First commute today on my new creamsicle MTB. A modern MTB is a lot different than anything you may be familiar with if you haven't had one in a while! It's a freaking monster truck and it's not even the plus tire version. I like it a lot, a big uptick in confidence from my old hardtail. Photos after work

I had a really nice ride in today. The weather is nearly perfect as it often is here in September and October. I think they are our months of least rain.

My headwind was fairly strong but not as strong as it sometimes get. I passed a woman on a single speed bike with upright bars. She caught up with me to ask me about my jersey. She said she loved it. It's a wool jersey I got from oregoncyclewear.com. The woman was about my age. (I'm 56.) She could contend with the headwind just as well as I could, on upright handlebars. She had a European accent, so maybe she's from the Netherlands or Denmark where they ride every day from the age of four. I remarked how the headwind makes riding hard, and she said, ah, this is nothing.

Later, as I was climbing a hill, a cyclist standing on the sidewalk near his bike cheered me on, come on, you can do it!

[MENTION=25132]ptempel[/MENTION], I have a thread about my Hillier Than Thou ride, so we can discuss it there rather than here.

I would love to tell you I had another amazing MTB romp on my way home but my bum ticker wasn't feeling so great and I went straight home slowly.

In the interest of saving taxpayer money, they've gone to chip-seal in the city. In the last week, over half my 4 - mile commute is nice fresh chip-seal. It's a horrid surface. Fortunately I put 42mm tires on my commuter a while back, so it's almost tolerable.

This mornings commute was a nice uneventful ride. The temp was 53 f degrees when I left the house. I forgot my phone but realized less than 1/4 mile from leaving the house so I went back home to get it.

Apparently I'm moody today.. think I got that out my system in 7.2 miles though. Fixed the squeaky seat then the spokes were clicking way more than I thought. Jacked with it Monday 2-3 times but still clicked and continued Tuesday. Absolutely nothing this morning though guess it needed to settle. But now my derailleur is making quite a racket.. lol guess I need to put the seat back on.

Besides that went another route which apparently has a bus stop. Well the bus was way too close passing me in the first place, typical of a first student bus. I guess the hood rats doesn't think it's cool to stand at the bus stop so after couple minutes watching them meandering across the street I said f-it and went anyways. Give me a ticket could care less. Second issue.. construction equipment in the bike lane ...again. Stopped and took a pic of it, they didn't like that much. I thought about moving the cones to the center of the street just to see what happens! Third issue.. darn bums in my way of the machines at the park. Going to have to call on them again.

I thought issue's only goes in 3 but I'm up to 4-5 for the day.. screw it may go home and drink some beer!

Bonus mileage! I've done similar, or realized I needed to lube my chain and turned around.

Nice cool commute at 56F with some foggy areas. A good 16 mile ride. I kept hoping for a good place to get a sunrise photo, but nothing came up. So how about a picture of a flower I saw on a walk at lunch yesterday. It had stopped raining just before I went.

Another nice cool commute in 53F weather.

VFM FTW!
Btw, what material is your base layer? Today I wore a full sleeve compression top under my jersey and that did nothing.

Nice one.
On my way to work, I passed a spot of open field with mist hanging on top of the grass, and rays from the rising sun falling on trees sporting fall colors just behind the open field. It's time to start packing my camera as well now.

Dry ride home last night with temps in the 70's F
This morning, rain and temps in the low 60's F

Rain, wet, cool but not cool enough that I didn't sweat in rain gear. I gotta get a new rain jacket!

Someone who writes a fitness blog called me yesterday to interview me about commuting. She kept asking questions like "how do you fit it (exercise) into your day?" to which I kept answering, "I ride to and from work?!" She finally said "every day?" Yes, every day. "Even when it's cold?" Doesn't every day mean every day? I'll be anxious to see what she really writes

When I can tag along on the school commute, it's always the best part of my day.

I've had better commutes. Fell for the first time in 10 years. I know better....it was raining, going ~18mph, and strayed onto the painted line on the right while going dead straight. Must have tried a small unconscious correction to get away from the edge of the road...HEARD a sliding sound first. Looked down...and sure enough, I'm on the painted line, bike is already starting to fishtail. Tried to countersteer...but by this time the bike is turned and leaned nearly 45 degrees, so I'm resigned to going down. Went in slow motion...tires I think were biting just hard enough the whole way to slow my fall slightly. Went down on left upper thigh...slid maybe 15 feet, and the bike another 20 ft down the street.

