Past two times I commuted were after taking about a month off and I felt dog tired after both times. Turns out I hadn't gotten so out of biking shape that I was worse off than when I had begun to bike again last year; I just had been some dumb as to not check my wheel alignment after my bike sitting idle for so long. I had done the commutes with my rear wheel rubbing the chainstay the whole time... I'm an idiot!

A couple of months ago I was amazed at how slow I was going for working so hard. My front fender (it's carbon and made no noise) had slipped and was rubbing the wheel like a big drum brake. After I figured out what was happening I felt the same way.

Back in the winter I hit a screw driver and punctured my tire on my way to work (luckily my rim was not hurt). So I fixed the flat on the side of the road, standing in 8" of snow with a 15mph wind, not to mention the fact that it was less than 15*F. So I was in a hurry putting my rear wheel back on. For two days later I was not able to hit my granny-gear and thought that I might have bent my RD hanger. So after putting 75 more miles on the bike I flipped it upside down on my lunch break to check it out. Come to find out the axle had never seated in the dropout correctly and my wheel was cockeyed. to this day I'm suprised that it never caused it damage to the thing.

Your bike getting you back for ignoring it...

Just think of the added exercise you got from that!

Ahhhh... just think of it as a speed parachute:

Great responses.

At least you found a reason for the unaccountably poor performance. I took several months off with a TDY, and I was suddenly a weak cyclist upon returning with no stay-rub or brake malfunctions to account for it.

I'm getting back in the game though.