chrism32205

It's been warm here in Florida.. hardly a winter.. it was 80°F yesterday. I had a good commute to work this morning, a nice 52°F. Working 3 days this week, having Thursday & Friday off.. very nice.

tarwheel 

Spent an hour cleaning my bikes yesterday since we've had so much rain lately and they were covered with dirt, grime and dried worms. The weather was SUPPOSED to be clear this week, so I figured it was time. Well, once again, the forecasters were wrong and I woke up to rain. I checked the radar and UPDATED forecast, and since it looked the like rain would clear during the morning, I decided to ride and get my bike dirty all over again. I've missed too many rides due to rain this month and was sick of it. Fortunately, the rain had stopped by the time I left for work, but the roads were very wet. So I didn't get wet, but my bike is all dirty again. Such is the life of a commuter bike.

BassNotBass

Had a great ride in to work this morning. The conditions were great and I had extra time to kill so I extended my route. Temp was about 33°F and roads/paths were dry. Winter Holidays have got to be the best for riding a bike. It's too cold for most people so I don't have any obstacles on the MUP that runs along the river and traffic through the city is a lot lighter.

BassNotBass

I like the rain... it's the only time my commuter gets washed.

dcrowell

Since buying my recumbent in July I hadn't rode my hybrid all the way to work. That changed this morning. Now that Nermal (the hybrid) has the new Brooks saddle, I had to ride all the way.

I surprised myself by having the same average speed that I normally do in cold weather on the recumbent (12.5 mph... not breaking any records).

The morning started out just under under freezing, but warmed a bit as the sun rose. Overall it was a very good ride.

InfiniteRegress

Commuting through DC at this time of year is just a dream. There was no one on the Metro or on the roads. It was so nice! And the weather was relatively mild - in the upper 40s when I left the house so I didn't need a ton of layers.

jpdesjar

35ºf when i left the house
my legs were a bit tired after some intense riding yesterday
it was sunny and there were some ice patches to look out for but it was a pleasant ride overall

-holiday76

A nice ride. I'd been pussing out the past 6 weeks or so after not missing one day of commuting from May - October.

This was my first cold weather commute and it was nice. If anything I was too warm.

I got to test out my newly built old Miyata 210 I put together this past weekend.

\

I'm happy with it but I'm assuming the commute will be faster tomorrow when I get a chain.

BA Commuter

^^^ Nice looking steed Holiday! ^^^

I have the week off, so I took a short morning ride similar to my commute. Man after a week of holiday feasting & drinking, I felt SLOW! I swear a brake pad or a fender was rubbing! I stopped to check, but I guess it was the engine!

bhop

Four blocks from my apt. Minding my own business on a two lane road, passing parked cars, I hear the squeal of tires as a car behind me slams on brakes. I swerve to the right since i'm just passing parked cars and I don't know what's going on behind me. I don't want to get rear ended, that's for sure. I look back now that i'm safe to the side, some guy is directly behind me, revving and braking alternately and honking. He turns right onto a street as we pass it, I slow down and glare, he stops, rolls down his window and yells in a thick Armenian accent, "Get out of way, get on .. (indecipherable, assume 'on sidewalk') .. mother****er!" We both go on our way, having lost about 5 seconds from our respective commutes.

That ruined my ride mentally for a few blocks, but after that it wasn't too bad, although it did seem like more inconsiderate drivers were on the road compared to usual. Faster cars because of less traffic (people off work this week I guess), passing closer than is normal, maybe bitter because they didn't get Christmas presents they wanted?

noteon 

After being locked in the apartment 4 days straight, potty-training four-year-olds and doing 2007 taxes, I got on the road this morning and my Dual Drive wouldn't stop slipping.

Walked it back, took the subway.

gborlase

Nice weather in to DC today, sunny and 40 degrees.

Slower than normal ride - four weeks off due to schedule hurt. Also, had a new Brooks saddle on and I need to adjust angle, and maybe get a seatpost with more setback. This saddle seems a bit closer to the bars than the stock LHT saddle.

Did a bonehead move and almost got myself hit this morning right outside my building. Waiting to make a left turn in the right-hand lane of a double left turn lane. For some reason, after riding for 50 minutes, I decide I can't wait 5 seconds for the lady in front of me to go after the light turns. Go to pass her on the left, hear tires squealing as a car in the far left turn lane slams on her brakes. I sheepishly wave and high-tail it into the building garage, only to be followed by the lady I passed. I get it rubbed in when I get on the elevator with her and she says, "You know I almost hit you." I apologize and let her know I made a mistake going around her, luckily a lesson learned without real physical damage.

mjw16

Nice ride this morning with temps in the 40's, didn't need to layer up like last week. Little traffic and few joggers/cyclists made for a quiet ride too. Nothing exciting this morning, just a solid ride with no incidents.

sonatageek

Nice weather in Cleveland (clear with 30s in the morning and 40ish by afternoon) so I decided to do the bus/bike thing. Missed the bus I was shooting for and had to wait about 20 minutes. Bus arrives and the bike rack on front is broke. Driver tells me sorry, so I move to the side and start to get dressed to head home. The bus stops and the flashers are back on. I hurry over and he says I can bring the bike on the bus and stand with it in the back. Yeah!

