We set a new rainfall record over one hour yesterday morning: 117mm (4.6 in) between 7 and 8 am. I worked from home in the morning . The previous record had stood for 130 years. Having been completely soaked through and riding through foot-deep water the week before last, I'm glad I wasn't riding.

Today, on the other hand, was gorgeous. Nice ride in and back. I have my windows open now – we're down to 26C/78.8F outside for the first time in ages. Not too humid, either.

First bike commute of the week. I'm coming back from pulling a muscle in my neck...6 days off the bike! So I took it easy on the way in. It was a pretty mellow ride, except for tripping over my own feet while trying to get going at a stoplight. Oh, and I forgot my mirror. Not cool.

The sky was beautiful, though. Nothing like riding to work under the stars.

It's raining again! My wife's Superflash conked out about 30 seconds into the ride, so I had her stay close to me all the way in. I'll have to put a fender on her bike so it/she doesn't get wet. She hates fenders - thinks they're goofy. She may change her thinking when she doesn't have a soggy ass during the next rainstorm...

I regrettably discovered the limits of fenders the other day. It doesn't matter if your butt is dry if your feet plunge into the water with every pedal stroke

Finally I am back in business ! After around 1.5 months of work from home, I am back at office. Todays commute was great. A bit cold, no crazy motorists, not much traffic. All good !

Construction report:

As of last night Carstowe was also closed off. *sigh* I saw pedestrians coming out of it and I thought I could at least walk my bike through, but by the time I got there the workers were trimming tree branches around the overpass and the sidewalk was blocked too.

The #41 bike route heading north works okay as follows:

Glen northeast to Summerhill
Summerhill west to MacLennan
MacLennan south to Whitehall
Whitehall west to Mount Pleasant
Mount Pleasant north to Inglewood
Inglewood east to Welland, and continue on as normal.

It seems like a lot of round-about stuff before Mount Pleasant, but it's not too bad because those streets are all short and low-traffic. Mount Pleasant itself is the painful bit, as always. Riding on it is a deathtrap, and I won't do it; I'll walk on the sidewalk instead. Can't wait until I can fix up my folder and make it roadworthy again, because the 20" tires make it sidewalk-legal...

Well my flatless streak ended last night. I blew out the rear tire in a construction zone, pulled off the road and found about a 1" nail in my tire. That nail woulda flatted a car tire so i'm still in love with my Continental Gatorskins.
Sticky situation this morning. It was raining fairly heavily and I was going down an undivided 80kph rural road. Still early and still darkish. A dog that has been known to chase me had me lined up in his sights. I can see a line of cars in my rearview moving to pass. I tried to signal to the cars to stop (of course they didn't), the dog runs out into the road as the cars move to pass me. They see the dog at the last minute and there's a braking and skidding. Every commute's an adventure.

Isn't it always the case that when you're up early and have plenty of time something always happens to make you late anyway? This morning it was a leaky pump head. It cost me 15 minutes and a CO2 cartridge. Feh.

Was damp (but not a steady rain) this morning. I don't like riding into work in the rain.

I am, however, starting to be sold on the idea of synthetics for cycling wear. (Still no cycling-specific clothes for me, though!)

Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.

First day back on the bike in about a week.
A perfect ride! 75* in the morning, 95* on the way home. No honks, middle fingers, or empty beer cans today. My ride home was so easy. It's the harder part of my commute. The majority of the 7 miles is uphill and into the wind. Today it almost wasn't even a challenge. I was able to keep a good cadence the entire time, and I found myself riding certain harder parts of my route in a higher gear than normal. Simply Awesome!

Cannot wait until tomorrow's ride!

Nice ride this AM, except for the 5 minutes of SHEER TERROR as I tried to make my way past the high school right before school started (oh right, that's THIS week!). Think hundreds of amped up 16 year olds with Brand! New! Drivers Licenses! who don't want to be late to class. Think unexpected lane changes, daring U turns, people shouting to friends in other cars. Add hordes of teenage pedestrians, wrong way cyclists (heads up, dude in green t shirt!), kids hopping out of illegally parked cars, plus a few dozen moms with strollers and/or dogs on retractable leashes.

Well SHEER TERROR might be a little overstated, but I certainly was alert!!

Stick with this route and I won't need coffee....

Last night was tough in an Az. monsoon. Also a guy tried to wreck me, looking me right in the eye, by pulling out in front of me as he went right. he stopped as i yelled, and then did it again while laughing. I veered around, got off my bike and punched his passenger side door panel. he stopped laughing and sped off. It was quite deliberate, in contrast to most folks just being weenies on their phone or high on prescriptions, or drunk.

