Mexico has Cinco de Mayo; Vermont has Bennington Battle Day.

Funny commute today. One car didn't see me, and pulled out from a side street in front of me,
but I was ready for it. A few minutes later, a motorist stopped in the middle of the street where
there was no stop sign, because I was waiting to take a left across his path. I usually wave these
people on, but there were cars backing up behind me, so I went. Then, after that, another driver
decided to change direction in the middle of an intersection, as I was following behind. She would
have right-hooked me, had I been further ahead.

This evening, I picked up our weekly crop and flower share, so I put the old rack on my bike this a.m.
I strapped the ½ bushel box to the rack, and tied up the flowers in a plastic bag and secured them
through the drops of my handlebars. First time I had done this, and it worked pretty well. My old touring
bike is turning out to be a great utility cycle. All I need now is a trailer.

A wet ride to work. First time in months since there was rain on a ride. Did not really rain on me but fell off trees, splashed off road. Used rear blinker light and most drivers gave me more room and respect.

You guys can celebrate if you want. The battle was, arguably, fought in New York State.

I did have to work, and my commutes were fine.

I made a karma deposit on my ride home. There's a section of trail that can be a little crowded (between the Burlington waterfront and North Beach), and today it was getting a lot of use. I hammered up the brief hill heading north and then waited it out behind a couple of kids riding with fishing poles. Kind of reminded me of when I was a kid. :o

Then I noticed one of their kickstands was down. (It was the kind that mounts to the rear axle...) When it was clear ahead, I bolted up next to him and said, "Hey watch that kickstand!" He looked down and said, "Thanks!" I watched in my mirror as he stopped to put it up. Might've been ugly if he'd taken a left corner. :eek:

Happy Bennington Battle Day!!

My company's moving out of town...they may want me to move with them...So when I was riding through the 'hood I kept wondering could this be the last time I may ride through this part of town...forever.

I wondered what it was gonna be like riding though some multi-laned lilly-white corporate burb. No chuckholes..no fear of getting jumped..no pricks in a beat up buicks trying to knock me into the curb on a busy 3 laner...

My commutes were great. I was late leaving for work this morning but the weather was cooler though still humid. One leg of my commute is on a busy four lane road. The drivers speed and can be obnoxious. But I've ridden enough so that I'm seeing some of the same people repeatedly. And they seem to be getting used to me.

The weather this evening for the trip home was glorious. It rained during the day and the evening air was cool and clear. I can't believe it took me so long to stop obsessing about every little detail and just get on the bike and ride to work.

Nice ride today, and not so hot. Some wind out of the northwest, starting to feel a little like fall? Too many dead skunks on the roads. (edited)

I've been smelling skunks almost every day lately. Haven't seen any though.

A co-worker/friend of mine met me at my house at 7AM and we rode together. Nice ride. Cool, with a light tail wind.

The commute sucked today! Apparently there was some kind of accident on or near the GWB (George Washington Bridge) which caused a ton of traffic to divert itself onto Riverside Drive. My normally tranquil commute turned into a vicious struggle with a55hat drivers who didn't realize that the city speed limit is 30mph and that perhaps they were the ones who didn't belong on that road (seeing as I'm there every day and they, well...).

Anyhow, I was so infuriated by one guy honking and buzzing (yes in an SUV, like you had to ask) that as I was distractedly filtering (traffic stopped at light) past his Rolling Cage of Death(TM) spewing obscenities which I would never use in front of people my bar end caught a mirror (wish it was his haha) and caused a 2mph crash. Bleah. I need to take my own advice and not let this cr@p bother me and STFU. :D I really lost my patience after like 10 honking buzzers, though. Minor road rash and a nice bump on the knee; nothing I haven't had in all my other 2mph crashes.

Unlike probably 99% of people at work I know where the first aid kit is so it's all well and good now (I used a spare network cable to tie a bag of ice to my knee too :)).

At least the weather was excellent, or at least the temp. Around 70deg F.

I came in late to work today, and as a result saw about a hundred times as many cars as I normally do. Seriously, they were backed up in stop-and-go traffic almost all the way to my house. Instead of them passing me, I was zooming past them. (Uh, safely, of course. I wasn't going all that fast, but they were stopped, so I was making some serious time.)

