Consecutive bicycle work commute number 891:

Milestone day! Today marks the 4th anniversary since the last time I drove to work. I stopped and took a picture just to commemorate the event.

Temp was 15 degrees with a light tailwind. Pretty easy ride to work.

My sister-in-law gave me a GoPro last week, so I tried it out for the first time today and filmed my commute. I only had to ride 4 miles to a client's office. Kind of fun, but I don't know if I'm going to wear this thing every day. Her idea was that I could use it to film mad goose encounters and stupid driver tricks. Perhaps, but I'd have to pretty much have it running all the time and I'm not sure I really want to invest all the effort. I'll see if I can get today's footage uploaded and post it here later on.


https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...f8e7670340.jpg

34F, pea soup fog, bone-dry ground though

I am getting old (plus back into shape). Wearing a long and short sleeve shirt under my coat when just a short sleever would have done not too long ago

Pic from yesterday morning ride, but the river is still high (we had non stop rain from Wed to Sat morning in PNZ).
I thought the water will recede a bit since no rain since Sat night, but today morning was much like same as yesterday.
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...7690c258e9.jpg

So I uploaded the footage from this morning's milestone commute. I did it in 4 separate videos. Kind of fun to see things from the GoPro's point of view. I averaged about 2 mph faster than normal, which I think was a combination of a light tail wind, and being amped up because I knew it was being recorded. Traffic was also unusually quiet this morning.

It's about 20F outside and we had over 6 inches of snow that tapered off yesterday afternoon. Most of the streets along my five mile route were cleared of snow, but the streets in my neighborhood were still covered in deep rutted snow as of this morning. I learned years ago that it took me less time to get to work through deep snow with my bicycle than it does for me to clear a path from my driveway to a plowed street for a car. If I can't ride through it, I can pick up my bike and carry it to a better surface.

Dealing with the snow is easy compared to dealing with drivers seemingly deliberately trying to hit me with their vehicles. In my 8 years of commuting to work by bicycle as an adult, I have rarely encountered any dangerous situations until I had two close calls last Thursday when drivers pulled out into my immediate path. I'm really inclined to say they were both simply terribly bad at driving as no words were exchanged in either instance, but they both had ample time to pull out without any drama and both seemed to alter their course closer to me after I made evasive maneuvers. Both instances occurred on streets for which I have no suitable alternate route, one on Watertown Plank Rd and the other on the street I live on.

Tundra_Man chest strap mount?

When I got an action camera last year the first thing I learned is, editing is a lot of work! I have not yet gotten good at turning a minute film into a good jump cut clip that tells the quick story, but I can tell when I'm getting bored watching myself pedal after an event of interest, and that takes about three strokes. And the second is that image stabilization is a standard part of a decent editor. It can't deal with crazy vibration but it does well with you rocking around on your bike.

Darth Lefty Yes, chest strap. I thought about using a helmet mount, but I've already got my backup headlight up there. Also I thought about how much time I spend moving my head around (looking at my speedometer, checking blind spots, general sightseeing, etc.) and I figured that would be pretty annoying to watch.

Consecutive bicycle work commute number 892:

Backing up to yesterday, I left work a little early and rode to my son's school for parent-teacher conferences. Afterwards I rode home, during which I saw a guy getting cuffed and stuffed by the cops. I don't think I'd ever seen that before while cycling. So the first day I'm wearing a GoPro I manage to capture something like that. What are the odds?

This morning was 12F with a light headwind. Doing a split day today, with the morning spent at the company office and the afternoon at a client location, so I'll have about 20 miles in by the time I get home tonight. Thankfully it should warm up and the wind isn't supposed to shift, so I should have the more difficult part of the day's ride behind me.

When I arrived at the office, both of my bike lights, my GoPro, my phone and my cordless razor all ran out of charge at the same time. That's the most batteries I've had go dead at once that I can remember. At least my laptop stayed charged.

Ouch, glad you're ok! I had a similar incident just over a year ago - riding through crosswalk (what we call them), driver on one side stopped, driver on the other side drove through. It was in the dark, but as one friend commented "you have so many lights they can see you from space." My fault - assuming they'd stop (or assuming they were paying attention), their fault - they weren't paying attention. And it doesn't matter who's fault, we're the ones who always pay the price!

32F this morning and finally no rain, snow or ice.

Yesterday, I had a stop to make on the way to class so I took the extreme eastern route along 1st Ave. 1st is one of the few avenues in Manhattan that I find acceptable, so it was fine. There was rain in the forecast, but I thought I would take my chances, and that pretty much paid off. No rain on my way in. My 1st Ave ride felt fine, but I see my GPS app says my average speed was low. It's because of all the lights I had to stop at. My western route is on a MUP, and I often don't have to put my foot down at all. But really, it was fine.

On my evening ride, it was raining, and it was after dark. It wasn't terribly cold, but I did get wet. After warming up, I felt physically fine, but having bad vision and with the impaired vision that drivers have in those conditions, I decided to take the MUP route for safety. I'm glad I did. The path was so empty. I rode slowly because of the rain. My front tire somehow got caught in some kind of rut that I didn't see, but it was short, and I managed not to lose traction. It felt like a close call.

35F, dry, part of the mountain was out.

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...bfa4301070.jpg

Chickened out yesterday and took the car. Today showed that, while the creeks aren't all that high, there's standing water in almost every flat field and yard I passed.

Today I felt brave (and radar looked like a quiet spot in the weather was coming through). Not bad at all; a few splatters on the bottom of my bifocals, but I don't look through the bottom of my glasses when I'm riding (except for electronic diversions). I'd seen and heard some meadowlarks and bluebirds over the weekend, but I think they were hiding from the rain this morning.