No commuting this week or, from the looks of it, next week. Gotta get our stuff packed to move from our current apartment to our new apartment. Add to this, the possibility of a visit from Hurricane Gustav (go away, we don't want your kind around here) and, well, things are just peachy.

On the plus side, I ordered lights and other assorted goodies to deck out Fredkenstein and myself in glorious Fredness. Most everything should be in by next week (already a couple shipments have arrived).

I've been commuting for a year now, but I feel like a new commuter now, having installed a basket on the front of my bike. That was supposed to hold my laptop, but the laptop goes on the rear rack in several layers of padding instead. This morning I had a large-ish package to return to Amazon by way of the UPS Store so into the basket it went along with my clean(ish) clothes for work. I felt very European. It was a good ride. I had cars to trip the traffic lights for me all the way out of my neighborhood, for a change. One lady pulled up behind me and, just as the light was changing, asked me if my bicycle was a racer. I don't know what my Giant Cypress does on its own time but it doesn't race when I'm on it. I told her it was a hybrid. She wanted to keep talking but that light is only like 10 seconds if you don't hit the pedestrian button.
Got to work (law school) at lunchtime (I teach in the evening) with students everywhere. I prefer not to go amongst'em in my lycra--I can see them averting their eyes from my middle-aged bulk and varicose veins--but so it goes. The ladies room was closed for cleaning when I got to it so I'm still waiting to get into my Clark Kent duds.

The cycling gods were in a weird mood today! First day cycling/commuting after 5 days off in Montreal and a 20 lb backpack with all my crap on my back.

Took the 18.5 mile route in, was in misery! Slow, sluggish, painful, wind in my face. Finally made it to work worried about what the afternoon will hold for me.

Ah, but the way home, a near empty back pack, wind to my back or slightly a cross wind, staying between 20 and 30mph pretty much the whole way home! Ended up taking the long route of 20.5 miles and was so happy! My first non-head-wind commute home!! WHEE!!

Weird good times......

Last nights ride home was a very wet one, the kind of wet that fills up your shoes so your toes can swim kind of wet. O and the ride was it was all up hill. Two car passed both of the cars gave me and them self enough room, to bring warm fuzz's upon me. I pasted on the riding today as we have had nothing but rain all day and now into the night. Looks as if the rain will be with us until the end of the week give or take.

Well that's it for the Black Mountain report..

Peace,
All

Dang, I usually get in the lane to cross the largest intersection on my commute. I was going to do so today, when in my rear view mirror I saw a huge dump truck coming down the hill behind me! I would have had no problem with a normal car there, but I did not expect this! I tried to hit the "gas" and get through the intersection on the "fog line". The right turner ahead appeared to be waiting. The dumper actually slowed and didn't pass me until I cleared the intersection and was 100% back in the shoulder, but he hit the gas immediately thereafter and I was absolutely enveloped in a huge cloud of substantial black deisel exhaust! Talk about bad timing...

Yeah, my toes were swimming in that storm. it felt good except for the headwind the last 8 miles. I felt like a slug on ludes

Cold again today! Thermometer on the deck read about 45. Hands were almost numb when I got to work. But the ride was very pleasant once the body warned up. Looks to be a beautiful sunny day!

Dark as usual. Really peaceful. The mornings aren't so hot anymore so I get to work fresh. The only problem is the two dogs who always try to ambush me at the corner of my block as I head out. They don't really worry me since they loose interest after I turn and begin chasing them. A human on a bicycle can be suprisingly fast!
Ernest

The past week has been stiff headwinds on the way home. I am beginning to wonder if it's the hurricane's in the south mucking up the westerlies. Eitherway, it makes the ride home a challenge.

This morning was a nice ride. Took it very easy. was almost late. :-)

It was cool this morning, uneventful, but man I was just not motivated. I think I hit the first 8 red lights which kind of screwed up my timing because I hit this PIA hill right after that and had no speed going into it. Then I played "catch ya" with a bus for a few blocks until I hit the down side of the hill and lost him.

Last nigh these two middle age women followed me for a block and just keep laying on their horn. I looked to make sure I wasn't dragging anything, then looked at them, got the usual pleasant hand gestures. I smiled, and kept going, they kept beeping until they finally made their turn.

it was still pretty breezy this morning but not in my face like yesterday...pleasant commute and i spotted a few other people riding as well, not sure if they were commuters or not but i am starting to see the regular people

commuted yesterday and ran five miles after work and my legs felt great this morning...trying to get an appropriate amount of sleep each night, the air is getting drier and cooler which is nice

i walked to work this morning - to reacquaint my feet with my hiking boots for a hike up Mt Washington this Saturday. It took 25 minutes to walk 1.8 miles. I'd rather ride. At least the weather is beautiful though - sunny, cool and dry in central CT.