For winter shoes I'd been wearing a pair of really crappy Shimano MT31 that's a size too large, with two pairs of wool socks and wind covers. I recently replaced my toe-only wind covers with full-boot style wind/rain covers. It occurred to me this morning that perhaps they'd be sufficient to allow me to wear my much better M076 shoes that fit correctly and are so much nicer in every way... sure 'nuff, that did the trick. Those shoes are also much easier to get those particular covers on, so the net time savings every time I put them on is greater than the time spent typing all these overly long sentences.

So that change right there made for a nice commute this morning. It's the little things in life.

It took me about 45 minutes to ride home today, as opposed to ~20. Highland Park and Edison do a lousy job salting and plowing their streets.

Three days this week, my best three times ever. I'm so in love with my "new" bike.

Yeah, I know, "It's not the bike". That's cool too.

You "Norsemen" are AWESOME!

I wish you would take some photos and post them here, although I know you have enough challenges at hand.

Rock On!

Raining but 50 degrees i dont mind getting a little damp if its warm out:)

I wanted to, but I was too preoccupied trying to stay upright. I don't have a lot of experience with winter riding, so I found it challenging to say the least.

Adam

12F, clear blue sky, and the sun was coming up. Very pretty. I think I saw a loon in Lake Champlain. Hard to tell, given the distance. Looked black with white bits, and it submerged for a while.

We're in the middle of a slow melt, so the roads are sheets of ice in the mornings. The studs are paying off.

I had 3 near right hooks this morning. No, I was never hit, but I had to grab the brakes pretty hard several times.

40F and raining. No kids today.

For the first time in 2010 I clearly saw the sun starting to rise and the darkness start fading away all before I got to work. Well, about a half mile from work, but it was still exiting.

So I am like seeing things or what. Any rate. I am closing another 100% on time commute chapter. I have 6 more times or 120 miles. With so little energy I was only able to do 7mph last night home. 12.5 miles X 3 a week. I am going to miss it so bad. I wore shorts yesterday going in @ 64f. My other commuting is only 3-5 mile range. To think I can do the whole thing in half the time it takes to do my other. They even go by the grocery store, how sweet is that? My video camera broke just in time for my move. Where I have to go on REC rides and food is 6 miles one way. I feel a 45 mile commute coming up, yucj.

ARizona is great since it doesn't have the day light savings time. You just get the natural flow of sunlight.

That being said, the sun is up for almost three hours before I leave in the summer. That's quite a swing from darkness half hour into my ride in winter.

had to take my car in for repair, so I thew the bike on a rack. they offered to give me a ride but were surprised that i was going to ride the 10 miles or so to work. very nice trip from Needham MA to east cambridge, mostly on beacon st. some very nice bike lanes in brookline!

This was my first commute by bicycle today. Temps in the teens with winds blowing at 10-20mph. It was really cold. On the way home i realized that i had lost my hat so i had to go back half a mile where i found it. All in all, it was fun.:)

Got back on the bike Jan 31,after taking time off from a fracture on Jan 4.Been getting my legs and pace back slowly,snow hit last wed-thurs in NYC area.

20F with 16mph headwind and snowing, but I was dressed for it. Except I had to take off the safety glasses I normally use when it's cold because they caked up with snow so I couldn't see with them on.

There was already 5 inches of snow on the ground but my studded tires worked like champs, though there were a half dozen times I had to put a foot down in order not to fall when my front tire wanted to go
sideways. It was slow and tedious going at times -- took about and hour and twenty minutes to go the 10 miles.

But all-in-all this was the most fun I've had on my commute in a long, long time.

43F. 10.4 miles. 34 min. 18.10 avg. 23.13 max (wish I had a couple hills). No traffic.

About 20 degrees, a little cold for the sandles. Bike path was plowed! But all the walkers left the ice pretty rough. A bone shaking 1.5 miles.

Hoping snow fluries hold off till I get home.

:beer::beer:[

ugg. it sucked, must be monday or something.

Nice ride this morning with a mix of head, tail and cross winds and temps in the upper 20s. Our bout with snow, sleet and black ice appears to be over for the time being, hopefully for the season. I drove yesterday because a front coming through was supposed to bring a bunch of afternoon showers, which turned out to be very wimpy. However, I made good use of my driving time and got my cycling glasses fixed at the optical shop. One of the lenses kept wanting to pop out, and I was afraid that I would lose it on the road some day. Turns out they had made the lens wrong and it wasn't fitting into the frame all the way, but they got it fixed -- finally. I've had the glasses 2 years and the loose lens has been a problem for over a year.

Nice ride this morning. ~23F, no wind. Sun coming up. Almost 100% dry pavement. Not so good for studs, but if I take them off, it'll snow and get icy 5 minutes later. :rolleyes:

High 20s this morning. Had to be careful in a few spots where runoff from last week's snow ran across my path and was frozen- actually dismounted and walked the bike at one spot. Also had to use a slight detour because the low water crossing over the river is still flooded from the runoff.

The company's new health gimic is to give a pedometer to everyone who wants one, then upload our steps to some website. The website seems to think that 7000 steps per day is a good, healthy amount. I wear the thing when I'm riding and it seems to register. I had almost 6000 "steps" in before 8 am!

This 17 mile commute is something though..........

Yes It's a good place to cycle though there are some car crossings. Have to be careful. Here, we have white bicycles to mark where somone got killed. There's one nearby. You can go the length of Manhattan on the bikepath.

I like to go up to the "George" George Washington Bridge, ride that and go up the Palisades back into New York State sometimes.

50F, sunny, wet.

Yesterday evening - The trains were on the weekend/holiday schedule, I didn't get home until 8:30pm.

Today - snow! It was very pretty when I left the house - fluffy snow had settled on top of tre branches.

32F/dry, alone on the cycling lane near the lake shore, studded tires whizzing on a clean road.
Then hitting the east, golden suburbs of Lausanne, and pushing a bit harder on the pedals to make a fool out of Range Rover's drivers - in hope that those I leave in the dust every morning might reconsider their choice of the "Supercharged Edition" next time they buy a Range :)

straypig ~ you in Switzerland?!

doohickie ~ 17 miles IS quite the ride. I used to have 17 miles and I only did 2 full 5 day weeks (ever). I'm down to 13 miles and I only did 1 full week from 6/22/09 - 6/26/09 on a Varsity ... :-)

my ride:

seems like forever since I've been on the bike but it was only last week
finally got back on the winterized MTB
I took it easy due to my IT Band Syndrome (doing my stretches)
beautiful ride in full darkness with my Magicshine
we have 8+ inches of snow so it looks a little like Switerland!
more snow plows on the road than commuters. I moved over for them and then went back to taking the right track
had to cross Route 9 Natick, MA by going through a red light! AGH! that dam light was never changing even though there were plenty of cars to trigger the sensors. fortunately this is public school vacation week for the state and Route 9 was actually doable!
was not prepared at work and had NOTHING and had to carry EVERYTHING and so I used a courier bag in addition to the rack trunk
no computer ever made its way to the MTB cuz I haven't used it much
I think it took 1 hr 15 min to cover the 13 miles this morning

Yes - on the shores of lake Geneva, living not too far from Vevey and working in Lausanne.

8+ inches of snow, around my place we see that twice a year. But then for the rest of Switzerland, we live on the Riviera.

An enjoyable 28F with an ever-so-slight dusting of snow on the ground in spots. Saw bmike riding northbound, and some other guy also riding north with huge headphones over his ears. I suppose they double as ear warmers.