All things considered...not too bad. Back and thigh are sore, but other than that no biggie. Brifter got knocked sideways, and bar tape on the left slightly torn...easy enough fixes. Guess this is about the best way to go down on a bike on pavement lol

Edit: Slightly worried about my lower back It's getting awfully sore. Wondering if maybe shearing force popped something out of alignment...

Ah, I missed your thread. Will check it out.

Today was a nice ride from home. Did the longer ride since the weather is really nice and cooperating. Will probably be the only ride this week from home but I'll take it. Maybe if Friday has a low chance or rain, then will try it then as well. Fridays seem to be the best traffic days for me.

Excellent. I haven't been able to do that for a while (grades 7 &11 this year). I rode w/ my 7th grader to her id photo-schedule-getting day before the year started, but continued on to work from there and she went home when she was done catching up w/ friends she hadn't seen over the summer.

Today appears to be the beginning of fall. 45F, partly cloudy. Went for long sleeves.

Also, went past the Abbey cemetary this morning on a different route than I usually take

Ouch. Hope you feel better soon.
I have found icing my back most effective.

Nice e-bike commute this morning. Just a tad bit of drizzle left from the Irma remnants, and wet streets of course, but other than that not bad. I wore arm warmers with a short-sleeve tech shirt, and my Xero minimalist sandals with platform pedals. Refreshing!

I ride to school every day here in Seattle, a very short ride down from Capitol Hill. Almost died this morning when someone opened their car door just as I was flying past down a steep hill. I was in a bike lane. Watch out and stay safe everyone.

Yipe! Welcome to the forum, anyhow.

I had another fun MTB ride in to work. Still playing with the suspension adjustments. This is a really efficient bike, that's one reason why I picked it. I'm not feeling any pedal losses or kickback or bobbing on climbs even in spite of not having a lockout. But it's still my first "real" full suspension and I haven't nailed the setup on the first try. It's already handling the terrain much better than my old cheapie, though. I changed the pedals from platforms to clipless, that's where I am on that spectrum right now.

On the way home, double flat. Two goatheads about 3/4" apart. The tires and wheels on this bike are tubeless-ready though I hadn't set them up yet. They were really difficult to tear apart to patch, the beads seat hard! At least I knew where the holes were... not that it helped me get glue on the entire patch. I used the big oval patch. I had to open it up a second time and glue it down again to make sure it covered both holes. I must have been sitting nearly half an hour. A few people asked if I needed anything as they went by... one guy told his friend "He has an extra pair of pants, he doesn't need anything from us!" Thankfully it held well enough after that to get home though I think there's another slow leak. I had not yet set them up tubeless because I am swapping rims with someone else on MTBR... it's a cosmetic thing, we will both wind up with matching sets. But now I'll have taken the tire off the rim three times, not once. Gr!

Mid 60s in the morning today! A perfect morning for the commute. I even bettered my previous best.
Also, packed the camera as well. Here's the scene I was describing earlier

morning.jpg

A very nice commute this morning though I did not get bonus mileage today. It was a warm start to the day with the temp at 64 f degrees and clear dark skies. I did see the black cat this morning crossing the road in the same area as I saw in the field so I assume it is the same black cat.

Quite the interesting array of recent posts. I'll add one more.

I left on time, but a quarter mile down the road I realized my back tire was low. I'd been meaning to change the tire anyway, so went back home and changed the tire and tube.
This put me about 15 minutes behind schedule, so I figured I'd take the shorter, higher traffic route ( ~10 miles vs ~13 miles).

Here is what I found:

• 2 school bus stops
• 1 crossing guard stop
• 4 red stop lights
• Generally slow moving vehicles due to congestion. This route is especially bad when the interstate is clogged, which once I got to work I found was the case as a few colleagues were late due to that.

Advantage did go to the cyclist at one point where I have to turn right to get to a stop light about 50 yards down. Traffic gets backed up from the light enough that cars can't turn. And to make it worse, a big pickup pulling a long trailer had stopped with his trailer cutting off anybody from going anywhere. Except for the skinny bicycle that could go between his bumper and the curb, and get through the light as it turned yellow.

Very nice. That will get even prettier as the leaves continue to change color.
I just use the camera on my phone these days, so no extra packing.

True. Last year, the fall colors were beautiful, with every tree having a different color. This year some trees have already started shedding leaves while some are still green.

My phone camera's lens is all scratched up from use and abuse. Still does a pretty decent job but I bought a camera last year specifically for taking pictures on my bike rides during early mornings. So, I better put it to some use if I want to avoid an argument at home next time I buy any gadget