Nice weather this morning. I pushed pretty hard for most of the ride. The weekend weather is supposed to be fantastic. My road rash from 2 weeks ago is healing annoyingly slow. Hopefully by Monday I'll won't be needing a bandage on it.

Nice and cool, a bit of spray in the air at the end but hardly noticeable. I forgot to attach my cyclecomputer until about 6 min into the ride so it won't record my time/distance properly but oh well. Forecast is for showers this afternoon but I am prepared.

http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=219799
Bank sign said 69F as I passed this morning. I'm liking biking pre-dawn. Traffic seems calmer, and the sunrises are always spectacular. The photo is a busy intersection that will usually have tons of traffic built up at most times of the day. Today it was eerily quiet... and I liked it. :D

Beautiful, refreshing 58 degrees F on the way to work this morning. It will be 87 on the way home. Hmmm.

Mostly just muggy this morning, but it looks like I might be so lucky on the way home. I did pretty much have the trail to myself today, though. Guess the threat of rain scared off some commuters.

Ready for the weekend, even if it really only means more reading, research, and maybe some writing for my grad program. Hope to squeeze in a ride, or at least a little bike maintenance. Now that I got my crank puller and BB tool, I plan on replacing the long cracked plastic left cup of my bottom bracket with an aluminum one in the hope that it eliminates that annoying creaking sound when I pedal hard...

80 and muggy. If I close my eyes I can imagine I am in Mexico. But without the beer in my hand and ocean at my feet. Which is discouraging when I open my eyes. :mad:

Oddly muggy for late September.

We had rain for the previous two days but, for some reason, I was expecting a cool front, not a warm front. The heat and had a mosquito resurgence.

And I don't mind sharing the road but I do mind sharing the lane when there's an empty lane to the left. -sigh- There will always be knuckle-heads out there.

So many grasshoppers! They are everywhere. On my ~5mi commute home (I go a shorter way in the morning), I got hit with at least 25 grasshoppers. And I lowered my average speed so I could be more cautious and examine the MUP ahead of me for grasshoppers and avoid them. These are no average grasshoppers either! They are like 2.5" long. It is inevitable that I run over a few of them. That crunch sound is so unappealing.

Pretty normal commute. Nice temp in the morning, left in the dark. When I got to my work campus there was a deer walking up the roadway 100 yards past the guard shack. Rescued a good size snapping turtle off the same road - he'd been clipped by a car acuase he was bleeding near his right front leg, so I put him by the pond and later when I went by he was gone. Rode home in a nice steady rain, and saw six turkeys on the way.

Good rides today, nippy enough to put on a light jacket this morning. I really need to go buy one that isn't black. Nice sunrise this morning. However, one of my users mentioned that I came close to getting hit this morning without realizing it.

Apparently, after I checked my mirror and over the shoulder and pulled into the left lane to swing into the parking lot, a woman came screaming out of the left hand turn from the off ramp at,what my co-worker estimated, was between 55 and 65. She swerved into the left lane to get around him as I was slowing down a bit to time a turn after some oncoming traffic and came within 5 feet of plowing right into me. I guess I got lucky and completed my turn with little time to spare. The vehicle I was waiting to go past was an F-350 super duty ultra mega huge diesel Okie edition, and was loud enough to drown out the noise of the other traffic and I never noticed. He said it was pretty scary and thought I was going to get creamed. Just shows you how careful you have to be.

Ride home was completely uneventful and pleasant, aside from a persistent headwind.

72 going in. 102 on the return. No wind. Great ride as usual.

DISCLAIMER: scofflaw behavior and naughty language defended herein, post might be offensive to some people!

So, there's this mile long stretch of neighborhood road on my commute, bridges the gap between my apartment building and the MUP that takes me all the way to school. Along this stretch there's a section with four stop signs, three at three-way intersections and the final one at a four-way, all spaced about two blocks apart. Classic traffic calming signage, as there is hardly ever enough traffic to necessitate stop signs (yields would work just fine, as would nothing at all).

