I took the most direct route to work today for the first time since I started working there. Primarily one or more of the roads have been closed for the last two years, so I figured I'd give it a shot. Unfortunately the first major street I have to ride on is still under construction narrowing the four lane road down to two, with lots of orange traffic barrels.

Apparently Highschool students don't know how to safely pass someone on a bike when there are orange barrels on the road, so I won't be taking that route again for a while. Other than that it was pretty uneventful. The weather was nice at (69F / 20.5C) with very little wind. It might rain later today so my ride home might be more interesting.

I did find out that this route, while nearly the same as my typical route has over 100' less climbing than the route I've been taking. 225' vs 336'. I skipped my breakfast before leaving this morning, and I could feel it. So I'm writing this to you while waiting for a hot bowl of Maple and Brown Sugar Oatmeal to cool down to below boiling :)

Good Morning BikeForum Commuters!

A good ride in the warm morning darkness. It does not look like hurricane Earl is going to do much here, but maybe tomorrow. I have a nice ride planned for the weekend, and I am looking forward to it.

Great ride. Have to go back home at 0930 today then go off site for something.

I had a silly commuter race this morning, too. Me on 30+ pound dualie MTB, and him on a road bike. I had to work for it, and it's hot & humid. Took me forever but I reeled him in. Then we were cruising around 20MPH for a couple of miles before splitting up. Got to work all drippy and gross.

Looks like the heat and humidity are about to break for the year. I hope.

My fastest morning commute of the year today, despite getting caught by some very long red lights. I had been riding my touring bike again this week after giving it most of the summer off, and was frustrated by how slow it felt. So today I rode my Merckx, which has been my main commuter this summer, and it is just so much faster. My morning commute on the Merckx was 5:30 faster than yesterday on my touring bike, with similar temps and weather conditions.

i generally won't ride in the rain, but i bagged yesterday because of rain, and i won't be able to ride tomorrow because i'm taking a train to a concert right from my office after work, so not wanting to go 3 whole days without a bike commute, i rolled the dice and rode in this morning despite what the weather radar was telling me. i got nabbed in a pretty good shower for about 4 miles of my 15 mile commute.

riding in the rain does kinda blow, but not riding for 3 days in a row blows even harder.

5C this morning. I spent the first 10 minutes of my commute wondering why I felt so cold before I realized I had forgotten to put my bandanna on under my helmet. Otherwise, a pleasant ride in.

Rode home at 0930, nice ride but a car came withing about a foot of my mirror. Seen him coming, squeezed over as close to the curb as I could safely without hitting it. Wonder if he even seen me. Oh well, lived to ride another day. Nice ride otherwise.

Good rides all around. Sounds like Earl will stay far enough away to not affect my commute tomorrow, so that's good. Commute won't be straight home this evening. I'm pedicabbing at a special event, which I'm looking forward to.

Traveling to visit my dad this weekend. He rides recreationally on some trails near his place, so I'm taking my bike with me and hope to get in a ride or two with him while I'm down there. He's retired, so he couldn't really have a commute, but I want to encourage him to ride more so that he might be able to do an overnight or long weeked tour with me next year. In any case, it'll be nice to ride with him. I haven't done that in years.

They just closed my school down and sent the students home due to heat. Stayed to grade a few papers, but now it's time to ride 17 miles back home! :)

When it's 88 in your classroom (and mine is in the shade on the 1st floor), a constant 20mph breeze on the way home (excepting traffic lights) is pretty nice!

Decided not to have a race mindset for this morning's 20 km commute and just go at a cadence on my singlespeed that felt comfortable to the body. Arrived at work in 52:10. Regular commuting days? 51:29. A whopping 41 seconds difference but a generally much more relaxed feeling to the ride.

47F and sunny going in, 60F and sunny going home after 4 hrs of no power, laptop battery died, and I finished redecorating my office to give better bike parking. Supposed to get close to 80F by 5.

A less than stellar ride today. Woke up to find that my wife took my contact lenses by mistake. Now I get to ride in the sun with my old scratched up glasses... As I'm prepping my son to get out the door, I can't find his helmet. My wife forgot to bring it home yesterday. Well, now I'm the dad who lets his son ride without a helmet while I wear one.... As we're about to pull away from a stoplight, some redneck comes running down the street yelling "Get out of my way you f****ts!" This just really pisses me off. It's one thing to insult me, but now this guy has insulted my 5yo! I'm really regretting those straps holding my frame pump tight on my bike... We get going again and we come up to a stop sign with a crosswalk next to it. No less than 7 cars stopped to let me use the crosswalk. All of you please surrender your licence, walk home and review the motor vehicle act before I will return them. Riding in the crosswalk is expressly prohibited by the motor vehicle and carries a $109 fine. After the fourth or fifth car, I was getting tired of pointing to my stop sign and trying to convince them to stop waiting for me...

