Well I'm now on my second week of commuting to work.... :)

Traffic was light this morning, pedestrians and cars and bobcats...

Not sure if it was my rear tire tune up over the weekend or some new found strength, but I averaged 15.3mph to work and 15.4mph back on my 11 mile each way commute. Ahead of my 15mph goal, which I thought was aggressive given the dozen or so stop lights I have to manage.

My 15+ year old crank is starting to make this awful creaking noise. :( Need to investigate. I hope it's rebuildable.

SharpT

This just in!
Gearing up to 48x15 gets me in to work quicker! Good job, legs.


Caught a cold/flu over the weekend, but I figured the fresh air/sweat would do good.
It's getting to the point where longlseeves become the standard issure around here.
And soon, raingear....damn nor'easters :mad:

Ride home was fine. Kinda wished I brought a jacket when I left the office and was glad I didn't when I got home cuz I pushed it to warm up faster and got home in good time. It's supposed to rain tomorrow and me with no waterproof pants. :(

Today was my first day bike-commuting on my Nishiki fixed-gear conversion -- A bit more work but a hell of a lot of fun, especially pumping up the two little hills. Didn't see any other bikers though, which is odd considering how nice the weather has been lately.

Good ride to work and fast ride home . Had two other bikes in the bike rack today , at work . I hope the rest of the week is better at work then today was . But at least the ride was fun . Have a good nite .

First commute on the new bike.

And first commute in two months.

The bike is a Sirrus Sport and I absoultely LOVE IT. I need to get a new sadle though, because this plastic/rubber thing they've put on is frigging awful. The ride in was wonderful per ususal: really dark, kind of cold (gloves mandatory), and not many people on the road.

It'll be interesting on the way back home, since my legs aren't what they were two months ago.

Now I'll check out the thread on lights, because the ones I've got wasn't enough.

No commute today. I'm a little worn-out from a long weekend of hiking and riding. I'll be back tomorrow, no doubt.

A bus tried to kill me 100 yards from home (overtook me, then realised it had overshot the bus stop and pulled into the curb braking hard :rolleyes: ), so after that i stayed in front and near enough to the middle of the lane that it wasn't going to be getting past me again very easily :D

And i didn't even swear at the driver!

About 10% faster on my new/old 10 speed steel Miyata frankenbike, than on the 27 speed 29er with knobbies. Perfectly cool, calm morning, but really dark. Bet I coulda gone faster, but for the factors of :
A - "Man, road bikes have SKINNY tires! I betcha practically anything will pop one of these boys, I better slow down." and
B - "Jebus, this light is weak, weak, weak, I have no idea if that's a shadow, a puddle, or a hole... I can't wait for my lights to get here..."

Ride in was going great! I had the bus lane all to myself and was crusing along at 18 mph when I finally caught up to the bus which wasn't moving and there were no paths in any other lane I could get to for me to squeeze by. So I hopped the sidewalk, rode on that to the next corner, then kept on going. Was off my usual time by almost 2 mins! Damn traffic! Must've been my rain coat acting like a parachute. Yeah! that's it!

HEY NOW!!!!

It was tough not riding RAGBRAI this year. People ask me about it all the time (last night, for example) and I hate saying I didn't ride it this year.

****ty weather in No Va this morning, drizzly and overcast. I was all togged up in my rain gear, including new Pearl Izumi shoe covers, which took me a while to figure out how to get on, but seemed the business. I took it fairly easy coming in, so it took a little under two hours door-to-door. I stopped to delayer a little and adjust the helmet, and of course wait for the lights to change at Maple Ave in Vienna.

I was surprised how few cyclists I saw on the W&OD this morning. This was the first time I'd done the commute the whole way in in the morning (I usually do it midday or mid afternoon). I'd heard there were bike jams and the like.

Oh, I'd degreased the chain yesterday, and put White Lightning on it. The bike was eerily quiet and smooth.

Lights and cold weather gear now. I'm not a big fan of riding in the dark and cold but oh well. Good commute into work this morning. Yesterday morning I stopped at a four-way stop and signaled left, there was a motorist at the four-way straight across from me going straight and he was at the stop sign before I was. I did a track stand and waited for him to go (like I'm supposed to as far as I know). He got all angry and wildly waved me through while yelling "WELL??? GO!!!" He was yelling something at me when I went by too but I don't know what. You just can't please some motorists. They complain when cyclists don't stop for stop signs (rightfully so) and then some of 'em get upset when you do stop. Whatcha gonna do?

Pleasant temperature and a little misty. It has felt more like Oregon here the past few days instead of NC. I decided a while ago that I like all weather. Each type has merits and I choose to see those instead of the negatives. It makes for a pleasant ride every day.

I haven't posted for a while. It's autumn alright, 38F this morning and dark most of the way in. I had a wonderful commute, I took the long way and truly enjoyed the beautiful sunrise. I should get some extra mileage in at lunch time and my ride home this afternoon.

