Accuweather said 50's but of course it was 47-48. Windy as usual hopefully it maintains the direction for the ride home.

33F, gray, clammy, occasional spitting precip

Foggy. Dark. Kinda eery, the silence, and the way things just appear out of nowhere a certain distance away. Streetlights seem to turn themselves on just before I reach them. And several times I thought I saw little critters scurrying out of the way when they saw my headlight.

The worst of it, when I know I can't see much of anything, I know drivers can't see me.

First time I have commuted in awhile! I get a little frustrated when the morning temps require one set of clothes and the afternoon a completely different set. Plus I have been focusing more on running. Anyway, I recently got a folding bike and finished the fine tuning on it last night so I thought a commute would be a good shakedown. Anyway, it was a great ride in! I stopped to make some saddle/stem height adjustments and already got the first "that bike is different!" comment.

All in all a great ride. Could have probably worn shorts, but was already in jeans. Will switch to shorts for the ride home. No bike specific clothing today. Just chill, casual riding on a folding bike.

My commute, not today but yesterday, was pretty ideal. 55 deg at 0330 when I left my house; 65 deg F for the ride home at 530 pm. Pitch black with a little fog in the am. Daylight on the way home. Never rode much before in February. This February, 240 miles. A wonderful month. Feeling pretty good going into March.

Another nice uneventful commute to work this am. Though with the temp at 42 degrees and the snow melting going on, there was some foggy places.

Cooler but don't mind since there was a awesome tail wind! First full week riding since last year.

Had to drive today because of appointments, a waste of a beautiful morning... sigh

A good, uneventful ride in. A little cooler than previous mornings, but still quite warm for February. It's supposed to be over 75F this afternoon. I wish I could take off for a long ride.

@bmthom.gis - good to see you back on the bike. I do some running too and am actually in the midst of marathon training right now. I feel the two activities complement each other pretty well.

Thanks! No marathon training here. The Better Half is thinking about doing a 1/2, but I'm good with 5 and 10k events. And sometimes it's easier to go for a 40 minute run than try and squeeze in a 2 hour ride. I used to be a runner back in the day in high school, it's nice getting back to it. I'm sure there's something there about trying to recapture my youth after my 30th...

Did my 8 mile commute on Chicagos lakefront trail yesterday, morning couldn't have been more perfect. Low 50's on way in with clear skies and not a soul on the trail. Evening was terrible mid 30's rainy and 20 mph headwind.
Average speed in am: 16.8 mph
Average speed in pm: 10.2 mph

Worth it.

Brisk headwind, snow and a thick layer of ice at the bottom made for a challenging commute. But it was still better than driving to work.

Schools are running 2 hours late this morning. I made it to work 15 minutes early. Consecutive bicycle commute number 242 is in the books.

Riding in shorts and a T shirt at 6 AM in February has me all confused. But, of course, in a good way.

Only the third ride of the year--all of them this week---and I can already feel the improvements in conditioning, but I am still trying to find my riding legs. Stiff headwind for most of the ride threw my time off a bit, but it was still a reasonable 10 minutes off my mid-summer average. Not bad for the first week in.

Last night was a bit of a shock - the temperature dropped 10 degrees when the sun went down. South wind picked up overnight, so temperature stayed about 60 but getting to work in the headwind was a bit difficult. Couldn't hear much above the wind noise.


Supposed to get back down to freezing in a couple days, that south wind is just setting us up for the front coming through tonight.

33F, gray, frosty

Yesterday's commute was a little odd. About halfway home I was stopped at a traffic light, then stood on the pedals to get going, and heard some sort of pop or "twang" sound from my rear wheel. I knew the spokes were all fine, but I couldn't tell otherwise what it was. For the next couple of miles it sounded like the freehub clicking every so often even though I was turning the pedals. I stopped to have a look, and when turning the pedals backwards I noticed the cassette would sometimes stick and cause the top chain run to go slack for a second, then snap back and continue moving backwards.

At home I removed the wheel and found the axle turning to feel very gritty and stiff. Great. This is a Vuelta Corsa Lite wheelset from Nashbar, which has re-branded Novatec hubs, which apparently all use cartridge sealed bearings. So I can't just take it apart and regrease bearings unfortunately. In the meantime I threw my bike's original Mavic CXP-22 rear wheel back on, which itself could probably use a bearing service, as it has a tiny amount of play in the axle. I just need to acquire a couple of cone wrenches, or maybe grind an adjustable wrench down to fit onto bearing cones.

These Vuelta wheels have over 9,000 miles of mostly commuting on them, and I've never serviced the bearings at all before.

So commuting in this morning with my other rear wheel was tough, with a stiff headwind. Had a couple of impatient motorists, too. Oh well.

I really enjoy this shared blog we all have going here.

I didn't ride into work a single day this week, for all kinds of various reasons. I want to get some form of exercise every day, and I almost succeeded in that, so that's good. This morning I had a dentist appointment, and I jogged from the subway to her building. It involved a lot of people and car dodging. Midtown Manhattan traffic, both on streets and sidewalks, is unimaginably busy, so it's a mental reflex challenge as much as it is a workout.

I ran an errand after lunch, 2.6 miles to the UPS store to drop off an express letter, so that was fun. I rarely ride my fixie bike that I keep at the office. I rarely ride any bike this light, so it's fun for a change of pace. Bronx traffic is a whole other thing. I nearly got wiped out by a big truck backing up. I use my operatically trained voice as a tool and let out a yelp before the driver got too far. He was shaken up and apologized. I figure it was half each of our faults, and I wasn't touched, so I smiled and gave him the thumbs up and went on my way.

@noglider you sir, have a lot of jars.

A lot more commuters out there recently. It's nice to have mostly daylight for both commutes. It sleeted/snowed last night but it was all melted by this AM.

The Overpeck Park lot in Lenonia, NJ was chock full of cars yesterday. I expect the same fair whether park folks to be out in full force today. Recently went out for lunch in 70F weather. Wow. Must either be a record for February 24th or close to it. Will be enjoying the ride back to the car in short sleeve jersey and shorts! Ooooooh yeeeeahhh!

Funny, I noticed the same thing...I got back on the bike 2 weeks ago, and 1st ride I was utterly gassed after trying to keep a halfway decent pace. 1 week later and I felt like I was good to go.

Except, I have this annoying pain/tightness in my right calf that cropped up before christmas, and is STILL there. Very perturbed....

Pitch black still for the evening ride....but March 12 and daylight savings time should put me in daylight the whole ride home. I'm really looking forward to that...

Baby leave ends the 6th, but two weeks to bike commuting because that's when Mrs. Lefty starts back at work and the daycare and nanny start again. I'm trying to figure out some way to bike my 2.67yo to his daycare, one-way in the morning... maybe unlatch the kid seat and Mom can pick it up in the evening. But if I do that I need to figure out different luggage because I can't wear a backpack in his face.

A cold but uneventful ride in today with the temp at 27f degrees. The temps should get into the 50's later today.

I am only working 4 days this week then we are heading to South FL, where I will be watching spring training games and riding everyday in warm weather!! I am so looking forward to riding everyday(almost as much as I want) in warm weather!

29 degrees and thick fog in some area's. It was so thick in some areas couldn't see but a couple feet. Eventually had to take off the glasses as it's hard to see through a frozen glaze! Going to be yo-yo temp week it looks like.