Another beautiful morning of perfect weather conditions. About halfway here, I felt a little wobble in my wheel. I suspect I popped a spoke last night when fighting to get out of a rut while rolling down a grassy knoll. I'll check it out later, but I'm pretty sure that's what it is.

I found sunglasses to be a burden for commuting. So, I ride with clear goggles and rely on my visor to cut the glare when the sun pops out.

A chilly 50 degrees this morning with a stiff headwind. Threw a sweatshirt on, along with a headband and my full-fingered gloves. Pitch dark when I left so I wore my clear glasses and ran all my lights. Yes, it looks like fall has arrived.

Nevertheless, I tacked on about 11 extra miles this morning just for the health of it. Have to ride home this afternoon to get the car and take my son to a golf tournament, then I'll ride back to work to finish the day. Should have logged about 34 miles total once I finally get home this evening.

Beautiful weather this morning with temps in the mid-60s and relatively low humidity. It was even nicer yesterday but I drove because my legs needed some rest after riding a two-day loaded tour over the weekend. I hated to drive with weather so nice, but sometimes you gotta listen to your body.

I had a light tail wind which made the ride so easy.

I've been at this job 19 months now, and I have finally gotten to the point where the ride doesn't seem so long. Once or twice during the ride on almost every ride, I would think to myself, jeez, I'm not even close to my destination (home or work), but now it just buzzes along. I knew I would get to this point eventually, but it took a long time.

When I rode home on Friday with heavily laden panniers, I noticed my tires seemed too soft. This morning I checked them before pumping, and they were down to 20 psi. They were wiggling on the road a little but not coming close to bottoming out, as they are 37mm wide. Good to know. I pumped them to 50/60.

I had this big intersection toward the end of my commute, one 7 lane road (2 bike lanes, 4 car lanes, one turn lane) crossing another. I was bombing up to the queue of cars stopped at the light I was going to stop at, when a car started pushing out in front of me from a gas station. It couldn't get into the car lane, couldn't get out of the bike lane. So I swung out to the left edge of the car lane, plenty of room to get between it and the car at the end of the car lane queue, and went on up to the light that had turned by then. By the time I got up to the light, the 3rd car in the queue was turning right and I was next to it so I wound up going right with him, braking, and he stopped before I fully stopped or had to hop up onto the curb of the right turn so then I just went back to where I was going in front of him and through the intersection. I feel bad about not stopping sooner and waiting for him to turn in front of me. I am still annoyed at that other car that camped in the bike lane though.

The thermometer at my house read 2C (36F), and I believe it, because there was frost on the grass in the valley. This is October weather! Felt sluggish. Should be nice and warm this afternoon.

Still a bit warm down here in the south, but I think it is just the mid 80's instead of the usual 90 something. Bad news: Had a fl**. Good news, I realized it was going flat with seconds of leaving the house. Went home, switched bikes and was back on the road in minutes. Damn gatorskins.

39F here. Supposed to hit 80 this afternoon.

Ugh, you'd get that damp cold too; at least it's relatively dry here. I don't think I've ever been as cold as when I was in London, UK one March when it was about 5C/40F and all I had was a light jacket. Would have been sufficient for home, but not London.

Motorists are supposed to merge into the bike lane when turning right, unless there is a physical barrier separation, to help prevent hook turns. This is true in 49 states, all except Oregon. If there was a physical separation, then you have witnessed first-hand the huge conflict issue with separated bike lanes at intersections. If going straight, the savvy cyclist merges out of the bike lane and into the travel lane to prevent the possibility of being hooked by a turning vehicle. If you decide to stay in the bike lane when going straight, and the bike lane continues on the other side, you must always be vigilant to watch for turning traffic.

Of course, if there is a physical separation other than those bendy post thingies, you can't really merge out of the bike lane/track into the travel lane. So you're forced to go straight to the right side of right-turning traffic.

