Riding home I went two laps around my tiny jump line and made both of my sharp little climbs without getting off. I really like my new MTB, even though it's heavy AF

A very pleasant commute this am with the temp at 46 f degrees and clear skies with a full moon. It is unfortunate that my commute takes me in the opposite direction of looking at the full moon.

What time do you start your commute?

I have pushed my commute back by 20-30 minutes from 6AM, just so that I get some daylight as well.

Today was a nice almost 50 degrees commute. Yesterday's ride back home was also pleasant.

Quite the stories here from [MENTION=73614]rhm[/MENTION], [MENTION=175954]Tundra_Man[/MENTION] and [MENTION=301784]PatrickGSR94[/MENTION]. Patrick - it may be a good idea to get on good terms with a truck driver that will regularly be on your route. Or at least a mutual understanding.

On my ride home yesterday I caught with a cyclist who was just leaving home and heading for a group ride. I told him about my commute and it turns out he works in the same business park as I do. His home is only one mile from his work. I mentioned that would be a quick, easy ride to work and he agreed, but just hasn't wanted to get geared up for that short of a ride. I didn't press the issue, but kept thinking I should have mentioned he could get some platform pedal attachments or just ride a different bike and wear his work clothes.

If I lived only one mile away, I probably wouldn't bike commute either or thus not on this forum. I'd probably be visiting http://walkforums.net/commuting instead (if it was a thing).

Cool at 51F, nice ride in this morning.

48 degrees and crisp!

I love this time of year for riding. I don't work up a sweat at all so I can wear my work clothes on the bike. Saves a big hassle of changing in my cubicle. (Sorry ladies. The spring time will come soon enough)

Aside from my fingers freezing off and reminding me I need to get full fingered gloves for the winter, it was the best ride of the year!

This morning's commute was much less eventful than yesterday's, although colder at 43F.

As I feared after riding through the unexpectedly deep water yesterday morning on my road bike, the bottom bracket has started to creak loudly. Like annoyingly loud. Like pedestrians turn around 50 yards ahead wondering what that sound is loud. Looks like I'm going to have to buy a puller and the tools needed for a BB30 bracket and do some maintenance on it. Rats.

Ew. Press fit BB? Ewwww. :crash: I would try to make tools before buying the actual ones, which will probably run pretty expensive. I made a tool to press in my e-bike's headset cups when I first built up that frame.

Uneventful ride this morning on the road bike. Ran into a snafu trying to replace the bearings in the A530 pedals on Saturday (48 3/32" bearings for the pedal set, smaller than the smallest size I have on hand), and the LBS didn't have them, either. So I reassembled them with the original bearings, but managed to lose 2 in the process, so my left pedal is short 1 bearing on each side. I pilfered my M324 pedals off another bike and stuck them on the road bike last night so I could ride without thinking about whether the pedals would have a problem.

What's worse, the M324 pedals have 62 bearings for the set, and require specialized tools to service them also! Hopefully I won't have to service those for a good long time, but if I do I'll probably try making tools for that, as well.

I love October! It was 49F here and I couldn't remember how to dress. Started out with bike capris and then added bike tights with wind block. After pumping up just one tire, I realized I was going to bake dressed like that so I removed the tights. I did overdress on top but everything had zippers so I just unzipped a bit to regulate my temp. Just a gorgeous October day: sun rising, blue sky, and dancing angels (steam fog) on the river! It was really pretty watching the rowers rowing in the fog; you could just make out their heads.

Left the house four minutes late this morning, so I really had to hustle. Caught my train with 30 seconds to spare! :thumb:

For about a half mile of my ride I could see the moon, full and bright, apparently rolling along the horizon behind the trees. Pretty cool.

At one point I heard deer hoofs on the pavement behind me, but when I turned around I didn't see anything. That's just as well, of course.

Mild and wet. It was 19C/66F this morning, thick with moisture and a moderately strong breeze from the SW (and I was riding into it for the first 6km/4mi of the commute) but after that section of the commute, the next 8km/5mi or so was east so I essentially had a tail wind. As I got closer to the end of my commute, the mist turned into light rain and after stopping at a local coffee shop for a Pumpkin Spice muffin and an espresso, the light rain turned into heavier rain so I was drenched (but not cold) when I arrived at work.

Strangely, this morning's temperature of 19C will be the day's high because the temperature will be falling through the day with a "high" of 14C/57F this afternoon.

