mtessmer

Finally it gets above freezing and I'm home sick... Figures.

daredevil

10 above today. Felt like a sauna after the below zero rides of the previous two days.

Standalone 

Faced a road rager in a jacked up pick up truck. He accellerated to pass me on the right as he came off a cloverleaf while I was trying to cross to the new shoulder, then swerved to buzz me on the left as I continued to try to get out of everyone's way. He did the whole run me down, stop, yell at me as I passed, then try to run me down again. I'm lucky a ramp opened up in the curb on the bridge to escape to the sidewalk.

daredevil

I'm glad I only have the weather to deal with. You guys mess with much more treacherous stuff. I ride a time of day when I have the highway all to myself.

rdkopp0153

It was GREAT! I saw another bicyclists and waved!




https://alternativecommutepueblo.blogspot.com/

dygituljunky

Nothing to comment about my ride until the last 1/2 mile when a car full of college gals passed me only going around 5 mph faster than me yelling, "Wooo, bicycle, wooo, yay!" Made me crack a lopsided grin.

I made good time today despite being loaded down with some electronics gear I had to bring in to work. Maybe that Clydesdale Gravity Drive kicked in a few times...

mjw16

Morning ride was good, chilly, but good. I found the right gear, you know, the one that you can stay in the meat of it for most of the ride and it feels good-I think I only shifted a couple of times. That was good. Legs felt strong, had a nice tailwind too, that was good. The ride home kinda sucked, windy, cold, and raw (damp) feeling, sprinkles here and there. It was good to be back on the bike, this week's been tough with home repairs, bike repair (rr. hub), doctor's visits, etc-I think I only rode 3 days this week. Things should settle down next week and I should be on the bike every day.

noteon 

I encountered five distinct species of cyclist on the way home today:

A guy riding a Strida.

A dork in butt-crack jeans and Wayfarers who gave me The Look after passing me while I was pootling up the least of my daily hills and thinking deep thoughts.

A strong rider on a Tikit towing a hardshell suitcase on one of those little trailers. I speeded up to watch the trailer, since I've got everything but. It looked solid! No bounce that I could see at all. Then I slowed down. He was fast with that thing!

A good samaritan on a road bike who asked if I was all right while I was stopped and playing with facebook on my new iPhone.

And the usual people who aren't hipsters, just rugged individualists who coincidentally dress and groom the same and ride single-speeds.

Oh, and some 43-year-old wiseass on a tricked-out folder who thinks he's clever.

El Gigante

First time poster - long time reader!! Commutes both directions were awesome today. 65 F and sunny at 5o pm in the afternoon on the way home. Only drawback is that part of my route, (Figueroa St. in downtown Los Angeles) is being resurfaced and the top layer of asphalt is gone. It would rattle the fillings of someone on a mountain bike, let alone a fully laden hybrid. First time this year riding to work in shorts and T-shirt, no jacket. Overall week was good - rode all 5 days and felt good doing so. One simple thing I did this week to improve the commute was inflate my tires to the right pressure. Its really easy to slack off and think "I'll do it tomorrow", but man what a difference. Probably picked up 3-4 mph because of lower rolling resistance. Doing a 30 mile fun ride, the Tour De Sewer" in Bell Gardens next weekend -https://www.bikeforums.net/images/smilies/thumb.gif wish me luck!

Specialized Crossroads Elite

Pig_Chaser

Thanks for the post! Keep em coming.

The commute home last night sucked! Have i mentioned i hate spring, well the melt anyway. Such a disgusting time of year. Massive puddles (lakes really) often concealing potholes. A season's worth of sand on the road all in a heap after being stripped of the layers of snow and ice separating it. I took the major road as the side roads were next to impossible to avoid the splash. I managed to avoid the splash until about one block from my house where i got it twice in rapid succession.

The commute this morning was nice. Temperatures went back down below freezing turning all that water on the road back into ice for the time being. The studs traversed it without a single slip this morning. Traffic was light being Saturday and all.

Standalone 

I keep thinking that I've found that on my panasonic on my night rides to choir. But my fitness is improving at a rate that this is not a constant. I'm also much more in tune with my energy level and aware when I don't quite have it, not to mention the fact that I have different effort goals & time constraints on different nights... so that main gear seems to constantly change on me from ride to ride.

chephy

Had to yell "Watch out!" twice today: to a cyclist who decided to turn left from the right-most lane as I was passing her, and to a ped stepping into the road without any warning, with his back to traffic.

