Nice ride in this morning, Spring is definitely on its way. I wore 2 shirts and my winter riding pants and felt perfectly comfortable. I've started to notice a big jump in the number of cyclists the last week or so, mostly roadies getting in training miles. I was passed by two this morning, neither of whom announced their pass-which is a big pet peave of mine. I tucked in behind them for a while and made a move, passing both of them on the clover leaf up to the 14th Street Bridge. The one immediately in front of me was in the middle of changing gears and slowed considerably, he did a double take as I made an inside pass. I then passed the other and pulled away until they reeled me in, halfway across the bridge. I love that they seemed to take it so personally; that a commuter, with fenders, lights, backpack, etc, had the audacity to pass them. I was all set to do it again but, they turned to (presumably) do laps on Hain's Point, I had to continue to Constitution. I thought about barking at them to announce their pass (s) but re-considered, it might have ruined my good time. Just finished lunch and will head down to our atrium shortly. The Bike Summit is taking place this week and a co-worker said their giving away some freebies. Looks to be a really nice ride home.

In an emergency, 2 or 3 zipties between the big sprocket and some spokes will turn a broken freehub into a fixie.

It was an interesting commute back home. The weather was beautiful at 58F and sunny with almost no wind. During the beginning part of the commute some dumb car right hooked me. If i wasn't hard on the brakes i would have definitely hit it. They basically turned right when i was pretty much right next to them. I should have yelled but it all seemed to happen so fast that i didn't think about it. Later on i was at a stop light and a guy in a jeep next to me rolled down his window. He asked me where i was heading and he made it seem he rides his bicycle as well. It was actually a pretty good conversation. When the light turned green we went our own separate ways. If i was in a bad mood from almost hitting that car than talking with that guy put me back in a good mood.

Great weather. Great ride in today. I picked up the last of my rain gear, which was delivered to REI today, thus guaranteeing more days of bright sunshine!

It was a nice ride in, and the temps even though it calls for rain, is warm at 2 C ( 34 F). Played with Googles new bicycling option on their maps and it is neat. It ties trails into the equation for directions, and it is a very nice feature.

Another beautiful morning. Low 20sF, sunny. The lake was glassy (no wind at all.) I felt slow. Up too late last night.

Yesterday I was loping along into a headwind at a slow 13-15MPH and I swore I saw something reeling me in, so I spooled up to 20 for about a mile and didn't notice it any more.

56F, wind 15 mph, heavy rain and ligtning. But I was dressed for it and for the most part I was comfortable, but somehow my right sock got soaked at about 7 miles.

Tough ride in this morning, sluggish and sore. Last night my left quad cramped terribly at about 2 am, not sure why. I must have been dehydrated so, I slugged a glass of water to try to catch up. It cramped so severly that I couldn't move the rest of the night for fear of aggrevating it, I could barely get around to go to the bathroom, kitchen, etc-it actually hurts right now. I'm going to continue to catch up on water and get back on the magnesium supplements (I stopped taking them during the snow storms, I didn't ride for about 2 1/2 weeks), see if this is the cause or, if it was an anomoly. Maybe the bacon sandwhich that I stuffed down my gullet at 9 o'clock had something to do with it. Looks like they're backing off of the predicted rain for today, tomorrow and Saturday look to be soakers though. Great.

2nd commute of the year. Cold, drizzly, and foggy again. I made it in a little faster than Monday, but am still slow. My knees also have to readjust to my fixed gear again. However, the ride made me alert and energized and made up for the fact I only got 3 hours of sleep last night.

15-20 mph headwind the whole way to work this morning... argh. slow & painful

48, clear - windy. Heck of a headwind, otherwise a clear day.

I'll tell you what ruined my commute though: It's the jerk in the old navy blue Ford Mustang of the restored muscle car variety that damn near took my left leg off.

Seriously, do you really need to squeal your tires when you're already going 15 above the 45mph speed limit? Srsly? How do you even do that?

Sincerely,

-Guy-on-the-bike-who-is-sick-of-smalldick-compensators-who-try-to-run-cyclists-off-the-road-just-because-they're-in-the-lane-when-there-isn't-a-bike-lane

42F windy rainy nasty

I forgot I was to pick up my daughter so didn't ride the geared bike. I'm going to pick up the car from where my wife left it and bring daughter and bike home, wife will catch a bus.

45F today on the maiden voyage of the Big Dummy. I hauled a carpet cleaner back to the BX and my Dummy handled it like a champ. On the way back the wind was terrible. I was missing my under the helmet fleece hat a lot.

