My wife brought me a present yesterday... A new hitch for my son's trail-a-bike! Cut my 45 minute commute with my son down to 10 minutes! And the best part was when I dropped him off, his first comment to me was "Daddy, can you pick me up after work with your bike?" It made for an excellent workout hauling the empty trail-a-bike up Burnaby Mountain. Those things aren't light, but I got a kick out of passing another cyclist on the climb.

For those that need a new hitch for their trail-a-bike, original replacements are hard to find if you own an off brand. Trail-gator offers an "Extra Seat Post Kit" that is an excellent replacement for those. It cost my wife $40 Cdn which is a bit steep when it's available online for $19.99US. The block is 25.8mm wide which was 0.5mm wider than my trail-a-bike needed, but 5 minutes with a bolt and pair of nuts, and I had the trail-a-bike mounting tabs spread to accommodate it. My wife was also very upset with the horrible customer service she received from Cambie Cycles in Vancouver. They would not answer any of her questions. It was nice that they stocked the part I needed, but it sucks that the sales clerk could not take the time to answer my wife's questions. I do not recommend them at all.

Yesterday; Tuesday got very hot, we hit 99 according to the paper. I didn't notice it but that may because I rode in before noon and home after 8PM. All and all a great ride home. I was wondering why I felt so good and then began to think it was my attitude, I was happy. I think your frame of mind has a lot to do with how well you feel. Work usually has the opposite effect on me and the ride usually helps get my mind right after a difficult day at work. I have a sick cat today and had to got to the vet so no time to ride in. Tomorrow I may start to see the effects of Earl and might not be able to ride because I finish work at 2am and the forecast if for rain.

My commute home today was interesting. Not my fastest average speed, however I took a new route that at least seemed to have a lot more climbing. Still made it home in just over a half hour, at just about 14.7 miles per hour average.

I'm going to keep pushing myself to go faster. "Race myself to that sign up there..."

Because I'll be honest. I really want to be a 20mph (average speed) cyclist.

Worked the late shift today, so my commute didn't start until 1:30 and it was 92f out. Needless to say, I took it nice and slow to avoid getting too hot and sweaty. On the way home, the batteries in my front light kicked the bucket. Thankfully there are plenty of street lamps along my route so it didn't make a big impact.

Had a great ride home. Here there are few fast bike riders, so I have to content myself with chasing down electric bikes, not as much fun.

On the way home I came across a bike rider up in the distance. I was moving along at about 31 - 32 kph, and sped up a little. When I caught him, I noticed that he was sweating a little, and moving along at about 30 kph. I went past him at about 34 kph, and after a bit looked back to see him drafting me.

So I picked it up a bit to about 37 kph, and he stayed there, so I went to 40. I cant stay there for long, but he came alongside me, and we looked at each other, we both smiled and went for it. After a bit we came to a slight down hill to go under the 4th ring road, and moved into the low 40's. He was also on a fairly cheap Giant mtb, and had a smalll backpack, I had one fairly empty Ortlieb back roller.

Going up the hill from the underpass I thought I might lose him, but he had the same idea. We both blew through the next couple of reds, but got stopped just before 3rd ring road. We tried to talk but didnt have enough common language. When there was no traffic we started up again.

By now we were both fairly tired and could only manage about 36. We stayed about level as we weaved through the increasing traffic, but managed to work out that we were both going left on the second ring raod. I nearly lost him in the rich suburb of Tongzalin, but went a little slower on the road leading to 2nd ring road until he caught up.

The road we were on, that leads up to 2nd ring road has a beautiful surface, and is one way, though busses can go the other way. I cut across the traffic to salmon against the bus lane as I could see it was blocked about 200 m ahead. He stuck to me like glue. Then the light turned green as we were about 100 m south of the intersection. Now 2 1/2 lanes turn left, and 2 1/2 lanes go straight. As I was zooming along the waiting cars, they started to move. When I was level with cars going almost as fast as me I started to cut back right across the lanes. I had to do a little weaving, sudden braking and accelerating, and I managed to do the left at a fair clip.

I dived into the bike lane and started to look for my new bike buddy, but he wasnt there. I slowed right down, but he still didnt appear.

Maybe I didnt understand him, and he was going straight on.

Hope I see him again.

My ride home was 12.5 km in 23.47 minutes, at an average of 31.5 kmph.

Not bad for a 46 year old heavy smoker on a cheap Giant mountain bike.

z

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....

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.

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.