I was really enjoying the ride in this morning, bright sunshine a little cool at 4 C but a slight tail wind, life was good. On my way past a fellow cyclist I said good morning and she answered me with just a scowl. I guess I should just keep my mouth shut when overtaking other riders. Some people are better off in cars with the windows rolled up.

Gotta love it. From 'HotLanta. New very bright light on bike to replace the dead one. Ah well. The new light really was amazing. Nice ride in to work today at 5:30 am. 10-11 miles. 59 deg. 92% humidity. Came around a bend and a field next to the road was full of fog. Road was clear but the lower lying field was just a cloud sitting there. Lovely.

48F and sunny! The pollen seemed to really bother me today but I was determined to enjoy the ride. And I did until I got off my bike to walk up some stairs and noticed I had stepped in some dog poop. I cleaned it as best I could and then swished my shoe in a puddle near my office. It turns out the puddle wasn't just rainwater but some kind of toxic sludge. So I spent more time cleaning that up (thank God for Wet Ones!). The good news is I can't smell anything so I think I got it cleaned up. It should be a great ride home today, as long as I don't have a repeat of the dog poop incident.

Today is supposed to be our first hot day of the year, with a high in the upper 80s F. You wouldn't know it by this morning's weather, as it was in the 40s during my ride to work. I had a nice morning commute, just taking it easy since I'll be riding 50+ miles tomorrow morning. Gotta save the legs.

Update to yesterday's commute post; along with the day giving me mild temps, it also gave me this on the way home...
http://rad.smugmug.com/photos/519816245_6ua5Z-S.jpg

49 or 50F with a little fog - it felt great. Glad the rain stopped way before my ride in.
Tried out new panniers - what a relief to have a couple bags on the sides of the rack
instead of a backpack or too-small rack top bag.
Brought both panniers so I can bring work related laundry home after work.
Supposed to be 80F and sunny later.

Great weather, about 13C with light wind and lots of sun and dry roads. Made a quick stop at the bank to make a deposit for my landlady. At a stop a nice older guy in a van pulled up next to me, I was in the left turn lane, and complemented me on wearing nice bright colors and being really easy to see... I told him that anything I can do to stand out when on the road, I will gladly do. He then mentioned that the police do the opposite, dark unis with little reflective bits, dark bikes with black bags, makes them hard to see. I said well, maybe they think they are disposable... we both laughed, the light turned and I moved on. Shortly thereafter I was taking the lane on an uphill blind curve with little shoulder and must have impeded a cager in some way (no more than 10 seconds to enter and exit this curve by bike, in a car it is not noticeable) because I got a courtesy honk and an assertive pass. Passed her at the stop sign 50 yard further down the road.
Two nice motorists at the same intersection this week... must be something in the air... or the nice weather just means they are less afraid to roll down their windows. I'll enjoy all the positive interactions while I'm getting them, but I know the circle of life will complete itself here on LI.

Great weather. Today was the second time I rode in this week. I also rode in on Wednesday. I time myself from beginning to end. I am not any faster, but it is feeling easier. The ride is uphill nearly the whole 10 miles, and I didn't shift gears once. I'm feeling pretty strong.

First commute of the year, first on my "new" (used) Trek road bike. I rigged up a rear rack with panniers and a lunch cooler. Great temp and mild tail wind. Very nice.

Forecast for the ride home is 80 degrees -- yeah, and 15-20 mph head wind -- boo!!!

I need to get a gear rack and panniers. I also need a new crank. Mine's bent and getting worse each day. Also, my forks are bent.

Every day's ride is quite interesting on this bike.

43*F coming in, suppose to be 70's going home.
Had my best time coming in, I really was hitting the lights this morning.

Wet streets and wind. Lots of crap in the road: sticks, leaves, blossoms. Rode the FG for the first time in a while. Took it very easy.

Best one so far. :thumb: I've been at it going on a month now with a fourteen-mile round trip commute to downtown DC. Weather was near perfect for me - temps in the mid-to-upper 40s, beautiful sun, nary a headwind to slow me down. Feeling stronger and more fit every day, which only adds to the enjoyment as the weather has improved.

Beautiful views across the Potomac of the city. Made me think of my old commute on metro staring at pitch black walls and tired faces. If I didn't have a good podcast on my mp3 player, I was bored out of my mind. :eek: Now I feel excited about the trip in to work, if not about work itself, and arrive full of life and energy! :D

By the time you factor in getting to and from metro stations, commuting that way took twice as long as biking the whole way in does now. Of course, I still metro when the weather's crummy (limited budget to get proper rain gear yet), but at least my metro use is down to one, maybe two days a week now!

Happy trails everyone! :commute:

First commute of the year! Beautiful morning, about 50. My wife and I rode together. She works 4 miles away, I am 9. We split at the concrete corn (if any of you know about Dublin Oh, you'll know exactly what I am talking about). Had a fairly steady head wind out of the south which kinda worked my outta shape legs, but if it doesn't change direction or let up, I should have some good coasting on the way home.

I was having a nice ride until I saw a ghost bike on my route. I found a story about it:
http://la.streetsblog.org/2009/04/22...-bike-appears/

Got honked at once by a van, so I moved further into the lane, then left him about 2 miles behind me in stuck traffic. Later, a guy yells at me, "Get outta the way freak" while turning right in a lane he had all to himself.. yeah, i wasn't even in his way... makes no sense to me either.. then later still, a guy on a mountain bike behind me growls really loud, Chewbacca style.. makshift horn? dunno.. he might've been growling at the car that was cutting us both off, but later he passed me aggressively, so *shrug*..

