1st half was quite good. avg speed was 17 mph and still did not sweat too much. It was 61 and the sun was coming up. Very nice ride with the wind to my back. The ride home will be different, excpecting mid-90's and 10-20 mph headwind.

I heard a new one this morning from a SUV, Ford Expedition, driving women. She told me while I was waiting at the red light that I did not belong on the road becasue I had no Bumpers! I was so amazed at this I just looked at her and said excuse me? Then the light changed and she sped away. Other then that the weather was great!

Ride home yesterday was brutal. I left pretty early, which is to say before 6pm. The previous times I'd left that early I went crosstown first, the went up either West End / Riverside or took the Greenway. Yesterday, I decided forget it! I'm taking my regular route of Madison to 60th to the Park etc.

BAD MOVE. OMFG the buses were out in force on Madison at that hour. Not only was I choking on those wicked fumes, I was at times surrouned by buses on 3-4 sides. Scary, especially because one of the drivers clearly took pleasure in cutting me a off three times. B@st@rd! Maybe my company moving downtown isn't so bad -- I'll lose the big office but gain a safer commute -- my commute will be 95% Greenway.

Anyhow... ride this morning was great. I took it easy today and still made most of my stoplights. I don't know if being less aggressive is connected to having had a more pleasant ride or not, but pleasant it was this morning.

I don't understand days like these. The whole town has gone crazy! :eek:

It happens every now and then, but usually under poor weather conditions.
Today however, practically every car that passed me, or I met at an intersection-
seemed like the driver was out of their minds. Passing too close, right-of-way
violations, you name it! I saw it all this morning. Some guy even drove right at me
as I made a left at a green arrow. I know he ran a red light!

Maybe 'cause its a beautiful Friday, and their minds are not on the road. Who knows...
The full moon was on Tuesday, so I don't know what else is creating this lunacy... :D

Welcome, Tomzdad! And congratulations on the commute! I'm pretty new at it myself -- mine is 6.5 miles each way, half on a rural, hilly road and the other through a hilly neighborhood.

You're setting a great example for Tom and when he gets a little older, maybe y'all can ride together! :)

Yesterday's ride was great. I went downtown to visit a friend but he was in the middle of band practice. Then I remembered they were having the free concert on main street so I rode by there. The bike cops there are actually friendly these days. I don't know if they're getting used to seeing me around, maybe they were in a good mood. The only reason I mention it is because they weren't as friendly before.

Also, I saw five other commuters. That's the most I've ever seen in one day. One of them was the old-school commuter that I've mentioned before. I was disappointed to see him riding on the sidewalk when there was no need to. Maybe the VC bug has sunk its teeth into me or something.

On the way home from work yesterday, I was passed by a coworker on a moped. I picked up the pace and crept in to draft. When he saw me in his rear view mirror, he gave it more gas but I was keeping up. At the next stop sign, he gave me props for the sticking with him and mentioned that he may as well get a bike himself and save even more gas.

People already think I'm a nut anyway, so I have few hang-ups about telling my bike "I love you and I'll be back soon" when I lock it up.

Went the long way.... it was a route I had thought about before, and I thought it might be something of a fast spin... well most of it was, but there was one killer hill... At any rate, I did better average speed, and was able to include a cool bike path in my ride... really made it nice.

More than twice as long as my regular route, but what the heck I was up early anyway.

Checked clock time to bike time... 1:27 on the bike, 1:37 on the clock... so there was 10 minutes of waiting at lights? Wow, sure doesn't seem that long. No wonder driving a car can seem so darn frustrating at times.

Yikes... any excuse, eh? No Bumpers... classic. If she only had a brain...

I had hoped to get a long (20 or 30) mile ride into work this morning, but I was delayed by a child that needed a bottle and a new diaper and a dog that needed walking (why does it seem that all I do around the house anymore is to deal with somebody's poop?). Once I got everybody taken care of and back into their beds, it was already after 7.

So, I rode 6 miles in the opposite direction of work, turned around, and hammered back into town. Still got 14 miles.

When I got to work, I discovered that I didn't have any underwear in my locker. Luckily, a clean pair of running shorts is sufficiently like a pair of boxers. I don't think anyone will notice.

Once again, clear skies, mid fifties on the way in. Less traffic today for some reason. It will probably pick up when I go home, though!

rode home at night, work was so backed up by the time i got out of there i didn't want to ride for a few hours, which put me on the road at about 9:30pm.

i love riding in the dark, with lights of course, but i could really live without a couple things:

-bugs
-stupid rabbits (squirrels in the morning)
- idiots out with no lights or reflectors of any kind
- my saddle

tonight was the first time i've ever ridden with lycra shorts and a jersey- i usually wear some baggy shorts over the lycra. i really liked the comfort, you stay much cooler too, but i really need to gain some weight. i looked pretty silly!

Today while riding downtown, I came across a guy riding a bike and "towing" another bike with one hand on the other bike's bars. It was strange site. He didn't even look at me; he was too busy trying to catch up with a lady walking down the sidewalk. Then I hear him yell "You wanna buy this bike?" to the lady. I hope it wasn't stolen.

Hi all! My first time here - great forum. I'm just recently starting to commute after not doing it for a few years. This is the longest commute I've ever had... 20miles/30km one way. That's a lot for me and I'm taking it only one way at a time so far. I think I may have overdone it recently after doing a ride home and a ride into work the next morning... the old legs were pretty weak on that ride in (altho. I had a good time!), and all day I was barely able to stand, with a nice dull pain in my legs. Must start stretching or something...