My commute did get better when I dropped my son off and he started insisting on going further saying our ride was too short. :) I told him to bring his helmet home and we'll go for a ride tonight. I then headed off with the empty trail-a-bike and started the climb to work. At the top of the mountain, I got passed by a roadie and was reminded just how heavy that TAB is... I could easily hang on on the flats and short downhills, but anytime the road turned up, I kept losing ground. I pulled in to work thinking it was a less than stellar commute, but still better than any of the days I drove in by car.

The ride home was ok. I hoped to get rained on, but that didn't happen. I did get to ride up hill into the wind 3/4 of the way though.

Tomorrow I'm working from home, so no commute, unless I ride down to get some Gumbo.

Gonna be hot, hot, hot on the way home. But at least there's no wind.

Everything went great today, this was day 8 of me commuting... on the way home, my right trigger shifter decided it liked 3rd gear, and wasn't going to change when I told it to. Plus there are assorted creaks, clicks, and sounds coming from the crank-ish area, I will probably wind up repacking the pedals and bottom bracket this weekend. Probably will replace all cables as well. I'm also going to get my "loaner" bike in proper condition, in case I need to use it if my main bike breaks down. Overall going to be a busy weekend, and since I can, I'm probably going to drive tomorrow.

Good job everyone... if it weren't for the constant encouragement of you guys, I never would have tried bike commuting! I'm loving it so far. I can see building a serious commuter bike in the near future. I've got a Sturmey 8-speed drum hub not being used right now.... :D

Nice and easy ride in this morning. On the way home though, I almost lost it going around a corner. Thankfully I stayed rubber side down. When I got back to my apartment complex, a moving truck was pulling in as well and nearly squeezed me into the curb despite me pounding on the side with my fist and the driver's wife/ girlfriend/ whatever yelling at him. Oh well.

Back to my usual commute after a summer of fantastic recreational riding and folding bike commutes in NYC and some super long distance commuting every once in a while. They've improved my streets route by adding bike lanes almost the whole route in. I love the bike lane on the left side of Commonwealth as it goes under Mass Ave and on down to Arlington- brilliant placement.

Hey Buzzman,

Welcome back. Those new lanes pass right in front of our condo in Kenmore Square. I never did like going through that underpass beneath Mass Ave myself, feeling hemmed in between the sidewalls and the traffic, but it is more comfortable now having the bike lane. I also like that new lane on the westbound side of Comm Ave that merges into the left-hand turning lane at Brookline. It makes merging easier from the right side of the wide expanse of Comm Ave to the left, with the all incoming traffic from Beacon Street. :thumb:

The weather was extremely humid this morning - likely Earl-related.

Some nice guy in a BMW tried to kill me by pulling out of the Country club this morning. With two lights, a class 2 vest, two blinking fireflies, and tons of reflective tape, there’s no way he could have missed me. He definatly heard me, though.

I couldn't shake that feeling that the brake was on the whole way. I just had three days off, so I should have felt light and fresh, but, instead, I felt like I was riding through quicksand the whole 25 miles. Just one of those days, I guess. If the ride home is as tough, I'm making a stop at the VFW.

You guys talking about bike lanes makes me jealous. I get the nasty right lanes / shoulders / and PA drivers to deal with. The newer roads in PA (at least in the burbs of Philly) are being built with room for bike lanes, and all the new bridges are being built with room for them, but the funny thing is: Even when they add the room on new construction, the old, existing construction isn't being touched. It actually makes (IMHO) the ride MORE dangerous because the road expands and narrows without warning. One day, 30 years from now, I'll be able to ride in a smooth bike lane for miles. Till then I can wish. I truly applaud the efforts of all those city planners that are trying to make Eastern PA more bike friendly, I just wish it wouldn't take so darn long.

5C, sunny, and mostly calm. The rising sun is just brutal in spots of my commute now, but in another week or so, it should be better. Then it'll be dark for the ride in.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that I'm 5 for 5 again this week, second week in a row. I think that's unprecedented. Next week has a holiday, and I may take a day off riding next Friday to rest up for a potential 300 km ride on Saturday.