Just about downtown and my departure point for my bike portion of the trip and I realize that I don't have my gloves. I dropped them hurrying to the bus. Very cold hands for the 6 miles to campus. Found a really nice co-worker who is loaning me his gloves for the 16 miles ride home.

cobrabyte

It's been a while since I've posted on here, but it's been fun commuting this time of year here in FLA. I've been rotating between all my bikes, taking different routes. Last week I even rode to work on an old cruiser I fixed up as a Christmas present for my father in-law. I had to test ride it right! Of course on the cruiser it took me twice as long as usual to get to work, but on those 26x2.25 tires, going over the 3 sets of traintracks on my daily route was like floating on a cloud.
Today I took the fixed gear to work. I got a comment about the vintage Ideale saddle: "that thing looks uncomfortable!"...if they only knew

trombone

Warm and sunny, with light traffic owing to the holiday period.

If only it was always like this!

dwilbur3

Had an excellent commute this morning. It was about 38F and no wind. I did the 9 miles in a record (for me) 39:44 (down from 67 minutes only a month and a half ago).

Unfortunately, I have to take the car home. No school and no daycare = mommy and daddy trade half days with our daughter at work.

metalchef87

Beautiful weather for a whole week...it has been in the 50's all week, expected 60 degrees tomorrow...not really a winter to speak of, but hey I'm not complaining.

I'm off tomorrow, so I am taking a joy ride.

dcrowell

I just got home. This was the first time since July that I commuted the entire distance on my hybrid. I got spoiled by the recumbent.

It was dark by the time I left, traffic was light, it was about 50F, and the sky was crystal clear. Beautiful!

MNBikeguy

Bah! 30 mph winds gusting to 42.

Off work last week with just a few rec rides.
Today, back commuting I was really feeling the recent lack of bike time.

slloth

Very strange commute visually. I noticed it was a little foggy before I left. The first half of my ride was extra dark, and just plain eery. Usually I can see lights ahead of me from the housing developments and the street lights but this morning it was just darkness. And when cars would pass me I couldn't even see the fog line on the right side of the road so I was just hoping to ride straight for a couple seconds. I had a couple cars drive very slowly behind me long enough to make me feel uncomfortable and I had a couple large trucks drive fast enough by me to make me feel uncomfortable...you can't win for loosing. I will take the slow cars over the fast ones though any day!

dygituljunky

It was pleasant despite a temperature that dropped several degrees while I was riding. There was a decent headwind, my front brake was unhooked and was still dragging on my new rim/tire, and the dry wind made for a pretty significant wind chill.

But I still made good time, got the brakes adjusted at the LBS near work, dressed out for work, and had a couple of minutes to spare.

The temperature is plummeting tonight so it should be a cold ride home. Not that I'll let that deter me...

kegoguinness

ride on dyg! I didn't commute to work last week by bike so today felt awesome to do it again! I am thankful for all of the following things about my bike commute:
1. I leave earlier for work on bike-metro-bike days, so get to leave earlier (avoids some traffic)
2. It's a reverse commute, so less traffic
3. It's a reverse commute, so less crowded Metro trains
4. I can change in my cube at work since no-one else is really in yet. Don't have to deal with bare feet on nasty bathroom floor
5. I have a casual work environment on days when I'm not leading classes, so I could forget my work clothes and be okay.
Big THANKS to all you trailblazers who keep me motivated to ride to work at least once a week.

dygituljunky

The ride home was AWESOME!

• I had just the right amount of clothing on,
• I was only about 45 seconds behind my bus when I got to the bus stop I use on public sag wagon days,
• I dropped another 2 minutes off of my time for a nicely round, exact 45 minutes,
• The lights were with me like the force was with Yoda,
• I finally have tires that I feel comfortable banking hard into turns,
• My brakes not only don't drag but now actually slow me down reasonably quickly when I need 'em,
• I only had to come out of the pedals 3-4 times for the whole trip.

On the downside, I beat the sunrise by 10-15 minutes so I didn't get to see it where I normally have a nice wide view of the sun coming up over the rapid transit line. Not really much of a downer because I didn't have a glare for the rest of the ride.

350ish lb of bike, gear, and me. Rolling Hills. Already tired legs. All that and I beat my all time high average speed (12 mph on the nose) by 0.2 mph. I just HAD to let out a loud whoop as I banked into my driveway.

Thanks!

I couldn't agree more, y'all give me a place to be pumped about my relatively low speed (compared to my former pro-racing middle brother).

FredOak

Damn, damn, damn...Last week it was 4-5 feet of snow, then that melts and floods the streets, now 3 days of 50-75 mph winds and tomorrow they are calling for 6-12 inches of snow again...I'm getting sick of riding the trainer!