Another sweaty ride. I met and chatted with a fellow commuter for ~5 minutes- A real rarity for me to even see another Bike commuter at 6:15, much less be able to chat him up for a while. Wouldn't you know it, his commute is longer, he leaves earlier in the AM and appears to be a few years older than me too....a little commuter's humility for me this AM :-) While we were chatting, we passed 2 other commuters heading the opposite way. Maybe only the 2nd or 3rd time in 10 years that I've seen 3 other commuters in the AM. Impressive too given the hot, humid weather

absolutely beautiful weather this morning - a tad bit hot and was sweaty, but I always am no matter the temp. about 73F. uneventful ride. right now, leaving at 6am is perfect as the sun is preparing to rise and the sky is so beautiful.

Felt pretty good this morning. Got to work fast. But much sweatier too.

It's become such a routine that I rarely take in the surroundings anymore. Maybe I need to shake up my route some.

Got to ride home with both of my folding baskets full of stuff. My bag od work junk and scrubs on one side, and bananas in the other. I nice co-worker also gave me a case of canning jars so those were strapped across the top. Uneventful and calming otherwise...just the kind of ride home I like.

Moist. The cycling gods took pity on me and held up the rain for my commute. It was raining before I left, and after I arrived. :) I saw a total of 4 people on 5 miles of MUP. All on foot.

I wore my rain jacket, and I think I was wetter inside it than outside. :rolleyes:

Two back-to-back fast rides. When I rode home last night, I knew I was going to the bar. Happy hour is great motivation.

This morning, I was running late. I dropped the hammer. I am very glad that I had my deodorant and body spray and all that nice stuff with me...now, I just need to sneak off to the ladies' room and actually use them.

Very humid this morning. 85%. Tonight should be better with a drop in humidity to about 45.

Monday was great. Darla is back in action and we rode in together. We split about the half-way point to head to our respective jobs. On the ride home I just swing by and pick her up at her office, since we have no time constraints. Stopped by Brazenhead for a pint on the patio.

ride in was fast this morning for some reason, i think my legs are finally recharged after running a 10k over the weekend...i still have a bit of a cold but i think it's on it's way out, i guess that's what biking in the rain will do to you and there sure has been plenty of it here

The ride home last night was killer (and not necessarily in a good way). Headwind (or at least it seemed that way :p) the whole way; heavier than normal traffic on W. Railroad St.; longer distance (16 miles versus 10.5); heavier/sluggish bike due to the new bucket panniers (which held up great during the ride, BTW :thumb:). Had a very satisfying dinner with the wife and a game of Quiddler afterwards, but too tired for more, well, more. ;) This morning my legs are reminding me of the torture they went through. :lol:

the ride in today...... I knew I shouldn't, I need to recover, I could feel it yesterday. My legs are still tired from the huge ride on Sunday. But with my first real road bike, I was just so excited! Screw it, I rode in.

Unfortunately, I forgot my water as I was running late..... so half way through, I was very tired and now super dehydrated.

not good.... bonked-out-ish until I made it to a convenience store where I got & devoured a gatorade (something I never drink).

Then, I finished my ride.

Funny thing is..... for a bad ride on the kona, I did just as good as a slightly less than normal day on the single speed! When my legs worked, it was great, hit in the 20s no problem, but man, when I was tired, I was dragging.

Still need to ride home tonight, I don't usually "carb up", but I think today I might.

Tomorrow, I will rest.

Perfect ride home last night. Another commuter from my bldg. caught me on the way out and we rode together. Normally he's much faster than I am, but yesterday was his recovery day. Excellent timing, as I was beat from Ultimate frisbee the previous 2 days and a kid who kept me up all night. :(

However, this morning the idiots were out in numbers.

First I had a lady in a BMW convertible yell, "Get out of the middle of the road!" as she passed me. OK, that's dumb...but we were approaching a long line of stopped cars at a red light. That's even dumber. We stopped with me behind her and I said, "Did you just yell at me?"

"Yeah. Why are you in the middle of the road?"

"Because this lane has a hard curb and a gutter pan; there isn't enough room in this lane for a wide vehicle to pass me legally--let alone safely--so I take the entire lane. That way they don't think it might be safe to try to pass me in THIS lane and will use the left lane. Make sense?"

She said yes, but I could tell she was either angry or didn't agree. Oh well.

Then I was on the driveway for my bldg, a 20-mph narrow road that is a long steep downhill with a sharp curve and a speed bump at the bottom. A driver (presumably a coworker from my company) driving a HUGE pickup decided he HAD to pass me near the bottom of the hill, even though I was already doing ~25 and accelerating. Since there's a curve at the end both he and I swung wide, and he was now driving entirely in the opposite lane. He accelerated again....only to have to slow for the speed bump (though with a truck that high he could have taken it at speed!) while I took the speed bump at speed. I guess this was the last straw, as he started honking at me. I turned right into my parking lot; he continued straight towards another lot. Again, oh well!

