Yay... they repainted the lines on the resurfaced portion of hwy2 (110kph/65mph 3 lanes). The shoulder is as wide as a lane and yesterday there was just far spaced white dots to mark the lanes and nothing to indicate that there's a shoulder. Amazing how much safer a white painted line can make you feel. I hope they put in rumble strips too.
I had a fast commute home (+32kph avg) despite a headwind all the way, gotta love that.

I almost asked for a ride home tonight. I would have missed...
--A karaoke party in some guy's back yard. The singing was atrocious, but my god, those dudes were having fun. More power to 'em.
--The most well-behaved dog I've ever seen (a service dog, maybe? not in uniform, though) trotting beside his owner's wheelchair. He didn't even tense up when he saw me, even though I'm a light-up food on a really fast toy.
--A nerdy guy blasting Snoop Dogg in his car, totally jamming out.
--Baby chihuahuas!!! They tried to chase me! They were running along their owner's chain-link fence, squeaking and growling at me! It was so silly!

My rides in to work have been chilly and a little rushed the last few days. But the rides home! So awesome! The weather has been perfect, big almost-full moon, very little traffic, lots of other bikes. I really need a day off tomorrow, though, my body is sore (from the quick rides in, other working out, then being cooped up in the ambulance all day) and I haven't been able to really recover.

Great to hear there is improvements being made, hopefully that continues, it certainly thus increase some type of awareness.

That is absolutely an awesome commute, a family on bikes :) That is great that you were able to do that and seriously that had to be fun. Tem youngins most likely gonna follow suit :) keep with the good example :)

Some of the recent news stories of Fay had me worried as my sister and her family are living in South Florida, I felt better when I heard back from them and all was good. Just hope the story does not change when the storm shows it is truly a boomerang. You made a great choice to take the journey by bike though a motorcycle is good but you made the best choice. Thanks for sharing.

Why not call it Commuting by Human Powered Vehicle ? My guess it is a bit wordy. Glad you had a good experience of course experiences vary though the benefits become more apparent in that consistency.

That is great news, I am glad to hear things are going well with you. Welcome back to the commute healed and on the road again :thumb:

So good to hear these great examples give you one more reason to make that change. To ride a bike and to commute by it are exciting things. Your health and the environment are only one part, keep it up. As I am sure you will. Got me thinking about my commute but really I work from home most of the time so my rides are really just that. In themselves there are stories. That of course is for another thread. :)

Nice and cool. Low 50s. Blue sky. Passed a couple of women cyclists (not together) but overall I only saw one other bike. I think someone was trying to chase me but never got close enough to identify.

Oh and there was a sign next to the MUP saying "Trail Survey - Please Stop", and some college-looking people hanging out around a table with a drink cooler and stuff. I didn't stop. :o Hey I'm commuting to work! :p If they're there when I ride home, I'll stop and see what's up.

washed, cleaned and tuned up the commuter yesterday. I was in a wierd mood so my brother and I went riding. We were talking and messing around. I didn't realize how close he was too me when I said, "watch this." I hit the brakes and brought the rear wheel up. He hit me hard and we both went down in a mess of tangled bikes. My rear wheel is tacoed, the fender and rack are bent and one of the dropouts looks a little funky too.

I just sat there on the ground laughing while he apologized. It wasn't his fault and things happen. later today I'll try to make sense of the mess and try to get a wheel

Lesson learned, a few good laughs and no one was hurt. So, I guess some good came out of it and it could have been a lot worse.

Cold! I had to dig into my winter stash and broke out the arm warmers.

Wore a thermal shirt this morning, was a good choice, but would have helped earlier.

An older lady rolled up on her bike next to me at a stop light early on my commute. She said good morning, and I replied in turn. Wouldn't have noticed her except for the un-clicking of her clipless shoes. She was in a full lycra outfit. I'd guess she was in her early 50's.

When the light turned green I hammered away. You know "One cyclist, a commute, two cyclists, a race" thing. But When I left her in the dust I realized that her being a more mature person than I, was probably not interested in a race against a youngin like me. If I were to do it all over again, I'd probably take a more moderate pace and maybe strike up a conversation. Us cyclists need to band together!

It was probably a good thing in the end that I did hammer away and race all the way to work. I was running late as it was.

Had 2 items of note the last few days. Riding home Tuesday one of my seat bolts snapped. There's 2 of them, 1 front and 1 rear. The front one broke and the seat pitched backwards nearly throwing me from the bike. Luckily I did not lose balance, or control of the bike and it happened on a quiet side street rather than in traffic. I rigged it by taking the rear bolt out and putting it in the front. The seat, while still a bit squirrely, was relatively stable and could only pitch forwards rather than backwards. Only took 10 minutes to repair, before I was gingerly on my way for the last ~ 4 miles of my route. Stopped at an Ace Hardware and bought a new 5 mm cap screw for ~ 10 cents. Very cheap repair at least!