Heavy legs today. On Saturday I was in bed all day with a stomach virus. Felt better on Sunday so Monday (holiday for us, grazie Cristoforo Columbo!) I decided to take a nice 30 mile spin. Well, it turned into a 50 mile, nearly 3 hour slog thanks to road construction detours and a stiff headwind the whole way. I was knackered. So today is definitely a recovery day.

Yesterday was kinda cool, gray, and overcast. :(
Today, the sun was coming out as I left home and it has been shining all day. (Notice the message under my avatar.)
Maybe the temps will be much warmer that it's been for the past few days. :beer:

Dark, muggy and rainy ride to work this morning. This was my first ride in since last Wed. Felt like forever since I have ridden :( But I should be able to ride the rest of the week. Didn't ride yesterday due to heavy rain. It is now partly sunny out so the ride home should be nice.

it was a beautiful morning in portland. heavy fog early in the morning but the sun came out in the middle of my commute. it's been out ever since... too bad i'm stuck in lab and can't enjoy it :(

Some fargin' corksucking icehole bastige changed the gears on both front and rear derailleurs. Of course, I didn't notice until I tried to pedal. I figured it out and got it going properly. On the way home, every icehole dog owner felt the need to get in my way including going so far as to string the leash across the MUP that goes along the FDR. As if that wasn't enough, the fargin' bastige drivers can't make a left turn without trying to scrape up against the parked cars on their right. This also slowed me down. Now I have to check the chain and gears and hope I didn't bend anything.

jyossarian: Now if we did not have all the fun and excitement on the ride home would we have as much fun?? Today I was cruising through a major artery in a neighborhood and a white car was backing out of their driveway. I watched and noted they must have seen me as they stopped but still with reverse lights on.....as I passed an approaching car pulled accross onto my lane as if to pull into a driveway...instead....they stopped right in front of me to make a 3 point turn leaving me no escape other than 100% brake application. What a putz!! They guy just looked at me wondering where I came from!!

Arthur Dent (AD): I can take the corksucking dog owners and motherfargin' bastige drive owners. I wouldn't even complain (too much) about them. But the Motherfargin' corsucking icehole bastige that messed with my gear shifters? That boils my nerts.

48F @ 6AM with some clouds but no rain. It was sunny by midday & somehow I battled a headwind both riding home for lunch & returning to work. Sunny, 67F with only a few clouds this afternoon made for a nice commute home. I only see a few other cycle commuters lately.

yeah, i've noticed that too. steady decline especially since it started to rain regularly... what a shame

Good ride to work and home . Rode the ss today . I thing I have it set up right for commuting now . Have a good nite .

I don't have a set of those either, but ya know what works pretty good? go to a Modell's and pick up a pair of adidas or nike track pants - the wind/rain resistant ones do a pretty decent job this time of year.
They worked well today.

sunday nights are a problem. the body doesn't know from sleep until 4 o['clock monday morning, and 3-day weekends are no different. rode to work anyway, without forgetting a single thing this time. the scale in the fancy-pants health-club/racquetball joint where i take my shower thinks i weigh 200 pounds this week, up from 130 last week. i think it's wrong.

nice ride to work, nice ride home. mantra for the week: let's be nice to our knees. took slight detours both ways, only one of them intentional. dunno how it can be that i can still get lost by not paying attention when i'm going to work. nothing exciting happened, except!!! once i'd come over the bridge on the way home i thought eh, let's just do the insta-ped thing and walk across at the first legitimate intersection instead of getting killed from behind by traffic up those two blocks to the light. impressive; once i'd made it to the middle of the road i know they all saw me and saw i had nowhere to go back to either, and still none of them stopped. i feel i am now in a better position to feel the pain of people who bike commute in places like atlanta.

oh. and i saw my first roadkill (mupkill really) on that end of the bridge. i think it was a rat, and i'm glad it was dead.

songs: gaels blue, michael marra, on the way in, and macpherson's lament on the way home.

I had a good ride in but a tough ride home, got a straight-through thorn puncture on the front tire that I couldn't patch well enough to hold air. Luckily it happened within a block of a nice LBS so I stopped in there to fix it. I need to remember that it's basically never worth patching on the road, I should always just put on a brand-new tube and save the old one for fixing up at home. I spent a good half hour grappling with my floppy tire levers and tough 27x1.125 beads, only to have the patch leak air. Start over, take the whole thing off, retube, and off I went. The good side is that a nice tech at the LBS hooked me up with a lockring for my fixie so I don't have to worry about the cog coming unspun.

http://explosive.net/albums/biking/c...ring.thumb.jpg

Gotta get some 27" marathons or something, these performance fortes are just too wimpy for the conditions around here.

Ugh. Another dark, muggy and drizzling ride to work this morning. I know we need the rain, but either rain or don't, none of this in between crap. The ride last night home was nice, no rain or anything like that. I'm hoping it will clear up for the ride home.

I drove.