Rode in regular shoes today cuz I left my cleated shoes at work. For that reason alone, I got dropped by a guy commuting with a child seat and extra helmet. Oh well, it's too hot to be chasing after people today.

I discovered compression shirts. I am happy.

I was camping this weekend, and got very little sleep, so I slept through Newark Penn Station (where I usually stop to transfer) and had to take a train back from Secaucus. The next train out of Newark was running almost an hour behind, though, so it wouldn't have made a difference if I had made the stop.

This is the first time I've gotte out of the train in Secaucus, and I had trouble finding the right track. I ended up lugging my bike up and down too many flights of stairs.

There’s some kind of HUGE traffic snarl up on my way to work today. Cars were at a standstill and were backed up for miles everywhere I looked. The roads as they are in my area, are not wide enough for shoulder riding, and there was next to zero oncoming traffic. So when the opportunity presented itself. I rode in the oncoming lane, moving back into the right lane for the few oncoming cars as they approached. I’ve must have passed several hundred cars before coming to the street I usually turn onto to head into work. Wow. The looks of envy I got. Man did that feel good.

Had a great ride into work today. Made what I think is decent time, 57 minutes for 14 miles of urban commuting. Planning on hitting REI up after work to look at getting a trunk.

I'm curious...how fast do most of you guys/gals cruise on your commute? Seems like I am mostly around 14-19 MPH.

I took it easy this morning after taking the last four days off. It was pretty warm and humid. Ride home should be in the mid-90's. Yay.

I have only been commuting a few weeks now and today was my first really wet ride. The rain was warm so no real problems. This was the first time I commuted in with the newly mounted milk crate on my 7500 FX. My Trek Grocery Bag pannier broke and I have had no way to transport my laptop bag so I have been leaving it home. I stuffed my laptop bag (with my 17" Macbook Pro) into the crate. The setup worked fine, it just looks kind of ghetto in my opinion. Thankfully I remembered to bring a garbage bag to stuff the laptop bag into once the rain really started to come down.

I am saving for a Arkel Commuter bag, they are just so expensive...

Didn't ride today, but I did get up this morning to start on my One Hundred Push-ups program and do some yoga and pilates to work my core muscles. Also scoped out a route yesterday that will allow me to ride from my apartment to my current commuting start point, adding about 5.25 miles to the commute (15.75 miles, one-way, or 21.5 miles RT).

Unseasonably cool this morning. Had to dig out the arm- and knee-warmers. Good for sleeping with the windows open, not so good for my still-green tomatoes.

Riding home Friday PM I was involved in a hit and run collision with a car :-(

I was heading East on Cornwallis Rd in RTP, in a bike lane going down a hill at 25-30 mph. A tan colored sedan was at a stop sign on East institute Dr (about 50-75 feet in front of me, to my right). The driver did a "false start" as I approached, pulling a few feet ahead and hitting his brakes. As I was within ~ 20 feet of the intersection, the driver did another false start, and I thought he was going to go. I hit the brakes and swerved right to try to avoid him, but my speed was too high. I ended up clipping his left rear quarter panel and then hitting the pavement and sliding to a stop. The driver then fled the scene. I fixed my handlebars, and front rim enough to ride to a nearby gas station where I called 911. While waiting for the squad car, I purchased some Hydrogen peroxide and sanitized my road rash. I waited for over 30 minutes without seeing a squad car, so gave up on him and rode the remaining 10 miles home. Filed a police report the next morning. Doubtful anything will come of it. I ended up with road rash on my left knee and forearm, which is not actually road rash it is "car rash" from where I hit his car. A little true road rash on my right hand, arm and face, and my right shoulder has a minor separation of the clavicle (fairly sure of this). I never went to the Dr because there's nothing they can do to treat shoulder separations other than a sling and pain meds. I already have a sling and pain meds at home, so skipped the Dr visit.

Replaced my stock Tricross Sport tires this weekend with some 25mm Ultra Gatorskins. The difference is night and day, bike rides much smoother and even gained an average of 2mph on the 11 mile trip (although that could have been me just hammering it more than usual because I think I should be faster on the road tires )

ah good to be riding again.

Took my kids to preschool in a Burley trailer, towed by my new Xootr Swift, after a month of getting all the logistics ironed out. (I was towing them with a Dahon Matrix before.)

I'm still ironing logistics out, but they're smaller and smaller...

This sucks. Glad you are not seriously hurt and the bike was still ridable.
I usually don't have any issues on Cornwallis unless it's the intersection
at 55 after 5PM.

Whoah--I was too busy posting about myself to read this the first time around. Hope you mend fast!

Nice commute this morning, i detoured some 5km out of my way to return a library book for my wife. So i got an extra 10k in total and it was all fast. It was a fast commute despite a headwind for the majority of the ride.

Woo Hoo first commute in about 20 years, why the hxxx did I wait so long to get back to something I love. It wasn't too hot in the AM but this afternoon the heat index was 109 but I still had a great time.

Hope you're feeling better, Big Ron. That sucks.

Still chilly here, but nice weather for riding. The pope-a-thon has finally left town, so it's much quieter. It was a nightmare last week, with so many overseas visitors stepping out into the road whilst looking the wrong way...

Glad you're OK Ron.

I took a much-needed rest day yesterday and was feeling strong both ways today. I'm taking training through Wed this week, but I needed to swing into the office this morning and just did my usual routine. Caught the bus to the train from work and sardined my way downtown (man, Metro can barely cut it now--it's going to be hell if/when the spam REALLY hits the fan). By the time I got back to my bike it was 13 hours later, but still really enjoyed the ride on home.

With a commute of just under 5 miles, I'm gradually working toward being able to just sprint the whole way (esp in the morning). Not there yet, but workin' on it...

On a really good day I can average 16-17mph on my 10 mile commute. On most days though I average about 14-15mph. I have noticed that the more I ride during the week the lower my mph has been, but I have only been riding steadily for 6 weeks.

Got lunged at by a German Sheppard that was on a fixed leash, rather than a retractable/ adjustable leash. The dog's owner got tugged a couple feet into the street but gained control of the dog before he could get to me. Still the event made my heart skip a beat.

The weather was perfect on the way home. It was warm and cloudy. More important than the weather, though, was the noise. There was none. I heard wind and I heard traffic, but those fade into the background as white noise, kind of like the soothing drone of the fan that lulls me to sleep. All day, I had heard nothing but strident voices and bad news. A whole twenty minutes or so of not talking to anyone really helped me chill out.

Bad. It was hot. Too hot, made me feel like I was going to lose my lunch, but I toughed it out.

Warm and foggy. Not too bad, though I'm dreading the heat on the ride home.

And it's definitely not a bad commute considering I'd been lazy and skipped June and most of July...

I got coffee!! That always makes the commute better, even though it involves busting my butt up a huge hill and coming in to work right at the buzzer. On top of that, the weather was nice, the stoplights were in my favor, and it was just awesomeness all around.