It really isn't that exciting :). In addition to that fact, I'm sure the other cyclist didn't think he was yelling. I may have been over reacting. I tend to do that when I am tired. After all, it was the last 3 miles of a 35 mile ride. :p

Anyways.... my rear brake was rubbing a bit due to the wheel being a tad out of wack. To temporarily fix the issue before I take my bike into my LBS for a tune up, I opened the rear brake up a tad. I was trying to hear it rubbing and rounded a corner to fast while looking down. The other cyclist was a good 200 feet away and gave a loud "YO!"

Irritated me for no reason. Why I am still irritated must have something to do with my aching back and leg.

Oh well.

Y'know when I was trying to imagine what roads/areas would be filled with aggressive bastards, I thought exactly of where you're riding! :(

I'm sorry that you had such a negative and scary experience.
Beck

Today was the first time I rode all the way into campus and all the way back from campus. 100% bike! It was windy though, and for some weird reason, I had a headwind going to campus and back from campus.

I had to run a red light though, but there was no other way around it. I took the lane to stop at a red light, since right after the light is a very narrow bridge, and I don't want to get squeezed into the cement wall. For some reason, I couldn't activate the light, and the person behind me was stopped way behind me. I motioned for her to move up, but she wouldn't budge. I guess that's the consequence of living in a bike friendly town. :)

I'm waiting for my order to come in from Nashbar (slicks, platform/clipless combo pedals, and shoes), so I'm getting really excited.

Thanks for the kind words, fellas. I was in the financial industry for a while there.

Gusty, heavy rains and 43F here...I more or less 'rode the wind to work' :)
Radar shows 5 storms moved through this morning...don't know how many more are in the queue.

No commute today. Stayed home to give the grandparents a day off from childcare. Just as well, it looks like rain.

Might be time to combine your hobbies into a financially viable business. NYC could always use another good bike shop especially if you cater to the rider who always rides instead of the riders who buy bikes and never use them.

Seinfeld always struck me as that particular sort of character.

He always had that bike hanging in his hallway, but I also got the feeling that it was rarely ridden.

He was too busy driving his collection of Porsches to fool around on a bright green mtb.

Ride home was nice. Nearly endo'd going downhill, but I recovered and kept going. Lots of moron cagers zig-zagging all over 1st Ave. which makes me glad I wasn't driving cuz I'd have gotten crazy road rage. Also glad I wasn't driving north on the FDR cuz I was zipping past them too at a sedate 16 mph. Now it's time for some serious high speed driving and running over peds in MC3: DUB Ed.!

Just the opposite here today a reserve officer with the local PD "california stopped" over the STOP line, the crosswalk, and almost crapped himself when he did see me. Guess he needs me to watch out for him. Gave him the stinkeye, darn wannabe-cop :mad: Don't bother telling me to call in a complaint, I've done it before about local crime and been told by a Public Information Officer that my problem was a personal animosity. I'm not down on law enforcement, I volunteer with the Sheriff's Department. I just think this guy is a lousy example to the cagers around him. :mad:

Tomorrow I commute to work. It's a new location, same job. We moved last year. Looking forward to it greatly! I went over the route carefully today in my cage. Gotta get plenty of rest tonight. Hope it doesn't rain.

41F, 20MPH wind gusting to 30MPH coupled with rain showers made for an interesting commute in at 5:45AM this morning. Not much vehicle traffic and I didn't encounter any of the regular cycle commuters I usually see. Don

Heh, you're the second person to suggest that. I really appreciate the compliment! I'm not ready for that sort of investment, though. I have too much to go gain from my fancy education (I should be Oboeguy, Ph.D. by May) right now, but it is something to keep in mind. :)

i almost didn't ride to work today. prescribed myself a rest day because i was so beat yesterday and my bike seems to be coming completely unglued. my plan was to drive, do some of the grocery stuff to clear the rest of the down-time schedule a bit, and see if i could figure out how to put the bike right in the freed-up time. i went to bed not intending to ride, woke up not intending to ride, made coffee not intending to ride . . . somehow that changed this morning by the time i had everything unpacked and set up to go in by car instead. so i thought about it for a while longer, poked myself here and there to see if i was just imagining how fine i felt, and in the end i just added more lube to my chain, told myself i'd just take whatever mechanics came up as a convenient enforcement of not pushing it, and i did go by bike.

and wow am i ever glad that i did. you just never know ahead of time which rides are going to turn out to be the ones you don't think you'll ever forget - the experiences you'd just never have if you didn't commute by bike. that weather was incredible even to cars, but i would have had a completely different picture of it if i'd been inside one. it was raining hard and cold, and as soon as i got out of the alley and onto the road all the wind hit me. just amazing weather - real, real wind, and real gusts. wild sky, wild rain, trees going nuts, sirens at every major intersection, traffic more or less stopped . . .

