've still sweated gallons. Riding home was sunny and hot, so yeah... Living with a mild hyperhidrosis is tons of fun. But at least no knobhead drivers today.