All in all, a beautiful ride in. Until a few blocks from the very end, where I had to hard-brake and swerve to avoid a rollerblader blading the wrong way down the middle of a one-way street. We both tried to go to my right, which didn't work, so he stepped up on the sidewalk, while I hammered on the front brake and ran into the curb. My rear wheel was lifted a foot or so up in the air, but my feet were on the ground at that point, so I wasn't going to go over the handlebars. Crazy rollerbladers. Aw, heck, even after that it was a beautiful ride in. Just a little humbling, getting passed by all the people behind me at the previous red light.

Good Commute this am. Nice and fast. Last night on the way home it was a 30K headwind and this morning it was a nice tailwind. Cloudy and 13C made it a pretty comfortable ride. Regina is hosting the Canada Games right now and my route is just a buzz of activity from dawn to dusk. It is nice to see all the people out however I am looking forward to November and December when everybody starts their hiebernation again. Then I can really kick it up a notch.

So sorry you got hurt! Sounds like a really frustrating ride. I rarely have to deal with traffic as my commute is all rural and residential. You must have felt so violated to see all of those cars on YOUR road! At least, I would have! :)

Wet, wet, wet going home yesterday. I stayed an extra half an hour at the office waiting for the lightning to move away a little bit (it was too close for comfort), but the rain was still coming down reasonably hard the whole way home. I still rode the long way home - once the shoes are wet, they're wet... may as well enjoy it!

Cool this morning - wore the arm warmers for the first 8 miles. A bit slow this morning too. No biggie - who wants to get to work early? :)

Hey, good to see that "how was the commute today" is still going. I've had little time to post recently, but promise that I'm still biking to work :)

Good weather today, so the 105 special got a rare weekday outing. This made for a great ride which simply ended too soon...

Cheers,

Ed

So true. As soon as the lights would go green the cars would turn the street into a highway going 40-50mph (30mph limit -- it's a city street). Invading Vandals and Visigoths I tell you. They're like summer vacation, no class.

It's funny that in the morning it is "my" road in a lot of ways. Sure there are cars, but nothing like today. The afternoon / evening is another story. If I get out a bit early (which would probably still be late for most people :() that street is pretty busy, so in some sense, only one side of it is "my" road. :D

Dropped the car at the shop and road the Allez home. Stopped for a newspaper, at the bank and at the post office on the way back. From the redlight by the court house, yes this town has a redlight, actually it has two, it's about four miles of non-stop highway to the next stop sign and a little less than another mile to my house. The road that actually runs to my house is sand and when we ride on it the Allez takes a perverse delight throwing me down and making me roll in it. Today we made it all the way to turning in to the driveway before this silly bike got the better of me and slammed me into the sand.

Towel off, clean up the bike, change clothes, followed by a little fiddling around the house and I'm loading the trailer to go fishing. Just for grins, borrowed the wifes bike today, Cannondale Comfort with a top tube length too short for me. Normally I take my Townie3 for this run. The Allez doesn't go because of a 7+ mile commute the first 2+ miles are paved. The other 5 are all sand road, mostly through the woods of the St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge. Do not stop on this road, for anything. This is classic Florida swamp and hardwood and palm hummocks. If you're on a bike and stop on this road at this time of year the deer flies will catch up and cover you. Repellent does very little to keep them at bay because they're very aggressive little biting buggers and you'll just sweat it all off anyway. Left the house at noon, fishing at one. Sand roads, on an upright bike, towing a trailer are s-l-o-w.

Got back on the bike to come home about five. Watched the butterflies jumping off the road as I road by. BIIIG grasshoppers in the road today. What we used to call Georgia Thumpers. Didn't see any rattlesnakes on the road on the way back this time, but did see a wild turkey two days ago.

everyday it gets easier.

I found a new route to my commute, that makes it more interesting. I usually commute on De La Cruz blvd in San Jose, but today I found out I can avoid it and it's multitude of trucks by taking a more scenic route through San Jose Intl. Airport. The factory smells along the route kill me though. Smells strongly of plastic and cardboard boxes.

Nah, you just get faster. :D (paraphrasing Greg Lemond)

The commute was 2^n times better today with no highway overflow. What a difference a day makes.

Glad you got your road back, oboe. :)

My commute this morning was uncomfortable. It had nothing to do with my staying up too late last night and drinking lots of beer. I swear. :beer:

Temps in the mid 50s. Cool and enjoyable.

