elihu23

Yesterday's commute wasn't too bad despite the heat. It was in the '90's. I worked 'till 1 am last night and biked home in cooler temps and on quieter roads. Today I was beat and being uncertain how late I'd be kept tonight I decided on the subway. Nevertheless, I think I'm near the end of my regular bike commutes for the summer. Too hot. Too much trouble to keep up appearances. When school is out, I usually stop biking to work (but continue riding recreationally), when the kids return I hit the road. Here school's in until June 28th. I'll probably do it once or twice a week, but I think I'll take up running at night.

FuzzyE

Beautiful morning for a ride. My third commute in to work and it keeps getting easier. I have found a good circular route that seems to minimize the amount of hill climbing I have to do. I still haven't found a way around the big hill at the end of my commute home. After 50k RT I have nothing left so I have been walking up it.

daijoubu2k8

Pull the cable if you can and then tie a knot in it. You can mess with the cable clamp on the RD to keep it aligned in the gear you like for the ride home. You could also use the limit screws on the RD, but then you'd have to fix them when you put the new cable in.

daijoubu2k8

Todays commute was much faster than it felt. After dropping my son off at his babysitters, I took a leisurely cruise in to work as my legs were suffering from the last week. Still made it in near record time. Something about climbing makes me push way harder than I plan. It was nice coming in later, the sun was up, clouds were gone, and it was up to 16C so I could ditch the arm and leg warmers.

12bar

Hot, damn hot but still better than driving the truck.

vtjim

It's funny. No matter how "bad" a commute is, it seems to beat driving. Rain, snow, hail(!)... Beats driving. I was getting pretty wet yesterday but I was smiling and happy when I got home.

EKW in DC

+1 My wetness yesterday was all due to profuse perspiration, but I agree - a bad cycling commute > a good day driving or taking metro.

EKW in DC

I rigged it b4 I saw your idea, but thanks for the tip! What I did seems to have worked pretty well. I pulled the cable out from the shifter and got the excess length tied up/wrapped around things it won't interfere w/ on the top tube. I didn't have my trash inner tube w/ me to fashion the solution I originally had in mind, but I got some grippy cloth tape from one of the maintenance guys, wrapped it around the top tube closer to the saddle, pulled the cable tight to put it in the gear I wanted, taped it again and zip tied it as tight as I could. I did this in two spots.

I just made a 3 mile round trip for a lunch date w/ my wife and it did a good job keeping the rear on the 4th cog out of 7. A couple times, it jumed down to the 5th, but I was able to pull on the exposed cable closer to the stem to tighten it back up and force it back into 4th when needed. I think I could probably do a reasonably good job shifting up or down a couple gears each way, too. :-)

I'll be picking up replacement cable on the way home this evening... hopefully I'll find time to replace the cable this weekend.

SunnyFlorida

Oh I hope the early hot weather isn't a prediction for nasty hurricanes like Ivan, Andrew or Katrina.

I live in Central Florida - Melbourne. My relatives in Miami tell me Melbourne is a dream compare to where they live. When they were here recently, they were overjoyed that it wasn't as hot and sticky as Miami.

It's only a few degrees cooler than Miami it seems but there's definitely more greenery here besides it being a little more breezy. I guess that makes a difference.

Okay! My commute. It's getting really boring. Same scenery and conditions is making me zone out.

Also, this heat doesn't want to make me race anywhere so instead of my commute being shorter, it's now longer.

I think I'll plan some side trips/errands after work just to explore new territory, assuming I'm not racing ahead of a storm. Right now the only side trip is the supermarket, which is on the direct path home.

zacster

It was pretty hot, but not as humid as the last few days. The ride in was pretty slow, lots of traffic, lots of lights, and 1st Avenue is all dug up (to build a bike lane!) so I took 3rd. 3rd has its own problems. I also took a different route home, slightly longer, but not worth it. My regular route just seems to be the best one even if I want to add miles. The best way to add miles is to just loop around Prospect Park a few times, or maybe Central Park. Now there's an idea, go CP and then take the west side greenway. It'll add about 7-8 miles.

esmith2039

Warm coming hot going. Don't mind the heat though I actually prefer it.. hate the cold. Going to take a couple day break from biking. No problems during the ride but my knee/legs are sore and stiff in between. If I can get a good run in usually that helps more than a break.

warwick.hoy

1st post in the How was the commute thread. Going in was casual but I was on the roads before 7am. Coming back was a bit of a chore. The city of Spokane is hosting Hoopfest; " the world's largest 3 on 3 basketball tourny" this weekend =/. Basically they shut down most of the streets downtown (where I work),....set up a bunch (a lot) of courts and let out of shape white people play ball (I'm stereotyping,...I'm sure not all of them were out of shape,....or white).

Basically all traffic was routed onto two oneway arterials through town. I went through the alleyways till I could find an open oneway that was free of basketball courts and traffic to head back to my neighborhood just west of downtown. Once I got through all of the Bball courts the remainder of the west end of town was clear.

Now there is also a round about (we have a few of those in this town) about two blocks from my building and as I approached it I took the lane going straight through the round about. I figured I was entitled (I hate that word) since traffic is supposed to slow down for the round about and the cobble that make up the crosswalk is lousy for traction. That didn't stop a cabby in a minivan from crowding out and passing me in the round about.

