68F/20C, pouring down rain, gusty winds. Another beautiful morning for a commute.

Mostly incident free this morning. One car just about pulled out in front of me before they slammed on the brakes. I have only one headlight. I've been meaning to add another, I need to get that done.

Cloudy and streets still a bit damp - wetter than I expected but I just took it easy.

Taxi on M St in Georgetown was driving in two lanes, slowly, I assume trying to avoid getting stuck behind a Circulator bus? He ended up with 2 bike commuters in front of him and 1 behind (me).
A black beamer cut 2 lanes in front of me to exit Washington circle at the last second. Nothing new I guess.

Heavy drizzel to flat out raining. 58 degrees. It is a beautiful morning.

Very pleasant this morning. 55F/13C, sun coming up, and no wind. I need new front brake pads. I shall take care of that today.

55 degrees, steady rain...I waited for a 1/2 hour watching radar looking for a break...no luck. So off I went...I wore swim trunks, nylon pants, wool socks, a wicking long sleeve shirt, nylon pullover and planned on getting soaked. I debated thin gloves but opted for bare hands. 17 miles...1hr and 16 minutes later I arrived at work thoroughly soaked and totally stoked. It was another great morning for a bike commute. :)

September is turning out to be my worst cycling month in ages. First, I missed riding the entire Labor Day weekend while visiting family out of town. Then I missed most of this past weekend due to family visiting here from out of town. On top of that, we've had an incredible amount of this month, probably about 15" or more so far. It has been cloudy and rainy for the past 8-10 days here with some tremendous storms dropping 2-3" a shot. This week, I have to travel out of town for my job, so will miss another 3 days commuting.

The upside is that I got a new commuter bike, a Waterford RS-22 sport touring frame built up with parts swapped from my touring bike. I had initially planned to leave fenders off the bike and ride it on sunny days, but the weather this month convinced me to go ahead and install fenders. Around here, you really almost need fenders on a commuter bike if you are going to ride consistently.

Hit 3,000 miles (Overall) for the season this morning. 2,354 of those commuting.

Mid 50's, cool but pleasant. With three days rest it went very easy this morning.

Cool bike, Tarwheel!

Yesterday and today..

Yesterday, commuted downtown to take pictures. Wanted to see if I could carry my DSLR, two lens, and pro tripod and case. Carried the camera in a Tamrac camera bag on my chest, carried the tripod in a padded bag on my back. Piece of cake. The weather didn't act right, but the main goal was to see if it could be done, and my range with that gear. Total distance 30 miles.

Yesterday

http://www.cehoward.net/preraw32x.jpg


This morning, pouring down raining, temps in the 70s.. Piece of cake..
Both rides are on my beater bike, 86 Schwinn Prelude.

Old man arriving at work this morning.

Today
http://www.cehoward.net/commute99.jpg

It was 62 degrees with a stiff north wind as I rode to work at dark-thirty this morning. That gave me a headwind the entire 12 miles to work, and I really felt it as I was on tired legs after yesterday's 200K, a tougher ride than I had expected (ride report here).

My commute has been shortened to 9 miles now that the City of Alpharetta has finished an underpass for the Greenway at Kimball Bridge Road at the bargain price of $4.7 million. I am enjoying the daily two minutes saved :D

In reality they replaced the entire bridge due to constricted traffic and frequent flooding and added bike lanes and sidewalks ( :thumb:good show Alpharetta :thumb:), but from my perspective it's 650 feet of path bypassing an intersection.

Nice ride, just warm enough for shorts and jersey. Although the forecast is calling for a headwind both ways. I've been detouring to check the construction progress on a section of road that leads to a nice section of highway to ride on. They had sprayed oil on the road base, which means they will probably start paving today.

I had the strangest tire leak on Friday evening. I was swapping my front / rear tires and doing a clean / lube ahead of a 136km ride I did Saturday. While working on the second tire I could hear a noise from the tire I had just inflated, and sure enough air was escaping through a cut in the tire. I pulled and replaced the tube but didn't see any damage. Later when I went to patch the tube I couldn't find a leak.