Cloudy and misty with wet roads this morning, but very warm, about 60 F. The weather this morning is why I have fenders on my bike and rain gear. I don't like to ride in actual rain, but wet roads are fine with fenders. We are supposed to get more rain late this afternoon or tonight, so hopefully it will hold off until after my ride home.

Overcast but dry. 36F. No wind. A (leashed) dog on the MUP thought I was just about the coolest and most amazingly interesting thing he'd ever seen in the whole world. Ever.

TGIF!

Tuesday was warm and I wore shorts. This morning was about ten degrees cooler and there was a bit of a headwinds so... I got a little too conservative and overdressed a bit. I did bring shorts for the ride home which will feature temps in the 60s and a strong tailwind. It doesn't get any better than that!

The 35 X 700 studded tires were replaced by my regular 700 X 28 road tires and after three months of pushing those tractor tires it felt like I had a 20 mph tail wind. I found myself in the big chainring most of the time even on hills. Plus four degrees celsius and overcast. The roads are very dirty, we need a good hard rain.

I don't mean to laugh at your suffering, Cellery, but I had to laugh when I read that, because I know exactly what you mean -- I think the same guy teleports (or maybe not: maybe that's why he feels the need to drive so fast?) from town to town, harassing cyclists to get his jollies. Glad you came through it okay! (My worry with those guys is that one of these days, they're going to misjudge a distance and actually hit someone.)

I comfort myself with the thought that, Come the Apocolypse (or the Great Oil Crisis, or Your Civilization-Derailing Disaster of Choice), he'll be bewailing his fate, unprepared for the grueling 2.5-mile hike to the nearest grocery store, while we're still merrily pedaling around as if nothing has changed. Of course, I'm far from sure that anything of the sort will actually happen in my lifetime -- but it's still fun to think about

My commute today:

After a solid four days of lovely morning commutes, this morning was, well, interesting. Warm enough that I was pretty comfortable in shorts and a long-sleeved rugby shirt, but my hands were deeply unhappy -- unpleasantly sweaty with my winter gloves on, frozen stiff without

Time to break out the cycling gloves!

Second cycle commute of 2010. The DJ on the radio said it was -4C/25F but it felt colder than that. I really felt my winterized legs and lungs today too. Less icy than a week ago, but still enough to warrant leaving the studs on a little while longer!

42F and wet. Missed the downpour by an hour though so all's well that ends well. My son was complaining about all the drip from the trees on the way to school, though.

got hit by a car while crossing a crosswalk. this was last night, when it was raining and turning dark. the car, moving in my direction, took a right in front of me. i veered right, hoping i would just take a hard bump against the driver-side of her car, but no, her driver window was open (in the rain) and part of my body actually went into her car and my left shoulder bore all the impact on the pillar of her door. she asked if i was okay, and i went on my merry way.

pandabear - Nice to hear that you lived through this one and were able to go on your merry way.

Gotta lecture a little on the perils of riding in crosswalks as crosswalks are for peds, not bikes.

Decent ride in to work. Cloudy and foggy, but no rain to speak of, though the roads were already wet from overnight rains. I had to stop by a bank on the way in which led me on a bit of a detour from the usual route. Good to have a change of scenery now and then.

I do love the convenience of the bike. The same stop would not have been possible were I taking metro. On the bike, though, it was maybe all of 5-10 extra minutes of cycling plus the 5 minutes it took to do my banking. Aaaaah... freedom.

Rode over to my wife's office to meet her for lunch - there was a gentle mist/drizzle on the way over, which turned into a full blown rain on the way back. Gotta say - I love my Cascadia fenders! Hope it keeps raining for the evening. I kinda like riding in the rain every once in a while. It's got its own charms, especially if you don't mind getting a little wet, and it helps to remind me how nice the sunny days are by comparison sometimes.

The rain also keeps the number of joggers and walkers down on the MUP. As the weather's been getting nicer, they've been out in ever increasing numbers. It'll be good to have "my" path back again today... kinda like it was on all those cold winter days!

Rain forecast for all weekend, so I may not get out for any recreational riding this weekend, but that's OK. I went over the 500 mile mark in commuting miles for the year today anyway!

Beat the rain this morning. Doubt that will be the case on the way home.

Maybe a couple times a year, very rarely, do I wake up and start getting ready to leave the house only to be overcome by inertia. Today was one of those days my gut said, "you should not ride today." I followed it, rode the bus, took a walk to the coffee shop for a cup of coffee and a scone and went to work. No bicycle. It feels strange but I guess my body/mind demanded it.