The ones where I am work if you tilt your (non-carbon) bike down so it's almost horizontal. So you unclip and stop and then, standing on the leg you unclipped, lean the bike over. It's no hassle once you're used to it.

Today I was running late so I pushed it in order to not be too late for work, did the same on the way home. I was so happy to get out of there, I couldn't wait to open a cold one when I arrived. This Sunday I'm supposed to go for a ride with a friend who just bought a carbon fiber bike, should be fun. I have been thinking of buying a road bike myself but I'm not sure I care how heavy it is. My LHT is steel and it is very comfortable to ride, the only thing I'd change is the gearing. I'm seriously considering a road bike built around a steel frame. Seems to me I could keep it very light by spending my money on good components and thus keep it relatively light. I'm in the research phase right now, learning all about what makes a good road bike.

I hear you about steel, I like how it rides too, but I think the cheapest way to save weight on a bike is in the frame. An aluminium or carbon frame will drop 2-6 lbs off steel; a good gruppo will drop 300 grams off a mid-range one. A steel roadbike will never be as light as your friend's carbon job (though it will be cooler and may be more comfortable).

If you don't care how heavy your LHT is, then stick with the LHT.

Steel is your friend. Ditch the Carbon Fibre/Aluminum. Or bug the city to fix the sensor. It's just a few loops of wire buried in the road, look for the black diamond shaped patch on the road. Usually a loop or two gets shorted out and they become less sensitive. It's a problem for motorcycles too. Or just run the light when no one's around.

Picked up my son and towed him along on the TAB. Nice and sunny break in between rain storms. Rode the BC Parkway home and had a pretty nice commute. Running errands was a different story. I had to go around a pickup truck belonging to a flagperson who'd parked it completely blocking the bike lane. The only choice they left me was to go into oncoming traffic. She didn't even step out to flag them down so I could get around her big a$$ truck. I gave her an earful as I went by and I'll be writing the city later on.

Thanks a lot everyone. I'll be contacting the city to let them know.


That's pretty interesting. I might have to give it a try.


I was going to, but unfortunately I was turning left onto a 4 lane road (2 lanes each direction) and it was very busy.

Rode this entire week with amazing weather. Mid 70s in the morning, low 80s in the evenings. I guess I'll be wishing for rain before too long because we're not supposed to be getting any for a long time.

I have one of those on my route. I got in touch via email with the city transportation people, who put me in contact with the county people. The city people proposed a sensor on the right that would be so many feet high, that would detect cyclists. That was a year ago, and my request is still pending.
Cars can trip the light, but it is at a college entrance/exit, where in the summer time few cars come that way, so I run the redlight before the oncoming traffic can turn left. It was never explained to me why I am unable to trip the light, as I trip every other light better than most cars. I love coming to a red light when cars are sitting there, and the light trips for me.

Nice ride in today, and it was somewhere in the high 50s F (mid to lower teens C). I am not ready for the -4 C (25 F). I should be ok for another month or so, before I have to start dealing with those temps. I love the hot weather, even though the air quality is usually bad. Dressing up with all that clothing in winter turns me into a zombie rider going from point A to point B and back again.

A bit brisk this morning. Thermometer at the house said 52F, so I went with short sleeves. Then I saw 42 on the bike's thermometer for a little while, and it was in the upper 40s the rest of the time. My forearms were feeling the chill.

I was in a 3-commuter group for about a half mile. I was last. The guy in front of me bailed out, so I just rode with the first guy all the way in. ~16MPH or so. Saw some other riders going the other way, too. I thought the cooler weather had chased them all away last week, but maybe not.

Good commute in this morning at 57F and sunny with winds from the ENE @ 5mph. I took the route in reverse that I took Friday afternoon to see how it would be with AM traffic. I think this is the route that I'm gonna stick with from now on.

58F and sprinkly

Great ride in (aren't they all?). Temps in high 50s/low 60s. Forcast said a chance for showers today. There are several large dark clouds, but way more pretty blue sky. I risked it and left the rain gear at home. I made it in dry, so I should be good to go now. I don't care if I get wet on the way home ;)

Have a great week of bicycle commuting everyone!

Finally was able to ride after a couple weeks off. It was a nice morning in the low 60's, I think I hurt a roadie's feelings when I passed him on my commuter. He was in the full roadie getup when I passed going about 19.5 mph, he quickly caught up and had to tell me how he was out for a recovery ride after a long weekend ride. I think it hurts to be passed by a guy with a computer backpack strapped to a rear rack and not in spandex.

Foggy and warm, like riding in a steamy bathroom. My folks left on a trip to Chicago this morning so I rode out to the airport to get their car from the daily lot. Saves them some dough and it gives me an excuse to get in a longish ride out of town. All the hay has been cut, baled, and stacked and on every stack there's a hawk (redtail? Swainson's?) sitting there looking for mice. I love hawks.

The ride in this morning was nice, but there was a very dark overcast sky the whole way. I got about a mile down the road, and realized I had forgotten both my water bottles at home. Oh well.... still enjoyed myself.

Nice commute home at 71F and sunny with winds from the N @ 14mph. I forgot to mention this morning that there were 9 bicycles on the bike rack at school including mine. :) I tend to think that I have the longest commute at 19 miles one-way out all the other riders there, which is fine. I could be wrong though.

Strongest headwind in a while this AM... 18 mph gusting to 24. It's died down quite a bit, but I should still have a semblence of a tailwind for the ride home.

