Good rides yesterday. Extra early morning commute for a 7 AM staff meeting moved from Monday to Tuesday meant very little traffic at 5:10 AM. Had a nice 15 MPH tailwind most of the way going home, which was nice. Posted my fastest ever time on my regular bike (not counting e-bike) on one Strava segment, averaging 20.8 MPH for 1.3 miles. Not bad considering I usually average 12-13 MPH overall. I managed to get a 14.9 MPH moving average for the total commute home yesterday.

This is the section I PR'd on (video from last year). I managed to make all 3 lights at full speed, which NEVER happens. So from 0:30 to 5:45 in the video (5m15s elapsed) only took me 3m53s to cover yesterday.

High but thick clouds rendered the morning light dim and diffuse. Some mist early in the ride.

Fog, mist and wet were my companions on my commute today. The temp was a mild 53f degrees when I left the house. As I got closer to work(which is closer to the coast) there was more moisture in the air.

A beautiful 12C/54F sunny warm morning. I haven't pulled the trigger on the bikepacking gear that I'm going to get so I had to deal with a backpack on my back which isn't so bad (except for the weight) during cooler temps but on days like today, my back was hot and sweaty. Next week, I plan to be riding my Kona Sutra road-style touring bike with panniers but for other purposes, my bikepacking gear will enable me to ride more comfortably with "baggage" on my KHS Tempe 29er (my winter and mountain bike).

The forecast is for rain this afternoon but even warmer, 26C/79F.

Nice rides this morning. I use the plural because I had a layover at the gym. Then I stopped to talk to a friend. I ended up having to ride the last 5 miles pretty fast to get to work on time. A couple of downward going roads helped me out.

Winter's not done yet. 31°F this morning with a fierce head wind. Cloudy but at least no rain like yesterday.

Realized yesterday that somewhere I lost my pant leg strap. Bummer. I've had that same strap for seven years.

59F and 15mph headwind. Good news is I managed to miss the rain - should be fun ride home!

38 degrees this morning.. wore shorts a couple days ago! Little or no wind at least. Could of broke a record if I rode the Trek this morning.

40F, sunny. Hazy toward the horizon.

A little cooler after last night's rain, 50F but I still had a nice e-bike ride into work.

Thank you!
The crash happened with a pannier that got too bouncy along a sidewalk w/ bumpy curbs, driveways in fast succession, the back wheel sucked it in, then:
•Awful metallic groan, extreme deceleration
•Bike lurches forward on front wheel
•Endo’d, with bike and commuter goodies sprawled all over the place. Shoulder is completely numb
•Shocked motorist witnesses crash and stops to ask if I’m ok (that was really nice. I hope he’s not traumatized)

The bullet points above happened in less than two seconds! Except maybe for the motorist.

Thank you, I’m looking forward to many “uneventful” commutes from here on out...

This morning's commute was a bit damp but no so much as yesterday's. Today my glasses were dry. TGIF!!

Yesterday afternoon was a beautiful warm spring day, a lovely commute home.

A couple months ago I mentioned in this thread that I'd seen a beaver in the canal. Over the years I've been commuting, many times I've seen a critter swimming near there, but never out of the water; so all you see is the beastie's nose and wake. A beaver is a lot bigger than a muskrat, but (not to point out the obvious) if you can't see them, they look the same! Well, on the occasion I mentioned a couple months ago, the animal I saw was definitely a beaver.

It's always at the same place on the canal, near an old turning basin (where the canal boats would tie up for the night, turn around etc). The entrance to the turning basin has been bridged, I mean it has been filled except for a concrete tube three or four feet in diameter, only the top of which you can see. Evidently it connects the turning basin to the canal under the surface.

In the weeks since then, I've seen something swimming on one or two occasions, and heard a big splash twice. The funniest thing I saw was a small branch, with green leaves on it, moving along just below the surface, only a couple leaves sticking out above the surface. It was going against the current, and pretty fast, and it disappeared just before the entrance to the turning basin; so I figured it was a beaver towing a branch and s/he dove to swim through the concrete tube.

Anyway, yesterday I saw two of these critters swimming around on the other side of the canal, chasing each other, turning around quickly, diving and coming up on the other side of one another. I couldn't see very well, it was some 50 - 60 feet away. I made a video on my phone... which is terrible.

By the way, this is just a hundred yards from Route 1 and dense suburban residential areas, two miles from Trenton city limits.

You may be able to watch my beaver video here.

So, yesterday's ride home was interesting.

There were predictions of a severe storm for late afternoon or early evening but at 3:30, 45 minutes before I normally leave work, the sun was shining, there were some small scattered clouds and the breeze was light so I figured that the storm couldn't arrive in just 45 minutes. It was closer to 4:30 by the time I left work and it was getting darker with thick clouds, especially in the south and the wind from the south had picked up but I figured that I was still safe. At that point, the latest report was that there were severe wind warnings too, 90kmh/55mph, but again, there was just a moderate breeze when I left.

An accident just outside of work held traffic back so by the time really I got going, it was closer to 4:40.

As I was riding west, I could see dark clouds moving towards the area and a couple of minutes later, the dark clouds were joined by a brown (?) cloud, weird. I had traveled about 2km/1.2mi when I had to stop to cross the road and that's when I suddenly noticed the cars ahead of me were disappearing into a light brown fog, my visibility was reduce to about 50m/yd and the wind had picked up significantly and then the storm hit.