Had knee warmers and a light jacket on. It felt like early fall out there. I'm going to have to carry a shovel and clear some skunks off the road. Ugh...Plus, saw the group of turkeys again by St. Michael's. Gobble gobble!

Last night on my way home from a bike maintenance 101 class at my bike shop, I broke a rear spoke! :mad: That is the second one in 5 days. The guys at the bike shop said I should replace my rear wheel with a double wall rim and go to 36 spokes.

Other than the spoke issues (which have all happened during errand trips to my LBS), week 3 of my commuting to work has been great. I have only missed one day of commuting since starting 3 weeks ago. Today was on my backup mountain bike. MAN, what a difference slick 700c tires make in your ride. My 26 inch mtb knobs felt like I was clawing through the streets to get to work. All in all, it only added a couple of minutes to my commute.

I hope the expense of a new rear wheel won't be too bad. I commute everywhere now (dentist visit, after work dinners with family, errands, shopping, etc). I have a greater appreciation of my road bike after this morning's commute!

Yesterday morning a fellow commuter (who looked mid-to-late 20s) caught up with me and we rode together for about a mile. Then we came to the hill that always kills me. I said this is where you'll probably leave me (I'm 60), and he did. He was over the hill before me and took off. Oh well, we would have parted company after another 1.5 miles anyway.

Today I rode into downtown Decatur (about 3.5 miles out of my way) to meet a co-worker who is new to the area and isn't comfortable riding alone in Atlanta area traffic. I let her lead the way most of the time since I was riding her route (parts of it were new to me). We got to work and my computer said the ride was 10.9 miles. That's better than my usual 8.5 miles. :)

Today was great. I was a little earlier and it was much cooler than yesterday. Just a little over an hour for my 12.5 miles. Only about 15 minutes slower than driving.

How old is the wheel? Could just be old spokes! If so, a wheel replacement will cost less than replacing and re-truing after every spoke-snapping. :(

No coffee in the house this morning, so today's commute included a sidetrip to Starbuck's. Coffee and a blueberry scone while doing the NY Times crossword (very unsuccessfully!). The Starbuck's route adds a mile and a quarter to my usual 3.5 mile one-way commute, but it's a nice treat.

This route takes me on an MUP that parallels a busy highway (Fairfax Co. Pkwy). At the one crossing I have to make, a car slowed to a stop BEHIND the stop line and checked for bikes and waited for me to cross before attempting her right turn. :D Very unusual for this intersection and refreshing.

A great trip in! :)

Mike

It is a 2003 Fuji I stored in the house (dormant) until realizing I needed to get my fat butt on my bike and commute. I have put more miles these last three weeks than I ever did these last two years. Another suggestion my bike tech suggested was taking the spoke and moving it over so that it crosses 3 or 4 spokes. That way, I keep my 32 spoke setup, just have to deal with a single-wall rim. This is not the solution he recommended. I think a wheel replacement is in my future.

Thanks.

Hey aadhils -- I bet that's the fiberglass plant at lafayette & central expy you're smelling. Except for the first couple of blocks there by the airport, I'll take almost any excuse to bike along Central. It's one of the south bay's hidden treasures.

My rides lately have been uneventful, except that every week Caltrans gets a little bit closer to completing the San Tomas Aquino Creek bike path between Scott Blvd and Mission College Blvd, so I can avoid the nastiest part of my commute (San Tomas over 101). I check it out on Friday afternoons to see the progress, which works out well except one day when they had tilled but not graded the dirt and I toppled in loose 6 inches of topsoil!

Its been a great summer weather-wise though and my body & my sanity are grateful for the daily biking.

Had to take a sick day yesterday due to a migraine. I was all set to go, packed, dressed, and ready to ride, but the headache and the nasty stomach that goes with it just kept getting worse. If I had a car, I would have taken the car to work as I could have worked through the migraine after slugging Pepto-Bismol and Excedrin!! Today, I rode in despite the lingering affects of the migraine and was OK. Now, I'm paying the price for taking a day away from work -- this SUCKS!!

Took a spill on a bridge in the trail. Funny that it was the same spot I fell down last winter when it was slightly icy. Same pose and angle as well. Wheel bent a little, went to the shop and they say you do that the same way again, you're getting a new wheel. Gotta be careful.