I feel terrible but I must confess that I've had an "all drive week" this week. Fatigue from; last weekend's mountain biking, sore knee (again), mid-week party, and finally, tennis last night have all conspired to keep me off of the bike the entire week. I'll probably ride some this weekend and definitely be back on my commuter schedule next week.

It's just my third day doing the 12 mile halfway commute. But this morning it felt like I was cycling in mud (I do believe that I had a dragging brake pad). It was warmer and I was a bit crispy by the time I got to work. I'm looking forward to taking it easy on the way home.

:D mjw16 is hereby cast out of the circle of light and excommunicated from bikeforums.net. enjoy exile!

Todays commute was fine, I went to work real early and conditions were fine.

For some reason work was busy when I first got here and was unable to post. But I made it another week without commuting by car. I feel even better about that now after seeing gas is around 2.74 here at the moment.

Have a good weekend.

Most of them aren't on Bike Forums!

p.s. we just got a couple million $ from the new Transportation Bill for bike/ped improvements.


I know exactly what you mean...

Congrats on your first commute. It only gets easier from here!

I really do not enjoy the Friday commute home. Everyone and their mother wants to yell at me to "Get the **** off the road!" I try to resist the temptation, but I sometimes raise the bird, especially when they honk in an attempt to scare you, which is quite illegal in Tennessee. It's good to be home. :)

Wednesday afternoon: rode home through a nice thunderstorm. Lightning was close-but-not-too-close, and the rain was coming down hard. Quite cathartic, really.

Thursday: Didn't commute, thanks to a certain feline requiring a visit to the vet's office for vaccinations. Appointment was 4pm, and due to a few meetings at work I knew I wasn't going to be able to leave the office at the required 2pm to get home and to the vet's in time.

This morning: Nice. Cool. Fast.

Hang in there! Soon they won't have any horns to honk and they'll have to cuss you as you whiz by them as they trudge along the road to work.

skijoring,

I feel bad about it, I really do, especially given the price of gas and lack of exercise, etc. I, however, didn't know that I'd be risking bikeforums exile. I'll be back 100% next week, I promise. :-)

6 days in a row riding, and 5 of those commuting. Traffic was heavy tonight, work was bad all week, but I start my vacation tonight at 11 PM. Hopefully I'll get a lot of riding in. Have a good night.

I've worked up to commuting every day. Strangely enough I made the leap to every day commuting when I was working for three months overseas, in the Taiwanese city of Kaohsiung. Bad air quality and chaotic traffic but I thououghly enjoyed the experience. That's when I got used to riding in the rain and figured out how to deal with problems and not let them keep me from biking. I came back home and found that getting in the car in the morning felt unnatural.

My commute today was great but eye-opening. My street bike (Jamis Coda Comp) was in the shop so I rode my old Diamondback mountain bike. I had forgotten how much better my street bike is for commuting in my circumstances - 14 miles round trip, some hills, some heavy and some light traffic. The mountain bike is great for some things but not for commuting, for me at least.

Durham, huh? Me too!

Hey Rick, I just wanted to say hello to a fellow Virginian.

I would commute about 6 miles round trip to my previous job at Office Depot a few years ago. I would ride my Klein Mountain bike which was fine but no road bike. I would ride in the rain and heat, morning or night. I found it peacefull in the mornings to hop on my bike and actually smell and feel the ride to work and not just see it. I did feel a little awkward sometimes, though, when someone would come in the break room while I was streching. :)

Great early morning commute today 6am. Fine fresh cool morning. Good after the excesses of the weekend at the Edinburgh Festival.

OUCH!!!

Went Down yesterday.... Was making a right turn onto a Street... Pavement-to-Pavement with a (1.5 ft) patch of WET Concrete... Damn bike just went out from under me... I did a pretty good roll with one foot still clipped in.

Funny thing, I am in pretty good shape, all I got (so far) was a little Road Rash on my Knee. Getting ready for a ride today!

It's great to be back on the bike this morning after missing all of last week. I was a little apprehensive as my left knee has been bothering me (just on my commuter bike as it turns out). I moved my saddle forward about a quater of an inch and that seemed to really help--very little to no pain this morning. I also re-calibrated my cyclo computer for my new wheels to get a more accurate idea of my speed (going just by feel, I was a little disapointed with some recent rides, but as it turns out I'm averaging 19-20 mph).