I decided to drive yesterday after hearing some heavier rains outside when I woke up. Turns out I would have been fine as it was just a light rain and not cold at all. Bummed I didn't man up and ride.

Back on the bike today. Left a little early and took some long cuts for a total of 16 miles. Quite nice out actually at about 53F. Not supposed to get any warmer today either.

Consecutive bicycle work commute number 893:

29F this morning with a light cross wind. Pretty easy ride to work.

GoPro was being finicky and didn't want to start recording so I had to monkey with it for a while in the driveway. Suddenly it started working and I'm not sure why. One thing I've learned is these things are definitely quirky. I've had a lot of weird things happen that I've been able to overcome and figure out, but it took some fiddling and experimenting. And not everything works quite as intuitively as you would think (i.e. to turn it on, you don't press the big round red power button on the top. Instead, you hold the little "mode" button on the side for 7 seconds until it beeps and powers up.)

It's supposed to snow a little bit this morning, then the temps are going to drop drastically and the wind will come up strong. We're going to see a -45 degree temperature swing from this morning until this evening. It's going to stay below zero until Friday during the day when we'll see a +45 degree temperature swing back into the upper 20s. The next four commutes are going to be interesting.

29F this morning and starting at 1p we're under a winter weather advisory. Does that mean that this isn't real winter weather?!

42F, damp, cloudy

Similar forecast here. Mid-30s today, -10 tomorrow evening, single digits Friday, ticking 40 by Sunday. There was still ice/slush left over from last weekend's snowstorm on the streets and MUPs yesterday, even a patch or two still this morning. Knock wood, today's temperate and dry weather will take care of that before the upcoming little big chill.

My phone's weather app was not updating correctly, but I didn't realize it. It said 53F so I put on a jacket. Felt like 63F or warmer. I stopped after 3 miles and shed the jacket. It was pretty windy in a swirly kind of way which made me work a bit harder and thus I was a bit sweaty by the time I got to work even without the jacket.

President's Day weekend coming up, but I'm off work tomorrow instead and working Monday. Have a good weekend!

Last evening we had a combination of sleet and rain which then turned to snow. Morning's ride wasn't bad but temps are supposed to drop from 31F this morning to low 20's this afternoon, then low single digits tomorrow morning. So there's a layer of ice covered by snow with single digit temps - perfect for rutted ice. Yay...

Consecutive bicycle work commute number 894:

-14F this morning with a -35F wind chill. For the safety of pedestrians, our current mayor waives bus fees when the wind chill goes below -30F so people have the option to ride regardless of financial ability.

So I left the house and rode 1.2 miles to the bus stop. My goggles had completely iced over in that short amount of time, but I'm guessing because most of the ride was up a steep hill and I wasn't moving very fast to generate any ventilation draft.

I hopped on the bus for free, and rode downtown. Then I rode the remaining .5 miles to the client's office. I had taken my old winter bike because the fat bike won't fit on the bus rack. The tires felt like they had frozen completely solid. There was very little cushion over the bumps.

37F, overcast

Aggravating when the electronics don't work right, but it'd have been a lot worse if the swing was the other way -- dressing for 53F and it's 43 and windy can get painful in the extremities!

Latest snow "event" (as the kids are calling it these days) started on the way home last night; neat "warp drive" effect in the headlights, riding surfaces were fine. Turned into about an inch overnight, and the temp kept dropping. This morning, +8F with -10F wind chill, too cold for salt, first half of commute on mostly unplowed streets. Took a few blocks to get balaclava + collar + goggles adjusted just right for the level of breathing, etc. MUP was in better shape than the streets, but JUST as I pulled on to the MUP from the cross street, wheeeeee, the freehub fails to engage. I bang on the axle with my lock a few times, it kicks in, but then as soon as it freewheels for just a bit, it won't re-engage. This was exactly half-way between home and work. and exactly half-way between the two closest bus lines. Walked it to the bus line that would take me closer to the office, fortunately a guy there poked at his phone and told me it was only three minutes 'til the next bus. Maybe I'll bring the wheel in to warm up for the ride home.

Interesting note about the fat tires and the bus rack, Tundra_Man ; haven't thought to check the ones on our buses. Not my cup of tea, but something that should probably be on their radar.

Given the way the bus racks are currently designed, I'm not sure they could easily modify them to work with both fat tires and regular bikes. The bottom part of the rack where the tires slide provides the majority of the pressure to keep the bike upright. If that were widened enough to allow my 5" fat bike tires, then regular bikes would just fall over during transport.
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...5ecd70706d.jpg

I was just thinking about this ^^^^^^^. Maybe they'd need to have two pairs of the parallel tubes, one pair as it is now, then another, wider-spaced set few inches above them. A "regular" bike would just drop through the upper set and fall into the lower set. A fatty would sit between the upper pair, and the tires would sit on top of the lower pair. Somebody will come up with something, I'm sure. Although it seems like around here, the fatbike thing is starting to play itself out; perhaps it's become too "last year", overshadowed by the e-bike craze. They've already had to start putting stickers on the front of the buses here, indicating the racks do not accomodate the weight of an e-bike.

Minus 30? LOL - "It's only minus 25, you can walk your frozen butt to work, Elsa!"

I remember buses in one part of Colorado having two sets of arms on the front for hanging bikes on the top tube. Your bike could get good and buried if you rode the bus for long.

On my lunch break I went to Target to get the wife and kids Valentine's goodies. Knowing I had to fit whatever I bought on my bike, I still picked up a largish sprinkled donut design pillow for one daughter. Cramming that into a pannier was a challenge, but I managed to zip it all the way! And my ride home will be accompanied by the rattle of Skittles in a box. :P