I roll these stop signs almost everyday, as the lines of sight approaching them are excellent, and unless there's cross traffic or police in sight (happens sometimes, so over the shoulder checks are always necessary) I just slow down, look both ways (or one way, in the case of the three-ways), and go. I do the same thing in my car. Some people think this is terrible and I don't care; if it bunches your panties into a knot to know that some of us roll stop signs without violating anyone's right of way, that's your problem.

This morning I got passed by a school bus, maybe 50 ft before the first stop sign. Close enough that by the time the driver brought the bus to a stop, I was almost halfway up the length of the bus. This happens sometimes, some motorist who just has to make that stop light/sign before you, accelerating hard around you only to brake right in front of you. Whatever. I'm mildly annoyed that the driver swung the front of the bus wide around me, only to pull back into the lane so fast that the tail of the bus damn near pushed me off of the paved part of the road; but after years of "sharing" the road with motorists, I've gotten into a "no harm, no foul" mindset, so, again, whatever.

I waited alongside, and then behind, the bus for the next two signs as the driver came to a full and complete stop at every sign. An annoying delay, and an irritating load of diesel exhaust to the face, but that's traffic and I'm almost to the MUP anyway. Notably, as I waited for the driver to bring his massive vehicle to a stop, to look both ways, and then to gun his behemoth back up to speed (seriously, he was doing his best to hit the 25 mph speed limit between stop signs) I had plenty of time to check for cross traffic. There was none; no cross traffic, no oncoming traffic, no turning traffic, nothing but the bus and I. So I rolled every stop sign behind the bus. I certainly wasn't about to roll a bus length forward, only to stop for empty air!

Finally, coming up the final stop sign, which is at the top of a continuous incline, I'm taking it easy and the bus as plenty of time to stop and then go before I can catch up to it. Except that it doesn't go, it just sits there with its right turn signal on. And sits there. And sits there. By the time I pull up to the rear of the bus, it's been sitting there for about three minutes with its turn signal on (it's going right, presumable to Romig Middle School, and I'm heading straight through to the MUP). I could see around the right of the bus: nothing there; and around the left of the bus: nothing there. I paused for a moment at the back of the bus, wondering what's going on, then decided to pass on the left.

I rode up the center line, paused at the front of the bus to look both ways ('cause the bus is totally blocking my view to the right), and since it's clear I went. I was halfway across the intersection when the driver came over the bus's PA (apparently school buses have PAs now; news to me) to inform me that, "Stop signs apply to bicycles, too." Apparently the driver'd been watching in his rear view as I rolled those signs behind him, and had taken offense.

The response was automatic. I try to not do this, I try to let the aggravation of traffic wash off of my back like water off the back of an especially Christ-like duck, but here I failed. I flipped the driver, and the entire bus load of middle schoolers, the day-glow bird (it's about 40ºF in the mornings, and my mid-weight gloves are day-glow yellow). The response from the bus driver (again, amplified): "Well, OK then." I didn't know that indignation could be broadcast through a PA system, but it can, and hearing it is hilarious. I LOLed, and had a pretty nice ride for the rest of the way to school.

Perfect going in, like most days. Going home was the complete opposite. 95 degrees with a large amount of hostile drivers (on a Friday?). Lots of bullies in SUVs trying to see how close they can get to me as they exited the expressway. In other news, Satan is on the loose. He's out there trying to molest children and run down cyclists: http://santacruz.patch.com/articles/...rke-was-killed

Imagine a world where every vehicle had a PA system so you could tell other road users what you think of their driving. Road rage would increase A BILLION PERCENT!!!

I rode to work all five days again this week. We're finally getting some cooler mornings. It was in the mid-50's this morning. Afternoons are still 90 degrees or close to it, though.

We had just enough rain yesterday afternoon to wet the roads, and I went down after lightly hitting the brakes on Westcreek Drive on the way home, a reminder of how slick the roads can be with just a little water on them, especially after not getting any rain for a while. There was no damage to my bike, and only a scraped left knee for me. There were lots of drivers around as witnesses, though. That's always embarrassing.

2011 days ridden to work: 162
2011 commuting mileage: 3957.8

Should have been in 'You know you are a hard core commuter' but...
 

That thread doesn't get enough traffic and this needs to be shared.

