Actually, I'm enjoying the weather (not the rain) here in Ohio. I wil not be griping until it goes below 20F, I think. We'll see.

54F at 6AM today, but only 85F at 3:30 for the ride home. Much better than yesterday's 96. Saw a lot of other cyclists today, waved to all of them. My Boss called a meeting just before gohome time. Seems our new agency head will be visiting Thursday during the annual Bar B Que & we're supposed to "spruce up a bit, tidy our work areas & try to look more professional. Guess that means I wear long pants instead of cargo shorts & park my bike in the supply room instead at my cubicle. One colleague brought up the "T" word. So far, ties are not required...Don

My sympathies, such non-events are so much BS Piled higher &Deeper. Of course in my field the usual phrase is we are supposed to "clean the s**t before it hits the floor" and always seems to occur when half the dogs in the hospital are there for vomitting & diarrhea. You just have to laugh.

My commute was delayed this morning while I picked up the 31 6d nails spilled at one intersection. It's not so much I cared about the cars tires, but I knew they would be in my path tomorrow. I figure I'm saving the time to patch a tire tomorrow, which will make up for the time I lost today. Perfect weather here, but the sun is mighty low on my way home.

Had a flat on the way home. A nail went straight through my Gatorskins and through both sides of the tube. Not much will stop that. One patch held, the other didn't, so I changed the tube. There are two pieces of good news:

It was lovely, but the City of Portland needs to consider a bike lane on Macadam. I gave a poor pedestrian a heart attack today, which is slightly better than the heart attack AND broken neck he nearly got when I tried to run over him. Due to heavy traffic, for about six blocks I'm forced to ride on the sidewalk. I swear I was going slow, but it was one of those where we came around a corner going opposite directions at the exact same time and I managed to swerve to miss him by milimeters. I apologized profusely, but until I can get off the sidewalk at this unavoidable point in my commute, I'm going to be paranoid.
On the upside, despite having to go slow through this six block stretch, I shaved about 10 minutes off of my usual time. I know progress comes fast early in your commuting career (this is only my 3rd week of doing it), but this doesn't detract from the feelig of accomplishment. :)

This morning: A great ride in - avg speed 19.4!
This afternoon: OK, avg speed 17+

Saw a rabbit on a leash dash across the road right in front of me - most bizarre.

Hazy, Hot and humid. A rocky ride this morning. First the bike chain fell out of my new bike bag. 5 miles up the road I notice that I forgot water and security badge :o

Then on the way home, the handle bar bracket became loose, so I had to take it easy. Good news is when I encountered two sets of broken glass, no flats! Also the thinner shirts were much cooler than my jersey. Didn't know jerseys came in Winter and Summer...hmmm...

Tomorrow will be better!

N7,
Glad things are going better for you.

The ride home last night was bad. There must have been something wrong with I-75 because the side streets were extremely crowded with fast, pissed off drivers that liked to take the frustration out on me. People were flying by me very close, blowing horns and yelling. This is the worst I have ever gotten it. Then all of a sudden people were slowing down, giving me plenty of room etc. I looked over my shoulder to see a police officer on a motorcycle behind me. He got to my side and I asked him if something was wrong, he said " No nothing wrong, I am just going to ride along with you for awhile to make sure nothing happens" How sweet is that? I did not thank him enough.
Thats how bad the traffic was.

This morning was much better. Nice mild temps and not much traffic.

If you have any identifying info on the cop, send a note to the police department and thank him. His boss will see it and the note will go in his personnel file.

Good ride in today. The extra 4 miles added to the ride by a roadwork-induced detour is actually rather pleasent and picturesque - I may adopt this route permanently! It was bright, sunny and warm today which was a big departure from the torrential rain of yesterday morning. The ride was just 0.01 mph under the 19 mark, according to my high precision (;)) cycle computer.

Cheers,

Ed

Yeah I am doing that today. Cincinnati police needs all the positive feedback they can get.

Today was the earliest I have ever started my commute. It was still dark so I had to break out the lamps and blinkys. I was in the office so early the lights were not scheduled to come on until 8 am. I had to get ready in the dark.

Good ride in this morning. Bit of a 12k head wind from the SW but it didn't seem to slow me down (still can't get over how strong I feel lately). Gonna start to up the training rides. Its nice to ride into work without a bag on my back, I feel much lighter. I noticed a couple of vehicles attempt to overtake me as we got closer to an interesection and they wanted to turn right. They must have mis-judged my speed, going too fast for them I guess. :D Looking forward to an extended ride home.

Brrr. 46 degrees F this morning. It's summer, isn't it. Had a funny run in with a maroon SUV last night on the way home. I was taking it easy, rolling down Cedar Lake Rd. just East of US 169. The road has recently been retarred and then had gravel layed. There's a wide parking lane with some parked cars and a bunch of the gravel that hasn't been compacted into the tar yet, so I was hanging out just to the left of the edge of the door zone, not really taking the lane at all (there are no stripes on the road yet). This maroon SUV is behind me and beeps the horn. I glance over my shoulder and decide there is plenty of room for him and me, especially as there is no oncoming traffic. The driver beeps the horn at me four of five times as he passes. I look over and glare and he honks again. It's a young guy, probably still a teenager. He immediately signals a left turn so I decide I'm going to let him know I think it's rude to honk at people and follow him. He notices me following and takes off... 4500 lbs. SUV scared of a guy on a bike. I chase him around the neighborhood a few times and he eventually looses me but it's clear he's circling around his destination. I decide to just go home. Pretty funny...