Also, Riding in this AM I saw a semi trailer disabled on the side of the road- the tandem trailer had disengaged from the tractor as the truck was making a turn. It looked to me like the front axle had broken off of the front trailer which caused it to hit the pavement and tear the trailer off the tractor....The driver did not look too happy! Very glad I wasn't drafting off of him when that happened!

jag, they look almost exactly like that. I have had them for about a week, scratched the damn things yesterday (my fault), but it's out of my vision. May go back and get the $19 dollar ones that came with a free case.

Today's ride was another cool, no traffic, no hassle morning...I love those.

My legs are finally starting to recover from the century I rode last Sunday. Had a pleasant ride into work this morning after several days of riding with dead legs. Got lucky yesterday afternoon, just missing a huge thunderstorm that hit around my office. I always check the radar before I leave work, but didn't bother yesterday because it looked fairly clear outside. Apparently the storm hit soon after I left and dumped several inches of rain, but I didn't see a drop of rain on my ride home. We actually could have used the rain where I live because we're been having a terrible drought, but the storm didn't reach my part of town.

Sweet. i think i'll pick up a pair for my ride home. It's usually too dark for sunglasses, but i wear em to keep the wind/dirt/debris out of my eyes.

Morning commute was mostly quiet and faster than usual. Which was weird because i was stuck behind a pickup and cement truck hogging the MUP for 3-4 minutes.

http://www.bikeforums.net/attachment...1&d=1219328381
http://www.bikeforums.net/attachment...1&d=1219328381

It was starting to rain when we left the house, so on went the rain jackets. Other than the slippery grating on my way into my building, the ride was uneventful. My wife did tell me about how she almost rolled out in front of a car yesterday, as her view down the road was blocked by a cyclist with an unusually large head. Apparently the guy was a good 30' away, but his noggin still obscured an oncoming vehicle.

Thanks for the glasses recommendations!

Suck-0 ride in. Had to rush assemble the MTB project with hardly functional shifters (rode as a SS) and janky brake set up on drop bars due to the fact the fixed gear lost a spoke one mile into my 10 mile commute home last night.:mad::twitchy::notamused::mad:

Getting wheel rebuilt tomorrow and may just go SS for the winter on the MTB. Found I don't really like this bike much anymore but it gets me around. Since I'm car free now I need to come up with some way to make peace again with the MTB. Project time!!:rolleyes:

Left early and rode in the dark, i dunno why, but i like riding in the dark. There was a heavy mist in the air, felt really refreshing.

This morning was uneventful, yesterday evening on the way to my girlfriend's I had a great encounter with another cyclist though. Traffic got really nasty on bloor which necessitated some precision dodging and we were both on completely the same wavelength. A car swerved right blocking the group of cyclists moving along, I broke free of the pack to go around left, another older (older than me, I'm 25, he wasn't old by any means) gentleman with tons of stuff in paniers does the same. We're both now moving down the center of the road and a cabbie three point turns and roadblocks in front of us. Seemlessly we both go around left, it was all just very smooth and safe despite weaving all over the road to dodge obstacles that kept popping up. He looks at me and says "always an adventure", I smiled and pedalled off.

It was fun, I liked that guy

Ever have one of those days where you know there's a headwind, even though the trees and flags are perfectly still? That's what it was like this morning.

Whoo-hoo... exactly 1000 miles on the odometer when I got to work this morning!

Second commute to work was a success! Looking for my first success commuting home later today. =)

19.8 mph this morning.. Have cut about 7 minutes off my time to work in the last 2 weeks..... 9.5 miles each way.

I cut about the same off the ride home yesterday..

The weather is still warm, I'm in Shorts and a tank top, will proabably be for the next month or two.. :)

Misty. Very fall-like. Don't like that trend.

Rugged, had to drive a car 150 miles. Could have left early and rode I guess. About Lebanon Indiana a roadie was flying up a frontage road by the interstate. Felt kinda like he was somehow rubbing it in.

Dressed like it was the end of September/early October. Long pants, long sleeved thermal shirt, wool socks. Wet roads, cool temps; lots and lots of rain riding yesterday. Kind of depressing...for the next 10 days or so. It may be sort of sunny on Saturday. Maybe. We had what, a whole 1.5 months of summer? I don't even care about the guy who almost ran me off the road yesterday...

Whatever else is annoying about the weather, my ride home last night was a lot nicer than these people's, all of whom I passed:

http://www.theolympian.com/710/story/553243.html

County made it up to me by completely blocking the MUP in 2 directions this morning but it only added in a 1 mile detour through a serial mall parking lot area.

This morning was great! Fay kept me off the bike Tuesday and Wednesday. Glad to ride today, just sailed couldn't have been a tail wind, I'm just getting faster lol. Then it became time to go home and I got to see that 10 to 20mph wind in my face. Cut my speed in half but can't stop how good it feels to ride. Hope crazy
Fay doesn't bring thunderstorms tomorrow. No matter how fast I ride I can't dodge lightning bolts.