I use a rubber band cut from an inner tube for this.



My commuter was 'off'. I've started leaving later and catching a different train. This one is MUCH more difficult to load, hold and unload my bike on.

Then I got to work, cable locked my bike to the railing next to the wheelchair ramp as usual, walked to the front door and realized I'd left my keys at home. How nice it would have been to remember that before I locked the bike up.

Looking for bolt cutters...

First cycle commute in over a week. I only worked two days last week, and didn't cycle either day. (What?! I had my reasons!) Finally swapped the studded tires for semi-slicks last night, and I sure felt faster this morning.

At a stop light, a car pulls up beside me, the window rolls down, and the driver yells, "Hey! Don't you have any brake lights?" Seemed like an odd thing to ask a guy on a bicycle. Turns out he was talking to a motorcyclist on the other side of me.

Nice soft morning, like they might say in Ireland. Sun shining and like an inch of mist fell on me while I was riding in.

Again I missed the cager rush hour, but this time I hit the retiree rush hour which is much more chaotic.

Popped a flat halfway to work this morning, so I walked 1.5 miles in the morning and two in the afternoon, then rode another two or so... it was sunny and HOT for APril! Time to break out the shorts and tanks.

Cold starts (38 degrees last couple mornings) but as soon as sun comes up (whatever that may mean - should clarify by when clouds turn from black to dark grey to whitish) it's back in the 40s. Thinking of switching to my lighter leg warmers and ditching the medium weight gloves for good. Wind was at my back this morning so made it to work 15 minutes faster than normal - hitting all the lights perfectly helped too.

And this was AFTER almost getting sideswiped in my neighborhood. Good thing I pay attention. Two lanes southbound, metro bus stopped in left lane, a car ahead of me in right lane as I approach taking the full right lane. When I'm about 1.5 car lengths behind bus, a car revs up and moves into left lane next to me and pauses behind bus for a split second. I think, "No way, they aren't..." Yep! Driver then abruptly floors it to the right as I'm at her rear wheel and I fortunately move in the nick of time, not slowing down, but paralleling her as the light is still red and she's behind other car. I'm about 4" away from her once this is all over right at her passenger window - yelling, "Did you REALLY not SEE ME" as my helmet light blinks in her face and she flinches. I pulled ahead of her and she chilled out looking like she was just confounded. No real learning took place there unfortunately.

When is the nice weather getting here? Cold in the morning with gusty head winds for the ride home. I am still afraid to swap out the studded tires.

ooh, nice bike ride along the bike path this morning and nice ride home. Great weather! Sweet.

Great ride this morning. Temps near 70. Awesome! This evening was 90 with a head wind all the way home. Felt like summer. Great day for a ride!

Cough, cough. The pollen was so thick during my ride to work this morning that it looked like snow in my headlight beam. Made good time riding to work, despite a mild head wind. However, it was very hot on the trip home (92 F) and I was much slower. I'm not ready for 90-degree heat. We never had spring.

Wonderful warm weather at 17 C (64 F). This has been a wonderful week. The guard at the front door commented this morning that every day I seem to have less and less clothing on, and she is right.

The commute was smooth this morning, but unfortunately nothing else really was. 48F and sunny with winds from the S @ 6mph. I always check my bike the night before to make sure everything is good, except last night. I came down this morning to a flat front tire. I replaced the bad tube with a new one and headed out to school. I almost didn't take the bike because of that, but decided to fix it. When i got to school, i was chaining my bike to the rack and heard a hissing sound. There was a piece of metal sticking out of the side wall of the rear tire. Before i head home i'll have to replace another tube. It's a good thing i have/had 2 spare tubes. I've gone about 1.5 months with commuting to school thru the streets of Springfield and about 3 months doing short trip around my town without a flat, then this occurs. The good thing is at least none of the flats happened during the commute out in traffic.

45F, grey.

2 other bikers in the cube farm today!

Temps hovering around the freezing point. Nice, uneventful ride. There were a couple of stretches where I was riding directly into the rising sun and could barely see beyond a few meters ahead. Made me a bit nervous to think about the equally blinded motorists travelling the same roads!

58F
Ripping Santa Ana headwinds all the way in.
Sneezing from all the Spring pollen.

About 60 this morning. For some reason I felt (and was) slower than I was yesterday. Okay, I felt like poop this morning, so the commute was reeeeely slow.

My commute was quite nice-- I picked up my bike last night from the shop- I got an over-due overhaul. It was like riding a brand new bike. Plus I stopped for a Belgian Waffle at the waffle van on the way down Market St.

A lovely Spring day. The commute was perfect. At 5.30am it was just right at about 10degC (don't do F just C I'm afraid) with a high of about 15degC on the way back. Wind was not annoying me today. The bike is running well after the refit and is infinitely more comfortable than it was. So looking forward to getting some big miles in. Todays highlight was spotting some roe deer on the way in just as the sunrise was taking hold. Yep...wish they were all like that.

Just back from a week's vacation in Ireland, so the 90 degree weather we encountered yesterday upon returning home was a bit of a shock to the system. And it's around today for my first commute back. Fun, fun, fun! The morning 70 degree commute was enough to convince me that a quick wipe down in the bathroom or a few swipes of dedorant weren't going to cut it anymore either. Took a full on shower when I got to the office today.