Yesterday morning, I was 3.5 mi through my 9 mile commute, coasting/waiting for the light to change. When I got the green I hammered the left pedal which promptly hit the pavement.

WTF? Did my gears slip? No, my pedal is literally on the pavement. I roll to the side to realized that I have SHEARED my bottom bracket axle in half and the left pedal and crank simply fell out!

What do I do? Public transit is not good in this location and can't take the bike on the train during rush hour. Well, I guess I could always pedal one-legged for the rest of the ride! I practiced in a parking lot for a couple of minutes and then hit the bike lane again.

I figure I went about 8-10 mi/hr one legged. This held out until I was 1.5 mi from work when the right crank started coming out. I finished off the commute with a kick-push/coast approach to bring it home. The final count is 2 legged (3.5mi), 1 legged (5mi), kick/coast (1.5mi).

Bought the necessary tools after work and will repair this weekend. A good excuse to force my GF to ride the tandem with me today in any case.

Proof:

^ THAT'S AWESOME!

Lol just kidding. That's interesting to read. There's a thread in the hybrid bike (also what that bike looks to be) forum titled: What did You Break Today? I think the people who frequent that forum would like to see it.

http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...ou-break-today

I have this idea for an art installation: I'll mount a PA on top of my Geo Metro and offer (totally valid) driving critiques to my fellow motorists (e.g., you should use a turn signal before changing lanes, that's not a safe following distance for 60 mph traffic, I'm sorry that you just suddenly realized that you need to turn left but please go around the block instead of stopping the entire lane of traffic while belatedly trying to squeeze into the fully occupied left turn lane, etc...). I'll mount a camera to the dash and drive the Metro across the US. After compiling the photos, I'll display them in a show called "Birds Across America: Migratory Patterns of American Road Rage" or, alternately, "Take Your Advise and Shove It: Why I'm Number 1 and You're About To Have Megaphone for Dinner."

This is Teh HardCorez! Well done, my man, well done.

LOVED that post!


I also forgot to mention that I ran a red light for the first time today. I was first in line in a left turn lane. No traffic coming from either direction. There was a vehicle behind me. I decided just to go for it and run the light. In the back of my mind, I was wondering what the driver was thinking.

I usually try to follow all of the rules of the road, but I woke up late and left the house late and I didn't want to have to wait any longer.
Rite of passage? I think yes.

Shameful self promotion is now in-progress.

Thanks for the vote of confidence Alpha & Griddle!

Nice cool weather. Uncomfortable until about the second mile in, then perFECT!

My coworker and I paced a casual group for a bit. The handcycle in that group was low, low, LOW to the ground. It was clearly meant for competition and clearly was used that way (he had paper numbers still taped to it). That pacing ended when my coworker's chain came off ... of a single speed.

Despite that, a very nice ride.

Not bad. Nothing of note. Nice weather.

Repair worked great. My BB no longer makes an embarassing creaking sound when I stand on the pedals or crank too hard sitting down. $15 well spent for the BB cup. I'll be using that for a long time. Excited for a good ride to work in the morning... after I drop off my car at the shop, that is (failed emissions inspection need to get to the bottom of).
-Reason #446 I prefer my bike to cars... I can actually do most of the maintenance myself. In fact, with help from volunteers at the coop, I put it together myself and picked the parts. That ain't ever gonna happen with a car.
-Reason #447 I prefer my bike to cars... my Surly is not subject to emissions inspection.
:D

Repair worked great. My BB no longer makes an embarassing creaking sound when I stand on the pedals or crank too hard sitting down. $15 well spent for the BB cup. I'll be using that for a long time. Excited for a good ride to work in the morning... after I drop off my car at the shop, that is (failed emissions inspection need to get to the bottom of).

-Reason #446 I prefer my bike to cars... I can actually do most of the maintenance myself. In fact, with help from volunteers at the coop, I put it together myself and picked the parts. That ain't ever gonna happen with a car.

-Reason #447 I prefer my bike to cars... my Surly is not subject to emissions inspection. :D

Warm this morning at 69 F (21C), but it felt good coming in. Just allot of cloudy skies, although that is getting to be the norm. We've allready have had record rain.