All in all, a weird ride compared to usual, but I made it to work alive so it wasn't too bad.

This made me laugh. Greg Lemond (first US cyclist to win the Tour de France) has a famous-among-cyclists quote: "It doesn't get easier. You just get faster."

It sounds like you're the exception that proves the rule. ;)

Todays commute was W I N D Y. I'm hoping for the same wind for the ride home...

Crazy commutes the last two days. Riding to work has been uneventful. I leave home early and don't usually end up in traffic. But home is another matter, esp. with baseball season in progress and more traffic that usual (with people coming into the city who don't normally do so) around rush hour.

Saw a bicyclist get hit by a car on Wednesday evening at an intersection I abhore for many reasons. I called 911 and cops/medical showed up w/in minutes. He was ok, just bruised, decided not to press charges since nothing was damaged. Don't know what happened to driver or anything since I was only a witness and wasn't involved in the discussions. Hope the driver was at least ticketed. Cops were super-nice though.

I was agressively buzzed/passed by a crazy angry lady yesterday. She used the left-only turn lane to barely zoooom past me, jerk back into my lane all w/in less than one-half block (a short block so I take the right lane until I can get into a safter position the next block). Of course I caught up to her at the next light and really calmly asked her if she was trying to kill me. Apparently she "gave me plenty of room beoytch" and offered to beat my *ss as well. She was a totally normal-looking person too. Just totally off her rocker and from other comments she made I decided I was not the only cyclist to tell her she did something crazy with her car. I simply shook my head, smiled, and told her (again nicely) good luck driving tomorrow w/out killing someone. Usually I don't talk with drivers unless I am certain I have an "out" and I did. It was just fascinating. Not swearing back at them and remaining totally calm helps.

Then I got cut off by jaywalkers who were oblivious to why I was saying "are you CRAZY?" as they walked in right front of moving traffic with not a care in the world.
And then there was the truck that pulled out of Starbucks and blocked my way.

But it wasn't raining!

50sF and sunny, very nice. Didn't come in until noon, had other stuff to do earlier.

Today was the first time I have commuted to my new job.

The commute was a lot quicker than I anticipated. I was expecting the ride to take 30-35 minutes so and because I had never done the ride before I gave myself an extra 10 minutes or so just to be sure. It takes me about 10 minutes to drive and only 20 minutes to ride the bike. I would say that the bike is the way to go!

The commute is mostly flat, however, the first 2-3 kilometers are all uphill with one really steep section. It just so happened that all of the uphill sections were straight into a stiff headwind. :( The hills and wind wouldn't be that much of an issue but I was riding my fixie, which really isn't geared for any sort of hills. The commute home was excellent. I had a nice tailwind and the steep uphill was now a nice downhill sprint.

Didn't have any real issues, which is always nice. For the most part the drivers were respectful minus one group of younger drivers that gave out a scream as they passed. Which by the way, scares the crap out of me every time it happens.

only had to go in for a meeting at 4:30pm so took advantage of the day (warm! sunny!) and did a 41 mile road ride. Got back with barely time to shower and hop onto the commuter bike and ride to the meeting. Nice rides!:p

Nice ride home yesterday. I wound up riding about 15 miles. (Normal commute is 6.5) :p

It was in the 60sF, and sunny. I didn't want to stop riding. I wound up way up high in Ethan Allen Park, one of (if not the) highest points in Burlington. iPhone-pictured the bicycle with Whiteface Mountain in the background (large and pointy over the bike saddle), and another at the base of the tower.

Just about perfect weather this morning. 16 C with the sunshine and the roads were fairly quiet so what do I do? I road the motorcycle into work. Took the long way which is a big loop following the Grand River that actually takes more time then riding the bicycle through town. I did spend 20 min. spinning on the trainer before I left so that makes it ok right? :rolleyes:

Back on the road on two wheels again, and I really need to toughen up and ride through the winter cause getting back on is a pain. I also need to buy some studded tires for winter as well, but that's a different story.

I think I'm going to ride out to my chorale concert today. It's going to be 90 out. But I'll be sweating under the lights anyway... Friday's commute was awesome. I had to ride one town further out to pick up my wife's engagement ring and some watches out for repair. I went by way of Seaside park, and had a nice beach ride and exploration of the city before picking the stuff up and hopping on the train to meet the wife and kids for a backyard cocktail hour at a friends house. Perfect weather!

Went for a little spin to the market this am and with the snow falling it felt right to take the winter bike... :)

After a mid-summer-like weekend, temps PLUNGED this morning to a frosty 61F/16C. :D

Supposed to have a couple of more days with highs around 90F/30+C before getting back to more spring-like temps and scattered showers. I guess I can hang...

Warm and humid this morning. Dark as always. The weatherstation warned of possible thunderstorms and there was very light sprinkles on my way in.
My mornings are dark year around. I couldn't sleep so I started out extra early and stopped by the donut shop. I rode my Flying Pigeon folder and she is a quiet ride. Nothing to report.
Ernest

Overcast this morning. Temps in the 40sF. Reeled in 4 riders. Saw a couple more going the other way. The last guy I came upon was riding a 'bent. First one of the year.

Also slowed up and asked a roadie if he was okay. He was inspecting his front wheel and said he had a wobble. This area isn't very kind to light wheelsets I don't think.

Almost 60*F this morning, felt warmer, suppose to be 85 going home.
Then rest of the week back to normal spring temps and that's OK 40 in the morning and 60 in the afternoon makes for comfortable rides.