That said, and as much as I am grumbling about the heat, there was a nice tailwind this AM. That, plus my nicely rested legs (no cycling, just lots of walking and driving in Ireland) made it possible for me to make the 7 mile trek to work in just over 25 minutes. Just about the fastest I've ever done it.

Now it's time to go face the heat. I like biking around DC, but all those cyclists in Dublin seem to have the right idea - living somewhere where the temps aren't quite so high! ;)

Today is not my day for commuting :(. It got up to 93F with sunny skies and winds from the WSW @ 13mph. I was at 3.5 miles into the commute home and had to end it early cuz i got another flat front tire. This morning it was flat, so i switch to a brand new tube. Before i left campus, i had to change the rear tube. When i was chaining it up to the bike rack earlier, i heard a hissing and found a metal piece sticking out of the side wall. I was having a great ride home and was staying steady at 23-24mph for a least a good mile, probably due to the wind helping. I usually do about 18-19mph in that area. While waiting to turn left at a light, i was planning to pull into a parking lot to check my bike because i heard a noise that sounded like something was vibrating around. When i left the light, before i pulled in the parking lot, i noticed my front tire was low. The noise ended up being a loose fender vibrating around. I pumped up the tire and waited to see if it would go down after a few minutes. I called my mom and gave her a heads up that i may need a ride, and sure enough, the tire went flat. I had to wait for about 30min for my mom to show up and got a ride the rest of the way home. Now i have to figure why my front tire went flat twice today. Sorry for such a long write up. Here's a pic of the metal piece and a pic of my bike while waiting for my ride.

I want to hold off leaving for a half hour, maybe the rain will slacken, but the babysitter is on the clock (spring break) and I don't value being dry *that* much...

Very Warm today! mid-80's!

Nice to ride with fewer clothes. Made good speed in and home. Rode bike path and it was mobbed with pedestrians, runners and slow cyclists but I still enjoyed it. I hammered through the empty stretches and occasionally slowed to a crawl. It was like doing wind sprints.

Nice warm ride in at 21 C ( 70 F). Last summer there were only a handful of 20 something C ( 70 F ) mornings. It all changes tonight as something comes in and cools it all down, hopefully not too much. Yesterday, I found a flat tire on the way out. I pumped it up and got about a mile before I had to
change the tube. It had two patches already, and no apparent reason for the flat, so I put a new tube in, and hopefully, it holds up for awhile. With all the glass, nails, screws and debris on the side of the road, I am happy it does not happen more often. The last time it happened, I was surrouned by 5 ft hight snowwalls, with no other place to change it than right a patch of sidewalk. Yesterday, was warm and sunny.

My recommendation is to lock your cable to the bike when you travel so you have to have your keys with you to lock it up. That's what I do anyway and it works for me.

Overcast, mid 40SF, with a helpful tailwind. Saw two cyclists going the other way, lots of night crawlers (worms) on the road, a suicidal squirrel, and the pair of ducks are back at our office. They come back every year and set up camp. People bring them food and water.

Nice, fast ride in this morning. I was struggling at first but then sat in the pocket of a speedster on a fixie after he passed me, he was flying. I caught up and let him pull me along, all the way from the airport to the DC side of the 14th street bridge. He then turned toward Hain's Point and I continued in to work. It was a lot of fun, we must have been averaging low's 20's although, I'm only going by feel since my computer has been off the bike for about a month.

Also, I did my good deed for the week yesterday. I came up behind a guy on a nice Masi road bike. I was looking at the bike as I waited to pass, and noticed that both of his wheel quick releases were in the open position. I mentioned this to him as I passed but, he didn't seem to understand. We both stopped and I showed him how to properly tighten his skewers and secure his quick releases. He had simply hand tightened them as much as he could. I explained how to adjust them and that a properly adjusted and closed skewer will apply much more clamping force than he could possibly do by hand tightening. I felt pretty good that he could safely finish his ride without the possibility of (both) wheels falling off (patting myself on the back right now).

Wow -- sorry to hear about your rotten luck. When it rains, it pours.
Speaking of which, I'm looking back on all the Noahic flooding we got over the past month and marveling at how fast the rain ate up my four-week-old brake pads. The fronts are worn down so much that all that remains of "Kool Stop" are the tops of the K and S. It's clear I need a new set. To those of you who live in monsoon climates: is it normal to replace your pads once a month?

Had a flat on the ride home yesterday. 42 degrees riding in this AM. Chilly.

Computers dead, don't seem to miss it.

The cycle is broken. Like pathdoc said, a little chilly this morning (43 when I left the house), and the morning tailwind was a calmer headwind. But.... the payoff comes this afternoon. Instead of riding into 20-30 mph headwinds, I'll have a 10 mph tailwind, with temps in the mid to upper 60s. I can't wait for quitting time! :D Also, on the way home this afternoon I'll pass 1000 miles for the year.

Rode to wal-mart, had to lock up in the garden center though. Bought a few things, get home and realize I need to return something but it is about to start storming so it looks like this trip will be in the car. Better foresight next time I suppose.

The ride though was very nice. Light traffic and it was breezy and cool because of said storm coming.

30mph rear winds. Nice, but weird. Almost ran into something because I didn't realize how fast I was going and had to slow down to make the slight turn. At home I realize I made the best time ever, and didn't even try.