And thus illustrates why I hate separated infrastructure.

I think I still have some summer metabolism this week so I can ride in the morning <40F with shorts, sandals, fingerless gloves (long sleeve shirt though). But for the same weather in March I will need shoes, socks, tights, gloves, coat... no balaclava though like a lot of my neighbors.

I should have merged behind the guy who was turning although it's not likely there was room or the car behind him (going straight) would have let me. I think I had too much brain space still taken up by going around that 1st car to fully process the new situation as it happened.

I stayed later at work last night and ended up riding home in the dark for the first time this season.

ughhh not looking forward to having to use all that stuff again... every year I wonder how cold it'll get before I quit riding, thinking I might cut back, but then every year I still manage to ride down to about 20°F.

The weather was still great, maybe even a bit too hot. :)

A very nice morning commute today, the temp was at 60f degrees and clear dark skies.

Decided to start raining 1/3 way in. Had to stop under a gas station and wrap everything up. Even though it was pouring still did my pull-ups/sit-ups etc.. feel awesome!

A funny thing happened on the MUP this morning, or at least I found it humorous. A dog and owner were up ahead going the same direction as me. Dog on right, owner on left with regular leash (not retractable kind) in left hand and a phone in her right hand. Both of them were in the middle of the path with not enough space to go by on either side. Owner talking on phone is oblivious to me, but dog hears me coming and looks back.

Just before I got close enough to give the "On your left" warning, the dog moves off the path to the right, pulling the owner with him and out of the way. The dog looks at me again as I go by as if to say, "There, I got her out of the way so you may pass."

I kind of waved as I went by, but more to the dog than the owner.

Proof that dogs are smarter than a lot of people! Warmer this morning, mid 60's, but Fall is definitely looming - it's dark in the morning and leaves are falling

39 this morning so the cold weather clothes came out. Ended up overdressing a little. Clear skies made for a nice sunrise.

Bridge construction has been a curse and blessing. Three bridges cross the river with two under construction. The smallest is out of town a ways where I live and its had daily closings for months but now its closed for three solid days. Been great for me, really cuts down on the traffic. The first bridge had lanes closed into Wisconsin for a month which hasn't really affected me but that changed today. Now it's closed heading to Minnesota which puts a good chunk of that traffic onto a narrow road I ride that normally sees very little traffic. Coming to work I was lucky with no traffic coming up behind me while the lane heading to the only open bridge was almost non-stop cars. I will have to take the lane for about a mile if someone comes up behind me. There just isn't room to be passed. Plus there's three rail crossings in that stretch. Going home I'll be riding the heavy traffic lane and will have to take the lane. Trying to figure out an alternate route but with the rails there's few crossings.

I'm starting to see some other bike commuters on my route lately, after 10 years of commuting with virtually nobody but me. That's a positive sign and perhaps an indication that my city's bike transportation efforts are yielding some results. The city adopted a new bike transportation plan a few years ago and has been adding bike lanes, paths and sharrows to many streets when they are due for repaving.

By the time I was ready to head out it was raining pretty hard... so decided to drive today. :-(

Descending into the valley, came around a bend and saw this guy staring at me...
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Fb...E=w861-h664-no

Nice morning, much warmer than yesterday at a balmy 8C/46F!

A little over 80F. Thought it was going to start raining the whole way in, I think I felt one or two drops. Very nice ride.


Last night on the way home was kinda weird. At about midnight I left work and headed down a very busy street for the area I live in. the first part is way down hill so I was pretty much flying. Suddenly there were people on bicycles all around me. None of them had lights, all were young and athletic looking and bigger than me. Seriously I never see anyone on bicycles riding up to speed on my commute but these guys were and there was at least 8 of them. The bikes I had time to look at were nice bikes CAAD and Fuji etc. Then they all turned off and were gone. At first I thought it was some kinda weird bicycle gang but I think maybe it was a bunch of kids that had to be home by midnight?