Woke up 2 hrs earlier than I wanted. But felt great. However, my chain fell off 5 min. into my ride and while slowing down and try and see what was going on, I fell over thanks to the clipless. Made me laugh because it's my first dump. Fixed the chain and had a great 10 min. stretch until I got to the rail road crossing and there was a train just crawling. Sat there for 10 min. until the damn thing stopped. Took a detour and the rest of the ride was great. I still beat my average time even with the issues so I'm excited about that. To celebrate, I'm going to snail home. :)

Oh.. and I bought a sleeveless wicking shirt at Walmart last night.. it's too small. It made me feel buff even though I'm damn skinny kicking in at 125 lbs. But it did make me pretty self conscious the whole ride.

First ride with the new chain. A 6-7-8 chain on a 5 gear cog. Also, I think the links are shorter than the old links. If I apply too much pressure, it skips and I think it was falling between gears... but at least there was no rubbing. I think it felt faster and changing was smoother.

This guy on a fixed gear passed me by running a red, so I altered my route in order to follow him up and pass him. Which led me to taking a new route. Rather than taking my usual 2 lane road down (1 in each dir), I took Avenue/University which got 3 or 4 lanes in each direction. Less stopping, faster commute. I ended up going to the far left lane to get around the slower traffic. I'm now confident enough to ride in busy traffic and not having to stop every other block is amazing!

First post here; been a lurker since I started bike commuting a month ago.

Had a flat last night and a repeat offender this morning. The spare tube I had this morning had a broken valve stem, too. Suck. Guess I'll get my friend to take me to the bike shop at lunch for some more tubes.

Cool and crisp. It's supposed to be a hot one on the way home today...

^bummer. I got three on my mtn bike riding chair lifts last weekend.

Good ride this morning, felt a bit slow though... need some inspiration or something.

Welcome to the forum! Sorry to hear about your flat, flats suck i know i've had more than my share. There's allot of threads about all things relating to flats if you need any more info on fixing them (sounds like there's something in your tire).

My morning commute was pretty uneventful except that i rode through 2 big temperature "drops". It was like riding into a pocket of cold air, i'm going to guess 3C colder and sudden too. In the winter i'm kinda used to the temperature gradually dropping as much as 10C on my route but these pockets were very suddenly cold and then suddenly warm(er) again.

Classic "must pass the bicycle" syndrome. It's bizarre, isn't it? :rolleyes:

My parking garage just happens to be at the finish line for the Tour of California (stage 2 last year, stage 1 next Feb). So it's natural that I just have to ramp it up in the last 200m, pretending to lead out Mark Cavendish.

Heh. 41-year old desk jockey still playing. Just like when I was a 12-year old, pitching to a wall and pretending to strike out George Brett.

Strange commute in this morning. I felt really slow. Legs felt like sandbags. Sometimes that feeliing goes away after the 1st mile, but today it never did.

Then I get to work and discover thet my average speed was almost 2 MPH faster than usual, and I got to work 10 minutes early (made some trafic lights I don't usually make).

Felt slow, went fast? <shrug>

Feel slow = feel tired = worked hard = pedaled faster = rode faster?

I wish vegas was more "biker" friendly.....i just looked at the San Diego Craigslist, and there are a TON of nicer used bikes. Vegas has NONE!

Thanks for the warm welcome. I think you might be right about the repeat puncture. It was my first tire change and I didn't think to shake out the tire before putting a new tube in. Naive mistake. Live and learn.

My friend couldn't take me to the bike shop at lunch today. Luckily, I had a patch kit in my seat bag so I repaired the repeat-punctured tube.

The valve wasn't broken on the replacement tube like I thought. I just got a little overzealous with the hand pump. :rolleyes:
http://stephen.rollyson.org/images/o...usted_tube.jpg
It's a little tough to see, but the rubber separated where the stem connects.

I've had days like that.... confusing isn't it? Before I got a bike computer, it was weird to get to work wiped out from feeling like my blood is made of lead that day, head down to the gym to shower, and see I made incredible time!

huh?

I guess I was felt that way because I was pushing harder than I realized?

I had that problem on an old wheel; it was caused in part by a slightly sharp edge on the inside of the valve hole in the rim. I replaced the rim tape, and made sure the tape covered the hole really well (I didn't use the hole already in the tape, I just covered the hole with tape and then bodged a hole through it, meaning the excess tape kind of covered the edge of the hole as I pushed the valve through.)

Just a thought.