Got in a ride or two over the weekend, which is a rarity, so that was nice. One of the rides was post-pedicabbing (i.e., 1 AM)... went for a spin along the river in the darkness (with my lights a-blazin'). Love riding at night... part of me looks forward to when the ride home from work will be in darkness.

Another great day to ride! I expected to have sore legs today after riding something under 40 miles with a friend yesterday who's riding a new carbon fiber bike. I had to push it a bit to not slow him down and I found it hard to stay on his wheel, seems that one gear was too high and the other too low to keep up a decent cadence. A road bike is not the same as an LHT as regards the gearing apparently. I felt really good when I was in front and set a good pace until I was almost spent. Anyway I slept very well last night and surprisingly felt great on my commute this morning. My ride home from work was also very nice although it was 10 degrees cooler. Love this weather.

Good run today. Ran the commuter 25 km on the Grand River Trail again from Glen Morris to Brantford, Ontario and back. Virtually no one on the trail and was able to run my new IPod the whole way. And... I didn't have to pay to park leaving the car at the trail head. I hate paying to park with an unholy passion (almost as much as I hate bylaw officers). Besides, I don't want to leave my vehicle in the car theft capital of Ontario.

I would like to add one more thing I left out of my previous post; I have been using a MagicShine light for a while now and on my way home Friday night one of the lens covers and the internal focus lens feel out on my way home. I wrote GeoMan and asked him if the parts were available and he responded right away, he will mail them to me at no charge. Now that's what I call service after the sale!

Skipped my last class today and rode out to Kincaid Park to hook up with the lady and ride the long way home, through the only sunny part of town. I tried taking pictures while riding, but most of them ended up way blurrier than this:
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4131/...c7ab977f_z.jpg
Riding no handed while operating a camera phone was definitely the dumbest thing I did today. As we rounded a corner, and I almost rear-ended the Lady G'Cakes when she stopped for this guy:
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4148/...8098cdf3_z.jpg
I don't like passing moose when they're facing me, as I've met a couple who seemed to interpret this as charging, and responded in kind. So we waited for a bit:
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4125/...e2d23509_z.jpg
To no avail. So we pushed the bikes through the woods, over to an adjacent powerline, and then back onto the path past the bull. From the other side, we saw someone else in the same predicament:
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4092/...1ceca75d_z.jpg
I know, that pic sucked. What can I say? It's an iPhone. Anyway, that crappy pic should prepare you for this one, of yet more moose (cow and calf, although the calf is lost in the shadow and blur):
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4089/...53bf9fca_z.jpg
The Lady G'Cakes doesn't think too highly of the iPhone's photographic capabilities:
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4087/...d375e964_z.jpg

And another lil' ungulate, at Earthquake Park:
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4085/...5c47bc63_z.jpg
Awwww! Look at the bab....Hey! No, not onto the path! Bad calf:
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4105/...2d875af5_z.jpg
Another detour around another moose. :rolleyes: Welcome to fall on the Coastal Trail. We counted 11 of the hairy buggers on the way home tonight. Here I am about to almost rear-end the Lady, again. And while the sound of my tires skidding alerted one of the runners, the one with headphones on required a ringing of the bell:
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4087/...64ef7c1c_z.jpg
My lady, my city:
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4091/...9ce5daae_z.jpg
Man, my poor lil' car just can't compete with the bike. When have you ever driven 20 miles out of your way, for no reason, and still called it a good commute?
The End (I am so getting smacked if she sees this):
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4113/...49aba9a1_z.jpg

First day back from vacation and wow!! 44 degrees when I got on the bike this am! I warmed up pretty quickly, but the tips of my fingers were looking for something other than the fingerless gloves I was wearing.

It was the coldest ride since April at 46 F ( 7 C). I put on the long sleeves, but could not bear to part with my shorts. There were parts of the ride where I wished that I had a hood on.

42F! I went with long sleeves this time, and a headband for my ear parts. Still wearing shorts on the legs though. :P

Several wild turkeys were wandering around next to my road. I coasted past them and they were wary but didn't scatter. I'd rather see a moose though! Pretty cool.

I reeled in one cyclist like a dead fish. When he realized I was behind him, he sped up to a more reasonable speed. I stayed behind him. 16-18MPH for about 5 miles before we split up. We passed a couple of people, including the guy I rode behind yesterday. I saw bmike going the other way.

I got rained on so hard heading home last night that when I headed back out later, after it turned sunny, I switched to dry socks, and they soaked through from just the wet shoes.

Very nice!

Nice weather, unseasonably warm, with a bit of a headwind. Traffic very heavy with long backups at lights. I expected to get dropped by a pair of biker babes who have passed me every tuesday the last few weeks. But no sign of them.

One of my pet peeves is the courteous driver who thinks he/she is doing me a favor by stopping in the middle of the road to let me cross. I'll have a great plan to time it to get through a break in traffic, when the driver slows down and stops. forcing me to stop and then everyone waits while it gets sorted out.

Gotta get my lights finished, not to many daylight commutes left.

Awesome moose encounters!

Today was my first commute since I had an accident 10 days ago (I still have temporary hearing loss in one ear as a result of the concussion) - a speedy and uneventful 22 miles this morning - hoping the afternoon commute will be equally dull...

Crisp, gray morning at 1C/34F. Nice ride in. Lot of other cyclists out, but the rack where I keep my bike is pretty empty these days, save for a bike which seems to have been abandoned.

Nice pics, GCakes. I like the effect of the first one - blurry around the outside, but still clear in the middle.