Nice and cool this morning - 62 F or so. Had to swerve around a fresh roadkill skunk, then got cut off by three(3!) drivers in a turn lane that I also occupied while moving forward. 2/3 of said drivers were on cell-phones. I wonder if they were talking to each other?

Edit: saw two bunnies and a group of wild turkeys(two hens and 6 poults). :)

Great commute, I had a late start but finally made it in.

Amazing foggy morning in Ottawa, wish I'd brough my camera, like something out of a Monet painting. Rode my Conti Ultrasport tires at 90 psi instead of 100 and it made the ride that much more comfortable.

Bit of a chilly commute this morning with temps in the low-mid 40s. Had to wear the arm & leg warmers with a jacket. Comfortable the whole way, but am not quite mentally ready for such chilly temps.

The morning ride into work to day was overcast, a bit cool, with a decent head wind. It almost looks like it'll remain that way throughout the day which would be nice for the commute home.

This was my first time commuting on a day besides Fri. and I liked it. Keeping my clothes from wrinkling wasn't as much of a pain as I thought it'd be. I'll be commuting M,T,TH, and Fri. this week. I just refuse to drive my car since I'm so ticked about the price of gas in SoCal. Anyways, I really enjoy the commute. I can wake up later since I don't have to ride before work and I get to work earlier than when I take my car.

Uneventful commute today, except for the brutal heat. Our area's typically oppressive humidity
pushed the heat index close to 100°F today. I replaced the old Weinmann center-pull brake pads
on my old Moto GT with some Kool Stop pads yesterday, and this was my first commute with them.
It was good to feel safe again ;)

WTF? Have not commuted in about 2 weeks. Today was hard, I was very tired, winded, yet when I got to work, I realize it was one of my fastest rides! WOW.

Wonderful ride in this morning, like fall. Cool temps in the 70's and breezy. It's also quite a bit darker than just a month ago. I felt good this morning and passed several other riders, however, I made a couple of bad choices on the road in DC. One I got caught between cars on the double yellow line trying to cross 15th street, the second; I cut off a truck that was pulling into our parking garage-bad move. I don't know what I was thinking, but fortunately nothing was that close and I'm here to talk about it. Usually I'm more conservative. I've also concluded that my rear hub has finally kicked the bucket. It's an XT with a lot of miles. It loosens whenever I remove the wheel and now makes a grinding noise. I think I'll replace it with something better as opposed to having it rebuilt. May be a wet ride home for us DC commuters today...

*Unbelievable!!! After crashing on Sunday, The ride in today was Great! I put on New tires on about a week ago... Conti Town & Country... well the Conti Rep was right, I gained about 3 mph on my ride in today... Then of course I was making those legs work harder since I was so jazzed up~!

Ride Safe

Yesterday: Fast ride. I ended up having an easy weekend just hanging at home and doing a few odd jobs, and the 2 days off the bike seemed to give me a lot of energy.

Today: Took it easy this morning. Didn't want to get out of bed, and I think I'll do a longer ride this afternoon on the way home.

What did Greg Lemond say? "It never gets easier. You just go faster."

My ride was very pleasant other than my annoyance at the driver who ran the red light at Vallejo and Land Park. She appeared quite elderly and her car had disabled person plates. She cruised right through the red at 30-35 mph and only after she got 100 yds or so past the intersection I saw her brake lights go on. Well, don't bother now!

Anyway, the rest of the ride was easy and slow. I fell behind a guy on a cyclocross bike who seemed to be going to the Capitol area too. Lost him at a stoplight that I didn't want to sprint for.

Still overcast and foggy this morning. It was nice though, the air was moist and crisp. Had my fastest ride to work yet. As I continue to get comfortable with the roads I should be able to get it down to 30 min. or so. It's a little hard to get out of bed but once I'm on the road I'm lovin' it!

Bennington Battle Day. No work, so I battled through a 28 mile ride through the lovely burgs of Shelburne, Hinesburg, and St. George. I saw a beautiful red-tailed hawk trying to be inconspicuous, while sitting still on a branch scanning a field for breakfast. Some pretty stiff southwestern breezes = not a very fast ride.

Bennington Battle Day? WOW, maybe they will come up with something like that for us people across the lake.