Summer? Hah! Thick fog, lashing rain, howling headwind. Two near misses, both classics - one overtake and turn right in front (we ride on the left over here) and one overtake, park and then open the car door into me. Are these people capable of thought or did the car keys come with a lobotomy?

Still, by the time I'd got off the roads and onto the cycle track it was kinda nice just pootling away in a granny gear staring into the murk - a zen experience.

I haven't had any run-ins with motorists lately. I wonder if I'm benefiting from some sort of TdF afterglow.

But I've been riding so sluggishly this week, what with the heat and my suddenly reduced aerobic capacity from giving blood on Monday morning. It must be the exact opposite feeling of being on EPO.

Just checked the NWS website: it's already 100F at 2pm and will probably be 105F by 5:30pm. (What's that for you metric folk? 41C?)

Two days in a row, and feeling good. (For those of you who may be counting, I don't commute at all on tuesdays :P). My new route definately has a spot that is more hairy than my whole old commute. I don't know if I will take the direct route on rainy days since that would mean I will be riding on the road paint. That stuff is slick when dry. The hills are a bit larger on the direct route. Also, there is more opportunity for a very hilly alternate route w/ minimal mileage increase.

Another 54F ride to work at 6AM & 85F ride home this afternoon. Saw about a dozen other cyclists 3 or 4 were on vintage rides.

Sharon, MA doesn't allow shooting in their town, the east side of town bordors a large state park, and the west side has a large wildlife sanctuary. Because there is no hunting, the big human threat to the wildlife is vehicular traffic. Most of the time as I ride through the sanctuary the deer just stop to look at me briefly, then go back to browsing. This morning I encountered a deer crossing the road. It paused, turned and jumped over the stone wall, where it stood watching me ride by. This leads to my question of the day:

If a dumb deer can recognize me as a vehicle, why can't more motorists?

Hot today, though not compared to some of you guys, I'm reading - only 95. Sorta hot for PDX. Relatively quiet, quick commute. It gets smoother every time I do it. Though I'm starting to think that maybe running 6 mi in the morning and then commuting 15 mi both ways might be a slight overkill. I'm not feeling in danger of injuries, but it's leaving me kind of tired all the time. Tough to get out of bed in the am.

Cool, yet humid this morning. Left early so there wasn't much traffic, just me and the road for most of the way.

Distance - 15mi
Avg Spd - 18.5
It Felt - Pretty Good

rode from work to a friend's house to help work on a boat. 14miles, 91 degrees, loaded panniers. I've never riden there before, so the route I chose probably wasn't the best. The worst part was 300 yards of road where a road turns into an expressway, and there's a freeway onramp there. Why do people drive like such idiots around onramps? after that hairy spot, I jumped on the bike trail for most of the rest of the way. Was a great ride for a wednesday afternoon, I should do this more often.

The ride home last night was much better then the night before, traffic was back to normal and people where giving me the room I needed.

Ride in this morning was cool with a tempature around 54(F).

I have a question. What kind of clothes do most you wear when the weather turns cool. I have cool weather jersey's and tights for when I ride the road bike but I don't really want to wear those clothes to work. Any ideas?

The temps were in the mid 50's and no wind this morning. The number of other bikers I saw was way down - 8. However, the number of fox I saw was way up - 3. I didn't set any speed record this morning, but I had a great ride in anyway.

I've been thinking about fixed gear all summer, yesterday at lunch, I rode the LBS and bought a flip/flop rear wheel, 15tooth cog, lock ring and short crank bolts. It won't be long now until I give it a try.

Ride in this morning was pretty fast without incident. Its too damn cool for August. I'm not liking this years "summer" one bit. Last year I was sweating like a gorilla at this time of the year (no offense Chris :D ), this year my jerseys are only a tad sweaty when I get into work, almost dry you could say. Just like Ricardo I've been thinking about getting a flip flop single speed/fixed hub for the fall months as well too. I don't want my drive train to get all mucked up when the weather finally turns sour.

Ride home last night was great. What a difference the northerly tail wind makes vs. the prevailing sw headwind. Relatively cool too, low 90's. I could literally feel the wind pushing me up the long uphill section after the bridge instead of trying to push me back :D Usually I dread the 11 mi home leg because of the extended uphill, the headwind and the summer heat. Yesterday was great ... even the hors catagorie (for me!) climb right at the end where I invariably confirm my max hr ;)

This morning it was very cool ... I felt chilled mid August in Central Tx!! A roadie or tri trainer in his aero bars caught me coming up the hill about the 9 mark with the help of a light that stopped me at the bottom. I picked it up and stayed in contact till the light in the middle of the steepest part went yellow just as he hit it. I had hoped to hold with him another 1/4 mi to my work turnoff

I should actually get 5 days commuting this week after averaging 4 days almost all summer. No appointments and finally worked out a carpool arraingement to take my son to soccer practice while I pick them up after practice.