My commutes are killing me - I'm riding pretty much every day and my legs are screaming at me to give them a rest. Normally they get to recover during the weekends, but these days I have to go to courses on the weekends, so there is no end to the bike trips. Maybe I should take the subway tomorrow... but biking is just too much more fun...

Pig_Chaser

ahh... -8 perfect.
It's going to stay cold for the next couple days during which we'll get some snow. Then it'll warm up and i'll have to relive the horrible melting all over again.

Pig_Chaser

Can you give yourself a bit of extra time and go light? A light day can help recovery. Although i myself have never managed to do that, maybe for a trip, but never an entire day.

dygituljunky

I definitely have days like those. Luckily, while my work days are loooong, my work weeks are only 2 or 3 days long. I'm also having fewer and fewer days like this. For about the first two months of steady full-length commuting, my legs hurt every time I moved, every time I sat still, and most of the time when I lay down. I learned to listen to my body saying, "GIVE ME A REST DAY, DANGIT!"

Love the avatar, BTW.

MIKEnDC

Around 40F/4 or 5C calm, wet, and foggy. Nice riding, really. And probably more or less what we'll have all week. I believe I can hang with this.

I benefit a lot from Sundays off of the bike. When I can't, I try to trim back riding and hauling to a bare minimum for a few days to try to get the same. Sometimes, though, you just gotta keep truckin'...

tarwheel 

After riding two days in the rain over the weekend and getting totally soaked, I decided to drive today. It wasn't raining, but still cloudy with wet roads and more rain forecasted. I'm tired out drying out wet shoes and cleaning off my bikes. The rest of the week looks much more promising weatherwise.

tnath0522

Nice ride this morning using my Niterider Minewt headlight for the first time. Since daylight savings time I have been riding to work in the dark in the morning using a "be seen" battery headlight. The output on the Minewt was awsome! Nice being able to see where you are going. I was even a few minutes faster on my 8 mile commute. At $105, the light is a great value too.

It was low 60's but very humid in Tampa this morning. My shirt was soaked through.

neilfein

My carpool is temporarily suspended for the next 8 weeks, so it's back to a bike-train commute for me! I spent a couple of hours getting the winter crud out of my folder last night - soaked the chain in degreaser, scrubbed the chainring and the hub gear, swapped out the knobbies for regular tires, and in general tightened the bike up.

It sure was nice to be back on the 70psi tires!

vtjim

Very nice today. Low 20s F, no wind, blue sky, sun just peeking over the Green Mountains and visible through the still-bare trees. I saw lots of geese flying north over Lake Champlain.

I'm not doing too badly, plodding along at 13 or 14MPH on my under-inflated studded snow tires, but I'm thinking about throwing the road tires on to get some speed. Trouble is, there's still ice to deal with in the morning, and I know I'd be tempting a blizzard if I swapped tires.

fletchh

A very nice ride, 32 F (0 C) with no wind. It felt a little like a spring morning. This make a commute of 5 days with degrees at 30 F (-1 C) or above, snd that is a good sign of warmer weather.

Itsjustb

Too many layers under the rain gear this morning. Arrived covered in sweat.

My free ride using the fitness center locker room is apparently over. They've realized I never signed up (they charge $8/month just to use a locker in this building; in my old building it was free) and are coming after me. I need to find another place to change and keep my gear.

daredevil

^^^^^
That sucks. I'm so lucky to have all the accommodations I need.

32 today. After the below zero rides of last week it was awfully nice. Anybody that can't ride in temps like that is a wuss without a doubt.

HardyWeinberg

cold and wet. rain rain rain. My avg speed way down for today. But I didn't really notice anything while riding.

Took 7 yr old to school yesterday so he could make roostertails in mud puddles w/ his 20" bike. Good stuff.

noglider 

I didn't ride my bike to work at all last week. I took Friday off and didn't get to ride then, either. But yesterday (Sunday), I took a fun ride with a couple of friends. We went about 20 moderately hilly miles, and I rode my fixed-gear bike. Boy, that thing gives me a workout! Slowing the bike down uses muscles that I don't use for pedaling, so I'm sore in unusual places. And I take all of this as a good sign.