After work last night, I pedicabbed at a community event for a few hours. Our org's cabs had been rented out for the whole evening, so rides were free and that meant few breaks for me. Three-plus hours of pedalling with that kinda wore me out. On the plus side, my regular bike seems so, so light compared to a pedicab, even with rack trunk/panniers full today! :) I still backed off the pace a little from what I normally do to take it easy on my legs.

Earl stayed far enough east that apart from cloudiness and stronger winds than I would have otherwise expected, this morning's commute weather was fine. No rain at all.

Nice easy ride in along the Brunette River trail this morning. I'm really liking the flashlight I bolted on because that trail is getting real dark in the mornings. I left the TAB at home today and it felt so much lighter going up the hill! :)

Friday; yesterday I rode in spite of any concern about Earl; there was only a 30% chance of rain according to WeatherUnderground site at 2am, the time I was to leave last night. There wasn't any rain and it was mostly calm at that time. I missed my ride the day before because I had an appointment and wouldn't have had time so I was anxious to get it in thinking I wouldn't be riding today. I'm of course glad I did; I think my life has little happening in it so my ride to work and home is the best part of my day. On a bad day at work it helps me relax before I get home so I don't take it out on the wife.

45F, sunny

110F, sunny

Did my longest commute ever today - 20 documented miles round trip (Actually more like 23 or 24 -- I accidentally stopped my GPS watch, and started riding before it had 'hooked up') which capped off my highest mileage week, at over 61 documented miles.

Today's weather wasn't bad -- cloudy in the morning, but no rain, and a high of . Very humid, though, so I was dripping with sweat when I finished my ride(s) Took my usual route, but instead of passing up 2 metro stations, I passed up 3. An extra two miles on the bike, but only an additional 7-8 minutes, as it was all on the MUP and it saved me from crossing one major street (flyover bridge!) but it added one other major street crossing. Most significant, though, is that it avoids the most debris strewn portion of my usual ride. I believe this will be my new standard 'long' day.

I had two different brain dead cagers ignore me when I had absolutely clear right-of-way (the worst one decided to turn left in front of me as I was turning left from the dominant road onto the minor street that he was coming out of). I had signaled very clearly, was riding in the middle of my lane, and should have been highly visible. I was almost in front of him but not in any way able to be clear of him as he started moving. The other one ran a stop sign, which affect me and one other cager. We shared a 'shake your head' moment on that one. OTOH, lots of great people let me go through intersections despite their having priority, and stopped at the minor street crossings. So overall, it was a pretty good day for bike/car relations in my personal world.

However, the longer ride really demonstrated that I needed to get my rear wheel trued, as it had a pretty wicked wobble to it because of my ham-fisted efforts without a truing stand. It felt like I was wasting effort sideways, instead of putting all my work into forward progress. I decided I could no longer justify holding off on getting my bike serviced, so I traipsed to the LBS with the Kona to get the wheels taken care of, and decided that a full tune up was in order (as it only added another $40 -- more than I wanted to spend -- $0 -- but within my tolerance level), as I have no idea when (or if) it was serviced last.

While I was at it, I decided it was as good a time as any to take the Tomasso in and have them look at it and assess whether it is worth rebuilding, and what the options might be. One of the owners (but not the chief mechanic) was there, and he seemed as taken with the bike as I am... they're going to try to work up some options for me. I need to look at the budget and see what I can justify spending on a 'weekend' bike. Hey, it's cheaper than the Porsche I wish I had, right? And if it is 'running' right, I can even probably use it for some commuting, if I play gently.

The best news of the day is that they think they can turn the Kona around by Tuesday -- Wednesday at the latest! I was expecting a week, and dreading having to ride my 'back-up' beater. It is my intention to ride the full 35 mile round trip within the next two weeks (at the end of which, I change jobs), so I thought the full service was a good idea.

100F on the way in, 73F on the way home. My wife brought McDonalds home for lunch before I went to work which promptly gave me the McSh!*s.

Today marked my first full week of commuting since I recommitted myself (to riding). I added up all my commuting miles and I'm embarrassed to say I only put in 17.8 miles in five days. Some of you guys have longer commutes than that daily!

got hot here again, i got used to the last week with highs in the low 80s, 97f yesterday. Cool morning nice uneventful ride in.

Judging by the posts, or rather lack of, I'm guessing I'm in the minority of people here who work on the weekend :lol:

Another hot ride in this afternoon. It was around 100F with a hot breeze. The main road I take was repaved sometime this morning and hadn't quite set so I got globs of asphalt stuck to my tires. The ride home was in the low 70's and was very pleasant.