There's this weird stench corridor in the 60's on Lex that had me gagging on the way in. Combine equal parts of putrid, sour rot and diesel exhaust and you get the smell. On the bright side, wool pants + Brooks saddle = silky smoothness. But if the heat and humidity continue to rise, I may ride home in my underwear.

Rugged. 55 miles home on Tuesday evening with ~3,000' of climbing from CT to western Mass. Then the same again back to work on Wednesday morning. Needless to say, it's not a commute I can do often!

So I'm not the only one with a double commute today. Forgot my work badge, so also my gym locker key and bike lock key. Mine's only 6 miles rt though, so not as good of a workout.

On the way home I saw the doe that I occasionally see in the same place on the MUP and just a little further, a very ragged looking fox.

MM

We broke another heat record for the second day in a row, the humidex was 39C...I managed to ride home and to LBS to have something checked out on my hybrid. The air quality sucks.

Holy $#|+. Rain! Buckets of it. Possibly the most rain I've ever had on a morning commute. Saturated my helmet pads. Stinging brine ran down into my eyes. I stopped under a bridge (on the MUP) and tried to squeeze the pads. I think that only made it worse.

Saw a grand total of 3 people (all runners) on the MUP, for a trail population density of 0.6 persons per mile. :p

Here's what my iPhone told me before I left the house. I live near the point far to the left of the crosshairs.

Southeast Michigan, 60F, dry, no wind. Nearly perfect. Ride home predicted to be 77 with moderate humidity.

Today was the 10th time I've ridden in to work and the first time I've done it twice in one week. It's probably not entirely correct to call it a commute. Basically I get up early to do an hour+ workout before going to work, if you get my drift.... Still,

The plucky Platypus pluperfect for July, two double nought nine.
Average departure temperature, 56.7, (13.7 C).
Average return temperature, 72.4, (22.4 C).
Twelve days of rain.
Total distance, 309 miles over 25 days, (498 kilometers).
Expenses; three tubes, two tires and one brand new Carbon Fiber bike.
Duckbill tip for the month; stuffing your wet shoes with newspaper during the work day will give you dryer feet for the return trip home.

See now there's some helpful stuff right there! :thumb:

Yesterday's ride home was hot and dry, and I felt strong on the bike. The ol' legs are coming back into form, even if slowly, on this 43-year old body. I sprinted to make a few lights. It felt good, still crossed on yellow. I climbed a bit higher on the "wave" of a hill (starts at 4% grade, then gradually steepens to about 18%), and turned off at the transition from 12% to 18%. I normally turn off a bit earlier and zig zag the few blocks diagonally to meet up with the road that takes me south.
Today, I'll climb the whole thing. I can afford the lactic acid burn with tomorrow being a rest day. Oh yeah - it "flattens" to 6% at the top of the hill, followed by another stair step of 15-18%. Double burn.

downright chilly this morning. Long sleeves would have been good up on the bench, but, as usual, it was nice and warm on the sunny, urbanized valley floor.
The sun is most definitely shifting to a later rise time. I now need to be very wary on the second half of my ride, as the sun is rising over the mountains behind me, so those in the oncoming and intersecting lanes probably cannot see me very well (even with my blinkie).

Fantastic. I made my first commute via bike today. It was 3 miles in with a few hills but nothing major. I rode in on my singlespeed road bike. Halfway through I realized the gearing is too tall for me to not sweat as much as I wanted. And I didn't give myself enough time to cool down before needing to change into my work clothes. Thankfully it is jeans day on Friday. I'm going to change my rear cog to 18t and give myself an easier spin into work in the morning. But other than that it was great. I'm really looking forward to the ride home. And I'm hoping to make it a habbit.

65F, wonderful. Supposed to top out in the 80s today, ~25F drop from Wednesday.

Yup, beautiful commute in. And still cool enough at 10AM that I was very comfortable noodling the 2 miles to a dentist's appointment in my jeans and T shirt from work, dropped by the LBS (across the street, owned by the dentist's son) to pick up an order, noodled on back to work. Should be a perfect day for a ride home tonight too.

So a mile into my 7-mile commute, I pass the home of a coworker. This morning as I went by, he was just pulling out of the driveway in his pickup.

When I got to work, he was just walking in the building. I was thinking I made some awesome time, but he said he stopped for gas and at the post office. Still, I did the ride in pretty good time.

Sounds like he is making excuses ;)

He can if he wants.... he's a potential SAG wagon for me, so I'm not going to question him about it.