This is my first week of commuting and I am certainly getting a crash course in etiquette and the lack thereof by some drivers. This isn't gripe so much as a realization that I'm going to have to grow a thick skin, and ride defensively (about how I drive). Let me know if I'm in the wrong on the round about.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that I met up with some salmon (they looked like pensioners) on the sidewalk. Luckily I was in the roadway were I was supposed to be and didn't risk hitting them. This was on the stretch heading into my neighborhood before I encountered the cabby. I wanted to say something to them but I'm still in the mind my own business mindset.

CCrew

Typical high humidity Virginia morning. Interesting that it was probably 5-10 degrees cooler near DC than it was when I left the house west of town this morning. Lots of kamikaze bunnies again this am for some reason. Some days are like that.

Did a fairly lazy ride rather than arrive at work soaked, but still made good time. Saw only one other cyclist on the 25 miles in, do they know something I don't?

fletchh

Yep, and I still love this weather. We are supposed to get something tonight that will cool down the temps for this week. Middle of the week at night is
supposed to be 58 F (14 C). That will be an cool down. I just hope I get out of here before any large fronts move in.

Absenth

I had a very wet commute to work today. Left at 5:50am just as the rain went from a little sprinkle to more like an inch of rain an hour. I installed a new set of fenders on my bike over the weekend and they worked flawlessly. Of course I was still soaked to the bone when I arrived at work a half hour later. This was my first wet commute, and I had two pieces of equipment let me down. First my bike computer regularly jumped between 4.5 and 34miles per hour. And logged 8.4 miles on my 7.33 mile ride. The second thing that let me down, was luckily a borrowed pannier from a co-worker. It's a Seattle Sports Rain Rider Pannier Bag: https://tinyurl.com/2a5wyvr

The large compartment did exactly what it was supposed to, and kept my clothes and laptop dry. The zipper pouch on the side however had an inch of standing water in the bottom of it when I arrived at work. I'm both happy, and disappointed my Google Nexus One survived.

Guess it's time to buy some rain gear for myself. Being soaked was ok, but not real comfortable.

vtjim

Wet! 70F and very humid. The rain made it comfortable, but I went through a good soaking rain coupled with a 10 or 15MPH headwind, and arrived needing to towel off. "Beats driving."

mark2olson

67 ⁰ Fahrenheit, calm winds to begin the ride but they picked up, ever so slightly, when I hit the four mile mark. Not enough to make any difference other than the turbulence in my ear. A nice sunny morning, a nice day to ride.

EKW in DC

My jury-rigged gear shifter from last Friday worked to get me from the office to a bike shop, on to home, and eventually to my pedicabbing job Friday night, where I was able to throw my bike up on a stand and replace the derailleur cable. Even w/ the help of my friend/coworker who is a mechanic at an LBS, couldn't quite get the rear derailleur dialed in exactly (the joy of super entry-level components - my RD lacks a common adjestment that would normally completely solve the small problem I do have), but it shifts properly almost all the time, so I'll leave well enough alone for now.

Ride in this AM was pretty warm already, so I imagine this evening's not going to be much fun commute-wise. I'm really liking what I see in the forecast by the end of the week, though -- temps in the lower 80s, almost 20 degrees cooler than it has been! Woohoo!

jyossarian

HH&H today. I think the weather's making drivers angrier and less willing to share the road. Had almost no space to maneuver and some drivers trying to edge me to the side. Lots of tailgating and general unpleasantness.

daijoubu2k8

I took the Central Valley Greenway into work today again. It's a much nicer trip staying off the main roads. As I'm in for a very short week, I thought I'd try to up the mileage to make up for it. Today I thought I'd try taking the trails up the North side of Burnaby Mountain. Despite what all the bike routing tools say, going up Gaglardi is much easier overall than taking Pipeline trail, Trans-Canada trail and then trying to get up Cardiac. I won't be doing that again. It was threatening rain, but that held off. I forgot to bring my tupperware container to use for breakfast today.

Itsjustb

Took the long route today. Saw 2 other cyclists, one clearly a commuter (panniers, etc.), the other might have been but wasn't carrying any gear. Uneventful.

LAG-bolt

This morning ride was pretty nice, 57* and overcast. Was able to cover the 9 miles in 43 minutes, was paced by another rider for a mile or so. I saw 3 commuters and 5 walkers.

HardyWeinberg

Running an hour late but still got in. My almost 9 yr old's 1st day of summer camp. He wanted to shake things up a bit and ride his razor scooter instead of his bike, but after a block he turned around, said he couldn't handle the vibration. So he rode his bike w/ comfy pneumatic tires after all.

60F and grey. My headlight was visible on the ground, when all winter it is washed out by streetlights.

IndyCommuter

The good news is the commute this week (other than this morning) looks marvelous! 79 Tomorrow and Wednesday, with no rain forecast for the rest of the week.
I picked up an old Schwinn Traveler a few months ago that I cleaned up this weekend. Assuming I get the wheels repacked in time, I'm going to try and ride one day this week. Should be interesting, as I've never had a road bike before and I'm not sure how it will deal with the urban decay of west Washington Street (Indy).

billyymc

Hot and wet.

Insert your own joke here. Ooops.