i know it sounds silly, but it was so cool. our weather is so damn uniform most of the time, but this was like a holiday from the ordinary commute, like those days when you go to school and something's happened to put the entire routine into disarray. i rode down the bike path section getting blown eight inches sideways at every cross street, and singing sea chanties at more or less the top of my lungs. i mean, you sort of had to. it was that kind of spirit in everything. by the time i got to the bridge i was just barely restraining myself from hooting and giggling out loud.

out on the bridge it was even wilder. i made a note to myself to watch out for the gusts up there, since it's so much more exposed than the road, and there is that whole issue with the barriers-at-centre-of-gravity point. so i wasn't stupid, and i was even ready to be so freaked out i'd have to get off and walk. it was a little freaky, but it didn't change my mood. the part i wasn't prepared for up there was how those gusts seem to suck all the breath out of you when they hit. very odd. i was not frightened, actually, but if it had kept up for too long i probably would have got off and ducked down just long enough to get my breath back, because it was starting to feel like panic. it was another thing you'd never have known if you hadn't done it: the whole behavioural model of physiology causing affect, not following it. when i got to work i emailed a friend with apnea to tell her about it.

at the intersection on the other end of the bridge, i got joined by another commuter, who must have been behind me over the bridge. just in time i noticed that her 'wow' was more wide-eyed than happy, so i bit off the 'wasn't that incredible?' part of my answer just in time and just said the 'yeah!' part. we had a quick, breathless little conversation about the whole wind-speed thing and the half-assed nature of the whole bridge design wrt bikers, and even the weirdness of the pathway on the opposite side with its corrugations and its lunatic tilt. i was very happy to hear that she also feels like she's falling over all the time on that side, and she also has to work even on the downslope. then the light changed and she took a different route.

the towel-dispenser guy at the health club seemed pretty pleased to see me and my demented beam, but i didn't get any eavesdropping in once i got past him. i had such a manic perma-grin going that the squash-players took one look at me and stepped back a pace (the spot of oil dead centre on my forehead probably didn't help much either). only other thing was that by the time i got to work my brakes seemed to be more or less shot, so once over the bridge i was careful, i swear.

it rained like demons most of the day, and then after all that it was calm and soft, just a very high grey cloud everywhere. i spent some time tinkering experimentally in the parking lot before i set out, and got my brake cables tightened and my gearing (apparently) more sorted out than it's been all week.

today just totally rocked. it's my new best-ever.

songs: 'south australia', the pogues; 'sickbed of cuchullian', the pogues; 'bottle of smoke', the pogues.

I wasn't going to ride today either, I have places to be after work and time is tight, but when I got up I just wanted to be outside in the elements. It really makes a great way to wake up.

I started off trying to enjoy the wind and rain, the forcast is for another week of this at least so I don't want to dread it. Sure enough, with the right attitude I could find the good parts of bad weather. I started comparing the little islands of light the streetlignts make in the remaining leaves. Whisps of fog blew through the drier stretches of my ride.

It seemed like I was working harder than usual when I was climbing the first hill. When I had to peddle on the downside I knew something was wrong. I stopped and found I had my first flat tire! Rather than mess with a rear tire in the rain and dark I just walked the last mile to work. I'll deal with the tire later.

Telecommuted
it's a beautiful day out
too nice for working

Yesterdays commute home was rather annoying for the first 15 miles. Nice strong winds.
After the bus dropped me off up north I went the opposite direction. The strong headwind became a tailwind. Boy did I ever make good time.

This morning:
I was suprised to discover that my energy level was very low. It seemed much higher at home. Anyhow, paid the extra dollar and took the bus to within 2 miles of my work rather than the usual 15. I sure hope I have more energy later today. I would like to ride the 35 miles home. It all depends on my energy level and my sore back.

How was the commute today, you ask? Why it was GREAT!

I rode in on my new (to me) Gary Fisher and even with knobbies it was scads better than my old mtn bike. (Have to get presta valve tubes for my flak jackets, I thought rims took both?)

I haven't even had the chance to clean the bike up yet and it's still shifting smoother and riding faster and the OH and the AH... brag brag gush gush gush.

TGIF, ya'll.

Wow tokolosh that's awesome. That's how I always feel riding in a storm. I have this maniac grin on my face the whole time. Storms are just so awesome, the huge grey clouds, wind, rain pounding down, and you're out there EXPERIENCING it all.