Haven't posted here in a long time. Fortunately it's just been workload and inattentiveness to blame, not anything more serious.

Been riding a slightly different, longer route for the past few weeks. The change of scenery is serving me well.

A pretty good ride this morning. It wasn't really my commute, it was my wife's commute. I was just escorting her. Then I did some errand running, 3 stores. Stopped at Long John Silver's and tried their new fish taco for lunch. Not bad.

But that darn Sun was just a bit too strong. I'm a third shifter, so my commutes are at sunset (or thereabouts) and sunrise. The directions involved are such that the Sun is at my back both ways. I think I'll avoid changing my schedule. This works too well for me.

Coming home is a long, fairly steep hill. Most bicyclists I see on it (not enough, by the way) are walking their bikes. Right lane was closed for repairs. About halfway up traffic came to a standstill. I had the unusual opportunity to make them eat my dust. that was nice.

Rainy Summer
 

Rainy: just like all summer here in VT

ONe of my better rides home. Nice day, sunny maybe a little warm, nice day.

88F coming home, after 5 days >90F (incl 2 days in triple digits).

About halfway home this afternoon, my son on the trail-a-bike started pedalling like his life depended on it. I got so used to his not doing much that I was pretty surprised. And it really brought us in fast that last couple miles. Better late than never I guess, next week his back to his own bike.

Not so great today. Weather was better than I can ask for in LA on the last day of July--nice refreshing breeze. But I bonked about 4 miles into my ride home. No idea what went wrong, but I thought I was going to puke or faint or something so I sat by the side of a busy street in a questionable neighborhood for about 20 minutes. Then it was a real trudge for the next 10 miles. I didn't really hit my stride until about 2 miles from home. After all that I wound up with an annoying case of chafing. WTF?

Hydration. Make sure you drink plenty of H2O. sounds like your are dehydrated.

Nice morning. low 60s and partly cloudy.

I came upon a St. Jude run. Passed them on the flat and climbed my one long hill on the way home. Waited for them at the top of the hill. (when they got there, they seemed to be only about half as numerous as on the flat. They must have a sag wagon. But I didn't see it. I did see the truck that pulled their porta-pottys, though. I wouldn't have thought they'd have that.)

Then I followed them for a while until I came to my turn-off. It was nice to see non-motorized traffic for once.

Nice ride.

Great day for commuting in the Chicago area today. Saw a good number of riders out this morning, and had nice tailwind for the ride home. Saw some people working on a bike across the street after I got home. The bike was an older Murray road bike with no bearings left on one side of the crank/bb and when the owner gets the new bearing I will reassemble. When I got there, all the balls from the bearing were on the ground and the 1 piece crank was flopping around like crazy and the only tool they had were a pair of pliers...so it wasn't pretty.

relaxed and not fast at all....probably avg'd about 13 mph.

Very nice ride. A little cool when I left the house but warmed up in the first few miles. Nice quite pleasant commute. Life is good.

Fun ride today. Sunny, blue sky. Cool, with pockets of warm. I wasn't riding fast and I saw a rider catching up to me so I spooled up to my usual cruising speed and the person ceased catching me. :o The woods smelled nice so I left the MUP and rode on some dirt trails for about a half mile. Re-entered the MUP and wound up passing 3 cyclists before getting into town.

Must clean my chain when I get home today.

The ride in was enjoyable this morning, I took the eight mile route so I could enjoy the nice weather. Listened to some Tortoise as well.
It may be time to clean the drive train again and probably purchase a new cog.

Happy Monday

I'm getting back into bike commuting full swing after missing most of July and late June due to a knee injury and vacation trips. I rode 4 days last week, which was quite an accomplishment because we had severe thunderstorms almost every afternoon -- and I somehow managed to avoid them. I didn't avoid getting my first flats since I started biking to work in April 2007, and managed to get two in one day. The second flat left me stranded, so I had to walk my bike home over 3 miles in cycling shoes. Not fun and I've taken precautions so that hopefully won't happen again by adding a frame pump to my bike.

It was weird to get back into it. Using my converted hybrid which is very comfortable. Dreaming about the Fuji Touring and the Trek 1.5 ... :-)

bike computer STATs
13.33 miles
32.8 mph MAX speed
16.7 mph average speed
48 minutes saddle time

Passed a police radar unit today that said I was going 25 when my bike computer read 17 mph ... I was the only vehicle on the road. Weird huh?