It was raining this morning, but at 50 degrees it was too warm for my rain jacket so I stowed it in a panier to wear after the ride, at the bus stop and on the bus. I can wear my contact lenses again, as the rain damped the dust down on my gravel sections.

Humid commute today. At least there was no rain for a change. Good to be on the bike again after a weekend of non-biking activities that consisted of yard work and kid's soccer games.

BTW - Tarwheel, that is another cool bike. How hard is it to transition to bar end shifters when you are used to STI's?

You just now getting to work? You management?

Good one! No, been at work all day, just a late post. Busy morning so no time to hop on BF until the afternoon.

Beautiful coming in at about 75 degrees (F). Hardest part of the commute home is fighting off all the offers for a ride home since it is - are you ready for this - - - raining!

Nice ride home, about a perfect day, oh except for the 20 mph headwind.

Ride into manhattan was a balmy 70 degrees. Saw a shiny black suburban slowly creeping out, definitely didn't see me. Glad I anticipated his absentmindedness and did the "creep out wide in case the guy pulling out doesn't see you" move.

Ride home was a balmy 70 degrees. I came off the 59th st bridge and onto the new bike lane with a guy about 40 feet in front of me. We caught up to a delivery guy and the commuter tried to pass him on the left and the delivery guy made a left turn at the same time. They weren't going too fast so nobody took a spill or got hurt. They just kinda clashed and parted. As I passed the delivery guy I told him he should signal....

Perhaps. The guy doing the passing could also have yelled out, "On your left." It does wonders for letting the biker in front of you know you're there.

Changed work locations today. Rode into my old office ( 4 miles) and moved computer (in work truck) to new office. During the day I stopped in at my lbs and they had my small chain ring in. So after work I rode over to have them put it on. Then rode home I ended up with 22 miles for the day.

Going over the Missouri River bridge bike path, I noticed a guy on a bike talking to a walker and not paying attention to where he was going. I stopped and waited for him to notice me. At about 10' he saw me and apologized. I had flashing MiNewt Dual, but he was oblivious.

52 degrees, NNE wind 5 mph with gusts to 26 mph, and raining AGAIN. No, I don't really mind the rain while I'm riding in it, or even after, but it's hard to get excited about it before. Out of the last 13 rides, 11 were raining.
Tonight I pulled up behind/next to a car in the going-straight lane (a very technical term, you see). He had passed me, then sat there at the stop sign, so I pulled up slowly to his right, to go straight as well. I figured he would pull out faster, and I would follow up behind. I pulled ahead, then through the intersection. Looking over my shoulder, I see that he turned right (no signal, not in the right turn lane). Looks like I could have been toast there. At least he wasn't quick in his indecisiveness.

Oh, yeah... Saturday, when I went to the lbs to buy a front fender? Wish I hadn't missed the shop closing by ten minutes... kind of tired of the rain-in-the-face look.

Great commutes today.

64F with fog and winds from the NE @ 3mph this morning. This ride was the fastest commute in for this semester. Also hit the highest top speed I've ever hit on this commute at 37.4mph down the Rt 20 hill.

83F and partly cloudy this afternoon with winds from the SSW @ 4mph. Had to detour a little bit because they're paving one of the side roads. Just had to go 0.1 mile more to the next street over and take that one.

Darn near endo'd over the bars on the way home today. Almost got right-hooked but hit the brakes hard enough to lift the back tire about a foot off the ground and launch my water bottle in to the middle of the intersection. Threw my chain when the tire came back to terra firma and I stayed upright.

My fault this time for not riding more defensively so he didn't get the one-finger salute. I often picture myself riding along side Jesus on a bike when I'm in traffic (he's car-side!), so maybe today he was keeping an eye on me. ;)

I found bar-ends very easy to use. If my STIs wear out on other bikes, I plan to replace with bar-ends because they are so much cheaper and more reliable.

A warm and for a couple seconds downpour ride in at 70F (21C). Nothing got wet, but it was a strange event. Today will be riding home
between storms. This wet erratic weather is already very old.