My ride was ok today, a little cold. I tuned up the bike yesterday. MAN what a difference oiling the chain made! Holy cow I had no idea the bike could be that quiet! I guess it was overdue :o :eek:. And it's nice to have brakes that work before the brake levers touch the handlebars :rolleyes:. Disc brakes stop good but they need adjustment all the darn time.

Although it was so quiet now that I noticed a creaking noise. It sounds like it's coming from the front but I think that's incorrect, because the only way I could make it happen was to stand up then sit on the saddle again. I think the saddle is creaking and the sound is being transmitted along the frame. When I got to work I played with the saddle... it looks like my @#$(*@( suspension seatpost is coming apart. There's an o-ring that looks out of place, and a threaded part that looks like it's unthreading (I could tighten it with a pipe wrench but I don't have any tools here at work that would do the job). The saddle wobbles about 1/8 or 1/4 inch forward and back when I push on it... the wobble is from the piston part of the seatpost, not the rail clamp.

Boy am I glad I bought a new seatpost (solid) on ebay... now if it would just hurry up and get here.

Beauty, eh? Left on my normal schedule, allowing 45 minutes for a 41 minute average ride to the train station. Caught a tailwind for most of the way and I was feeling frisky, so when I flatted myself on a sloppy curb-hop (d'Oh!), I was able to change out the tube, pump it up, and get moving again in enough time to still make my train with 4 minutes to spare.

Unseasonably warm morning, in the low 60's with a stunning sunrise. What could be better?

Interesting week of commuting I had.

Changed my chain and cassette over the weekend and the bike felt like new. Monday evening I came around a corner on the path through the woods and there was a deer staring at me before she jumped into the woods.

Tuesday had to chauffer the kids around in the afternoon so I had to drive-BLEH!

Wednesday I knew I had an eye dr appt. in the afternoon and should have driven, but I couldn't do that two days in a row so I rode in and rode to the eye dr. I just pulled my fleece pants over my dress slacks, stuck my dress shoes in the panniers and rode in my dress shirt, tie and slacks. At the eye dr. she decided I needed to be dilated so the ride back to work and then home in the dark was particularly interesting.

For some reason I like to try to ride over leaves this time of year. I pick out individual leaves in the road and try to crush them. One of the leaves yesterday turned out to be a rock! Pinch flat! First flat ever on the road. It happened close to the office so I walked the bike the rest of the way and changed it at the gym. No more leaf crushing.

Last night on the way home my headlights ran out of juice and then the helmet light quit on the unlit trail. Fortunately the helmet light was only a loose connection and it got me home.

Today seems to be normal (knock wood).

Thanks for listening,

Mike

Perfect Week!!! Five for Five on commuting. Going back through my log, this is only the third time that has happened this year, once in July and once in August. Didn't even happen in Sept when I was 16 for 21 for the month.

Its getting a little windy- Wed night on the ride home, I had a beast of a wind coming at me. I was riding like 14-15 mph on the greenway and it took me about an hour and twenty minutes getting home. (16 miles)

Last night, I had the same wind with me and I was flying. I was doing almost 10 mph faster than the day before, 23-25 mph. I got home in 56 minutes. I was really making time on the traffic on the West Side Highway.

Lets see how next week goes.

Yesterday, I had a vicious headwind. Figured I'd have a killer tailwind on the way home. No such luck. It was hitting me on the side instead. I can't win!

No wind at all this morning. Tonight I'm going out with some mates to the pub, meeting my wife (who's delivering my headlight), having dinner, and then riding home.

The bad news is that my mother in law is visiting for the weekend, so you can understand my reluctance to get home quickly. :eek: :D

today's weather forecast

Rain / Thunder / Wind
High 52°F
Overnight Low 43°F
Precipitation 100%
Max. Humidity: 83%
Sunrise: 6:55 AM PT Sunset: 4:53 PM PT

how do you think my commute was today?

No wind? Lucky!

Yesterday I biked 60 km, swept a tennis court thickly covered with leaves (with my biking jacket, for the lack of better implements!) and played tennis for two hours. Walking in the morning was painful... but biking wasn't! I thought I'd take it slowly but ended up really punching it and posting one of the better rolling averages!

Beautiful weather. +17 C yesterday, same today. Didn't need my jacket!

Great commute today. I couldn't resist attacking some hills. I think tomorrow me and my youngest will head over to the silver comet trail for a ride. She's turning into a real cyclist, this summer we got caught in a deluge and she pedaled through it.

Today's commute was awesome. Hot...but awesome. Started at 58 degrees and is now hovering just above 80.

Cute story from yesterday's commute from work. I met my family at a deli shop for dinner. While eating, my 7 year old son says, "Dad, when I grow up, I want to ride my bike to work just like you." One proud papa!!!

Chris