Yes, it must have been 90kmh winds because while standing beside my bike, I was nearly blown off my feet and then I was pelted with sand and dust (sand from the roads during the winter, the source of the brown fog and cloud). Then hail was thrown at me at 90kmh (but fortunately, it lasted for only a few seconds) and then rain was thrown at me at 90kmh (which felt just as hard as the hail).

When the hail started, I crouched down and put my head down hoping that my helmet would protect my head and my backpack protect my back but as I was glancing at the ground in front of me, I saw what looked like a massive hailstone fall, about the size of two shoes put together. At that point, I went into survival mode and got up to run to the hospital for shelter, about 50m/yd away, and hid under an overhang that covered the nearest door. When I got to the shelter, I looked around and didn't see any evidence of hailstones but the small ones might have melted quickly and what I thought was a big one, might just have been blown garbage as I saw a lot of that blown around.

I was cold and soaking wet and the wind and rain hadn't let up so I called my son for a ride when suddenly, the hospital lights went out and the call went dead (he was on the house phone, a cordless) so I called his cell. When that went to voicemail, I thought the cellular network had gone down but then I realized that I was able to connect to his voicemail so it was still up.

It took him 20 minutes to travel 2km/1.2mi because of slowed and stopped traffic (a couple of trees were down and power lines across some roads) by which time the storm had let up but there was still lots of lightning so I wouldn't have been comfortable riding. About 20 minutes after we got home, the storm was done and there was just a bit of light rain later in the evening.

The shock this morning was that the temperature went from 26C/79F when I was coming home yesterday afternoon to 2C/36F for this morning's ride in.

Rain this weekend and I have a couple of rides to participate in, oh well.

Have a great weekend!

That's cool, and one wet beaver.

Nice commuting all week so far. Last night I was seconds away from getting caught in a deluge of heavy rain.

Screwed up but successful morning. I promised kiddo we'd ride to daycare. He wanted to ride his Strider and explaining that away involved some crying. Then I tried to put the kid seat on my commuter bike... I've already been using the appropriate rack for a while and assumed it would just slide on. But no, the kid seat legs run into the wide canti brakes. So I put the Cannondale away, dressed down and then got out the Priority 3-speed. This is ironically both my most overgeared and slowest bike, and pedaling it up the hill was a bear. The daycare is at the top about the 2 mile point and I turned downwind at the same time. You can tell! But kiddo loved it. Got to work pretty late.

I forgot I took this photo on Wednesday. This is the pile of driftwood that was skimmed out of Lake Natoma after the near-flooding this winter. It's still just sitting their waiting for trucks, or maybe a big BBQ. The piles in front are the little ones... look behind the fence. That pile is like 20 feet tall and 100 feet long. Taken from behind Nimbus Dam looking SW


Untitled by Darth Lefty, on Flickr

Took a detour to get more books for the kid on the way home. I must say, the 10th ave bike route is looking mighty fine.

I was not looking forward to my ride home yesterday. Uphill into the wind on my most overgeared and upright bike. It turned out not to be the big problem... instead it was a near get-off caused by going into a pothole and my reflexes being wrong for the coaster brake, which I locked up. I came to rest upright but sideways with a pain in my wrist. Meanwhile my wife had heard my complaints about the conditions and decided to come rescue me. She loaded up the kids and she picked me up at the top of the big climb (of course) and we went off to find some dinner.

I had a nice commute in this morning. The temp was 41f degrees with very cloudy skies but dry streets. At the end of my commute there is a large hill I ride down and make a left turn at the bottom.This morning there were a few cars coming down the hill with me so I stayed more to the right but when I had to move over to make my left turn this guy must have thought he came to close because he apologized to me after I turned. That was thoughtful of him.

Warm ride in this morning at 70F. Pretty windy and not in a helpful way. Some storms are moving in after lunch., hopefully they'll be done and be on their way by 5pm.

The new MUP that is close to the office has had some repairs. It was having some drainage issues and water would be on it for 2 or 3 days after a rain. They seem to have fixed some of this, but still need to repave where they added drain pipes.

Remember when you were a kid and went riding after a big storm? That's what it was like this morning - wet! 54F, pretty good headwind that's supposed to pick up to 20+ by this evening, so I'm hoping for a fun tailwind

There's been a lot of rain and the forecast is for more rain this week. Disc brakes and long fenders will be the order of the week.

It rained heavily last night, but stopped by the time I left home. Road was not too bad, actually. Got here without getting wet, either from the rain or sweat.

Welcome to spring in South Dakota. Woke up to 3+ inches of wet, heavy snow and still falling. Pulled the winter bike down from storage. I knew I was tempting fate two weeks ago when I cleaned it up, lubed and adjusted it before I put it away for the season. Looks like I get to do that again.

Temps were hovering right above freezing and there was a steady north wind. I made it less than three miles into today's eight mile commute when my chain started skipping. Ice had built up in the cassette and derailleur and quickly turned my 21 speed drivetrain into a 0 speed. I pulled over under an overpass and tried to clean it out the best I could with a stick. I managed to get one really low gear working and continued on towards work.

About every mile and a half the ice would build up again and I'd have to stop and use the stick to try and unjam the cassette again to get this granny gear working. Slow going.

I made it within two blocks of the office and was waiting at a stop sign, when some yahoo in a car thought it would be funny to swerve over through a deep puddle as he crossed in front of me and completely soak me with a tsunami of slushy water. Idiot.

I was tempted to work from home this morning, but I had a meeting scheduled so I decided to brave the ride to the office. The way this day has been going so far I suspect the person I'm meeting with is going to cancel on me anyway.

Most days, bicycle commuting really isn't that hard. Today, not so much.