Anyways, the commute is all highway riding with nice wide shoulders the whole way. Traffic isn't too terrible, and it's pretty scenic!!

Congrats, mtn_chick. 20 miles is nothing to sneeze at! (Mine's only 6.5 one-way!)

My commute this morning was fairly humid. Not too bad until I got to work, then I started getting uncomfortable.

There was a small deer running around next to the trail in a residential neighborhood. The closer I got, the more frantic its movements became. I slowed down and eventually it trotted off down a street.

I rode in this morning on my new 700x42 Ritchie ZED cyclocross tires. I'm converting the bike over for an upcoming 4 day ride of the C&O Canal and wanted a test run. It was fairly slow going but the big tires soaked up all the bumps that I usually feel. I got used to the constant whirring noise that knobbies make on pavement and enjoyed the cooler morning temps (although it was somewhat humid). Once I felt comfortable on the new, heavier tires, I picked up my speed a bit and took turns leading and drafting with another rider until I dropped him on an uphill sprint near Independace Ave. I'm leaving for Cumberland Thursday afternoon but will likely continue to ride out the week, just at a much easier pace.

Ride in this morning was excellent and I needed it after laying off the weekend. I was looking through the want ads yesterday and saw a job that was interesting and after I decided to submit my resume, my next thought was I wonder if I can cycle commute? So I am getting to the point that I think about the commuting before the work.

back on the bike after a backpacking trip to the black mountains (north carolina). such weather we have here! 78 °F at 8:00, dew point at 70 °F. that is pretty darn humid, and it will only increase. good thing i enjoy sweating!

On my way to work yesterday, I stopped at the convenience store. The guy at the counter told me I gave him the idea of buying a bicycle. He said he used to be a high-level soccer player but now he smokes, eats, and doesn't get any exercise. I told him about bike commuting. He looked kinda surprised and asked if I liked it (as in "am I forced to do this?"). I mentionned that I did recreational rides as well but also used the bike to get to work, and that the car was parked at work doing nothing. That guy made my day.

That convenience store is on a new route and right after I pass it, I get on a pedestrian bridge over the freeway. Bad news is the bridge was closed. there's a fence with a "danger" sign. I just went over the fence. The concrete on the bridge looks in bad shape. I wonder what the danger is. Are they afraid it will collapse? If so, why don't they close the freeway underneath?

On my way home at night, I usually use the street instead of the river bike path. It was sunday night so there were more people on the path. I couldn't help but to see how many people had lights so I used the path. None of the cyclists had them, only a couple on roller blades. :(

Humidity is on it's way up in these here parts. This mornings rain showers cooled things off but left some wicked humidity. Time allowed me to ride to the 2nd train station. My legs have returned, I just have to slow down a bit and smell the roses or bus fumes. This weeks weather looks good, mid 80's. Spudz I like your weather...until winter.

Oh, and I forgot... after hearing the traffic jam report this morning, the radio animator said "If you find traffic too complicated, just use your bike!" And that was his first day on the job. :)

Nothing interesting about my commute this morning. I put a jersey and shorts in my pack in case I can get a decently long ride home tonight. I doubt it, but it never hurts to be prepared.

I was expecting to feel pretty rough this morning since I worked out longer than usual yesterday. I felt surprisingly refreshed when I woke up this morning. Taking a peak out the windows, I realized that I might get wet.
Once outside the house, I realized I had missed the rain but it was so humid that it may as well had been raining. I decided to make the ride in more of a workout by mashing a higher gear most of the way.
I don't know if it was because of the weather or maybe people are getting used to me on my route. Anyway, people seemed to give me more space. One guy honked the horn, after he had passed, and lifted a big thumbs-up out his window (a refreshing change from the other digit I so often receive).
With the weather making less and less of an impact of whether or not I ride, I'm starting to feel like a bonafide commuter.

Today I was riding behind another cyclist, in the bike lane along the right hand side of a string of cars waiting for a red light. Sure enough, just as we were nearing the front of the line a garbage truck at the front flipped on their right-hand-turn signal, and started to make a turn. I was way back, and going relatively slowly, so I merged into the lane, and went around the truck on left-hand side. The guy in front of me tried to pass the truck on the right, and seemingly got his rear tire clipped. No-one was hurt, but as I was riding off, I could hear him get into a yelling match with the driver. I briefly thought about going back and letting the cyclist know that he was an idiot for trying something so clearly life-threatening (while also letting the garbageman know that not all cyclists are idiots), but I figured it was a nice day and I wouldn't really have been helping anything, and so I just kept on riding.

Cool ride, temperature-wise, this morning. Forty-eight degrees. Thunderstorims this afternoon, looks like I may get wet again!

I haven't checked in here for awhile. I've been continuing my commuting four days a week (not Friday, and that's a separate story). Today, it was raining a misty, summer rain in Beaverton. I enjoyed the rides (multiple today), and decided to go on a back route to stay out of the "spray zone" where all the cars were. I had to run errends today on the bicycle, as the print job I had to do had hung up the office printer. So Office Max did it today. I got an extra 6 miles in because of that. My last leg is going down a hill, turning onto a side walk, then going onto a bike path home. As I turned and went down the hill on the bike path, I heard a girl call out from a passing car, "I like your car!" I waved from my Rans Stratus recembant, and continued on. Rain in the warmth of summer is a lot more pleasant than in the winter.

John