Venting here, one of my few "hot buttons" was triggered by another cyclist on the way home. It was a couple of miles after I'd passed him and he'd been following in my draft (on the Greenway), a couple of bike lengths back. I don't really mind that, a bit strange given the bike I'm riding and the easy-going 17-19 mph but whatever floats your boat. But when I come up on several pedestrians, with bikes coming from the other direction, I slow down and then I hear tires sliding behind me, that really gets me. Even when I could zip around them in time, or split the difference, I don't. I don't nag like a path safety monitor, but if you're going to latch on behind me at least pay attention.

Beautiful bagel run this morning. That bagel option adds six miles to a commute over the shorter distance I normally ride, but no school (fall break), no winds, no clouds, not much traffic added up to a very nice ride.


Lox bagel on sun-dried tomato bagel, FWIW. No pumpkin, even though it's the right month.

Seems a little fast for a greenway with pedestrians. Certainly not easy going. That's about what I average on my e-bike.

I do go "too fast" on the Greenway, but only about 12-15 when I approach anyone on foot, or slower bikers, and even walking speed as I wait patiently for a clear path around them. I don't pass on the corners, ever, and I know where to be cautious even when it looks clear. 18mph in the stretches between them isn't speeding.

Anyone following me for even half a mile should have gotten the picture from the frequent slow/surge if nothing else. We're going slowly around other people, and giving them 3 or 4 feet, and we're going to slow into choke points even if, following me, you can't see them yet. After thousands of commutes over that path, I just react to them ahead of time.

added: you've pointed out the main reason I don't have an e-bike. For my particular commute and distance, a Georgia street-legal e-bike would be no faster and likely slower than my road bike commutes. I might like one for other reasons, but the large majority of my miles lately are commutes.

40s and sunny! Started at dentist's, then 1 mile climb to leave his office

First sub-zero (Celsius) commute of the fall. Face got a bit cold. Otherwise uneventful.

Oh dear. Sort of like people installing reverse lights in their cars instead of regular brake lights.

Speaking of which, is there any sort of rule or etiquette surrounding flashing versus solid lights? Mine have the option, and I always use blinking since I think that makes it clear I'm not a scooter or motorcycle, but I have been wondering if there is a time/place for one or the other, or if it's just preference.

Did you have one of those, "did the apocalypse just happen and I survived?!" moments? I always love those, no matter how short lived.

Debating whether to ride tomorrow. I have been leaving sweaters and tupperware at work so they're piling up, and there's an early staff meeting I often skip. I need to get out of the house by 7:30 to deliver the kid and make my 9am training... ride time is about an hour plus dropping off the kid halfway and putting on my engineer costume when I arrive.

Nice rides both last evening as well as today morning. Yesterday, on the way back, again a driver got honked at by oncoming traffic when they crossed the double yellow line when passing me.

Today morning was a nice cool 62 degrees weather, with some crosswinds occasionally. Perfect for a bike ride.

If I notice traffic or the amount of other humans being considerably less, my first thought is, "Uh-oh. Is it Saturday? Or a holiday?"

Another nice cool morning. I'm digging not getting sweaty on the way to work. Shorts, long sleeve shirt and lightweight gloves are working for 50 - 55F degrees for me.

Yesterday I took the short route with more traffic so I could get home in time to taxi a kid to dance practice. It's a more stressful route in terms of stoplights, intersections and just watching for cars turning and such. But it's nice to know I can get home in about 35 minutes when needed vs my regular 50ish minutes.

Nice and cool commute in to work this morning.

Over the weekend, the city painted lines on one of my commuting roads to create a bike lane (technically, not a bike lane as it didn't have the bike and diamond symbol in it, technically, it is just is just an edge line but that's better than what was there before, nothing). I took a video of my ride and will put in on YT for the city staff to see that I'm using and appreciating the road.

However, in response to the wish of the residents on that road, a few years ago, the city installed some traffic calming "structures" to reduce the speed of traffic on that road. These structures include an island and two bump-outs (where the curb and boulevard/grass has been curved into the road to narrow the road). These structures, even before the edge line painting, are somewhat dangerous for cars and cyclists as the narrowing forces them together in a smaller space and it is not uncommon for me to hear a car accelerating behind me to race me to the narrowing and get through it ahead of me. This happened yesterday but I didn't have my SJCam 4000 (a GoPro wanna-be) on me so it wasn't recorded but I think I'll continue recording my cycling along this road to show the city that it happens and that they really need to do something about it (even installing more traffic humps as those do slow traffic but don't really affect cyclists too much).

Long post, sorry.

Have a great day!

Nice ride this morning, if a bit chilly. It's getting to the point I see how far I can make it before the sun comes over the ridge to the east (got a late start, not far this morning).


Not directly related to the ride: when I got to work this morning, I rode between two Mercedes in handicap spaces to get to the bike rack. My first thought was along the lines of, wow, two Mercedes, I'd like to drive one of those. My second thought, though, was "I'd rather ride my $1,000 bike than drive one of those $60,000 cars and qualify to park in a handicap spot."

34F foggy

I cycle to college/school/uni (Whatever you want to call it.). Although recently a couple of days ago I signald (As I was turning right and made eye contact at a junction but a car just pulled out without looking (noticed he was on his mobile) another time both a van and car didn't indicate at a mini roundabout. :/.
Today when I went out to cycle only a blue van honked at me. I was in the centre of the lane as this road had lots of parked cars and it was by a school and on the way back when I was going downhill. A cat was randomly sitting there in the middle of the road and didn;t move like cats usually do but I had enough room to avoid it.

Normally there is plenty of space for my bike on the ferry, but this morning, despite it being the same boat I always take, it was extra full. There were several Citibikes on there, taking up space and making a bit of a mess of things. Am I a dick for thinking they should be restricted somehow?

I have a few things in common with yall including [MENTION=301784]PatrickGSR94[/MENTION].

I had a banner month last month, at almost 600 miles, and I'm also commuting by bike more than before, which has been a goal. Right now, my log shows 2,491 miles for the year, and my goal for the year has been 2,500 miles. I'm going to exceed that for the day, so I could quit for the year if I wanted to.

I had several run-ins yesterday, too. A woman cut me off by crossing the bike lane and pulling into a parking garage. I normally wouldn't do or say anything, but I did this time. I asked her to look before turning. She apologized profusely and told me many times that she hoped I have a blessed day, so what else could I say? I said I wish the same for her.

I rode home on 5th Ave which is pretty crazy at rush hour. I was on the way to the blood center so I could donate platelets. Several taxi drivers honked at me furiously from behind. One of them tried to push me out of my lane by getting increasingly close as we went at nearly the same speed. I yelled NOT SO CLOSE NOT SO CLOSE, and he kinda-sorta backed off and didn't acknowledge my presence with a head turn. OK fine, that's life.

The blood center had plenty of drama, too! A first-time donor threw up after her donation, in front of everyone in the waiting room. We all sympathized, though she was embarrassed. The waiting room was unusually packed. I wonder if the Las Vegas disaster made people want to help. Three of the four platelet machines broke down, and there were several of us waiting to donate platelets. They can take whole blood instead, but I had donated whole blood only two weeks earlier, so I didn't qualify to give another whole blood donation. The guy ahead of me who was queued for platelets volunteered to donate whole blood so that I could donate platelets. We made the swap for everyone else's benefit. The guy on the table next to mine was in pain and complained. Some pain is a risk we donors take, but I also understand his point of view. Normally, these visits aren't nearly so eventful.

They say we shouldn't exercise after donating, but I rode my bike home, as I usually do. I've never suffered.

Yeah the crowds at the blood center were absolutely because of the Vegas tragedy.

Rode the road bike home yesterday, which was pretty uneventful. At one spot where I prepare to turn left and motorists often have to wait behind me for a few seconds, there was actually a back-up of traffic due to paving operations ahead. Traffic and construction definitely holds up traffic more than a cyclist.

Took the e-bike today. One guy passed me in the 2nd lane on a 5-lane arterial, going WAY over the speed limit. I had forgotten to change batteries and delete video files off my GoPro last night, so I didn't catch him doing it. Other than that uneventful, save for an AMAZING sunrise this morning!

*edit* what the heck happened to Attachment settings? The file types allowed have to be TINY to upload anything!

Just above freezing, clear and calm.

A driver passed me and then turned immediately turned right...I guess that would have been a right hook, but I was turning there anyway as well. It's an intersection where 99% of vehicles make a right turn, so I suppose it was a safe assumption by the driver that I would be turning there, but I was still a bit irritated that she didn't stay behind me until after the turn.

Forgot gloves and had cold hands this morning!! The post-commute shower water felt like lava. I wont forget again.

Uneventful e-bike commute this afternoon, except for one bone-head pass with oncoming traffic. Oh well.

As soon as I pulled up into my driveway I heard a hissing sound. First puncture ever on these Schwalbe Big Apple 2.15" tires, with over 2,000 miles on them. I'm sort of disappointed that I couldn't find what caused it. Whatever it was, was super small, not visible on the tire, not the inside or outside, and only the tiniest hole in the tube. But it was flat within a matter of minutes after getting home.

Thank goodness it wasn't out on the road. It was the rear tire (as it ALWAYS is. Every. Single. Time.), and with a 60+ pound bike, rear rack, permanent rear fender, and disc brake, it's very hard to get the rear wheel out and back in. I put a proper patch on the tube with a Rema patch and rubber cement, so it should be good now.