I asked my wife to pick me up more bus tickets. No such luck.
So, with one ticket and no cash I decided to ride the whole way to work. In no way shape or form was I ready for the ride. Not enough sleep or energy. The good thing is that my colder weather gear worked fine. 15F and I was nice and toasty.

Last nights ride home had a cold wind. Other than that it was fine.

I'm glad I put the fenders back on the bike. No actual rain but the air feels super heavy, probably 100% RH. It's cool, but not quite cool enough for the ski pants I wore. Wet pavement and lots of slick leaves this morning but I managed to keep the rubber side down.

Frickin' cold today! -15C when I left the house, and it was just starting to snow. A week ago it was +15C, so this is a big change. I had a weird experience with the snow being illuminated by my headlight. I felt like I was being attacked by thousands of tiny white specks. It's snowing even heavier now, so I'm glad I have my spikes on.

The usual.

Heavy overcast and cool almost all day. Got some rain this morning, so I fiddled around the house until about 9:30 when I was sure it was over.

On the way to work I twice saw two whitetails browsing beside the road. Then saw a bald eagle sitting in the top of a tall dead pine.

On the way home I saw one deer and two armored-dillos. Started wondering why I even keep a log. All I do is enter the data from the bike computer onto the desktop, make a note about the day and forget it. I never go back and reread old entries.

Good ride to work today. Threatened to rain all day, but never did. It was a bit windy. The traffic was light coming into work and going home. Have a good evening.

36F, windy & rain with snow made for a wet morning commute but still better than yesterday when it was 23F with reports of black ice and SWMBO told me to drive my car to work. Don

SNOW!!!! yeah, okay, i'm excited. it dipped below freezing for a while last night, and then it snowed about an inch, and then it commenced to creeping back up again. by the time i set out we were back on the right side of 0c, but only just, and snow was falling quite heavily with wind between 15 and 20 kph - or so envirocanada sez. it's still several degrees warmer than what i was worried about this time last week, so i was a very happy puppy. me n my fleece n my silk shirt n my tights n rain pants n my snowboarder's gloves. and it didn't feel cold. the display about halfway through my ride said it was 1 degree, but i'm ready to swear it felt quite a lot warmer than other days at 5 or 6 degrees with the rain.

snow falling on the north-facing uphill part of my ridge, freezing rain on the south-facing, downhill part. practically nothing at all on the bridge, and by the time i got there i was just rocking from the slow-dreamy process of going carefully through the snowy part and then holding it back for the freezing rain. the river and parts on the other side of it looked like a breugel painting. it was gorgeous. i boomed into work and was high on myself all day long.

man, that felt great. being at work and watching the snow falling outside the windows, and being amazed with myself - lookit ME. me who wasn't even sure she was going to make this a sustainable commute at all three months ago. two days from december and i rode my BIKE through this snow, and didn't it rock?

2 degrees on the way home, and again, didn't feel like it. i took it easily all the way, expected to be tired, and i was. detoured in the last bit to go get more groceries and bring home dinner, and it was sorta-kinda snowing very lightly again when i did the last bit. it will continue to be a little colder every day for the rest of the week, and i'll probably find it harder as we go through the days. but it's been a great start anyway. if it only gets a little bit worse than this every day, i think i'll be happy.

told a friend in wisconsin about it when i got to work. just received this email from her 4-year-old:

dir tokolosh
i dont hink that is a good ideu too rid yoor bik in tha sno.

heh. little does that little kid know. my friend said 'wow. wait till i tell [my husband] about this!' it's fun to impress people so easily.

songs: you keep it all in, the beautiful south; easy money, martin simpson; sharkey's day, laurie anderson.

First ride today since last Wednesday... yeah, I had a lazy holiday :o I though my muscles would be well rested but I just felt out of shape. Blah. Anyway, I stayed at work later than I usually do and I had my first ride home when it's completely dark outside. I found out that my lights are absolute crap :mad: and that I seriously have to consider buying some better/brighter ones before I get myself in a life-threatening situation. Mine just can't compete with other vehicles' lights in high-traffic roads. I also found out, to my horror, that my rear lights fade or completely switch off when I tap them :eek:

I've been reading y'all posts for sometime. I would love to see deer, duck, sunrise or sunsets. But Memphis just does not afford me the vistas on a 10 mile suburban westward morning ride in the dark at 6am. Heading home is more scary as there are now cars on the road!

But, I am excited to report I had my first deer sighting! Ok, so I heard something running beside me in the woods and then when I looked I got mooned! Better than the dead racoon I had to ride around a minute later!

Cold COLD! Ok, so it was 30F with 20 mph gusts right out of the west. Longest ride time wise ever! 13mph average when my best is 18 including all stop lights. Tail wind helps ;) Today at 3:13 CDT it is 28 with a heavy frost but no wind...yet! Darn cold w/o booties and proper softshell. We'll give it a try.

No one else commutes that I can see. So I browse here to see what's going on. Wish everyone would advise exactly where they are riding.

Stay warm!

Yesterday I had the best tailwind ever. Easily at least 25MPH. It was over 60 degrees, and I was plodding along on my 18 year-old 40-pound (with baggage) Peugeot at over 30MPH at one point. No wind noise. Just the whir of the tires. Amazing how much wind resistance slows us down. I was still in the small chanring, and barely working at it.

This morning it was dead calm, but damp. High 40Fs. Decent ride, I guess.

VTJim: 30 mph in the small chainring on a 40 lb bike?!? How fast do you go in the large chainring on the light bike?

About time BF got back up. I actually had to do work today! Ride in was fast (for me). Broke the 10 min. mark w/ a ride time of 9:34 at 13 mph avg. and a 2 mi. commute. My usual is 11+ mins and 11+ mph avg. And I still have a cold. I guess I was given some inspiration by the roadie commuter that flew past me going up a small hill on Lex. that later got honked at by some cager in a Chevy Corsica. I figured I'd try to catch up, but of course I didn't.

Ride home wasn't as fast as the ride in. Oh well. Maybe tomorrow. I'm getting upgrade-itis as the Christmas season approaches. I think I need an intervention or I'll end up w/ $1000 worth of parts on a 15 yo bike.

EDIT: I saw a cab almost right-hook a bus today. Those knuckleheads will try to right hook anything. The bus driver wasn't about to let that happen so the cab driver backed off and waited for the bus. Pretty close though.

Decided to take the road bike instead of the hybrid today, even though I needed to tow the utility trailer. I have dreams about being able to get my act together enough to not need the trailer one day and and fly in and back on the road bike. :D

Saw three whitetails on the way in and then another doe by herself. On the way back I saw two more deer. No armored-dillos today.

Not sure if I'm seeing the same people, because some days I don't ride and on days I do ride it's aften at different times, but awhile back I started giving an acknowledging nod, smile and lip-synced good morning or hi or some other greeting to nearly every car that passes in either direction. Now more drivers seem to be returning my greetings with a nod or a wave or smile. :)

Edit-Of course part of this may be that this county only had 27,179 people living in it in 2004 according to the U.S. Census Bureau. :)
Edit II-Didn't think to mention it until AD-SLE said something, but there are a lot more ducks down than there were. I see them all day long at work. They didn't start showing up in any numbers until the last day of the first phase of duck season. That's okay though, the second phase starts in ten days. :D

The ride to work was good, it was snowing but surfaces were predictable. It's fun having better acceleration traction than the motorists :D

Coming home was not so good, there's dense chunky snow on the side of the road. It's also criss-crossed with tire tracks from vehicles that pulled into or out of the parking lane, which means I have to constantly be watching, anticipating, concentrating, adjusting... bah, I sent the street department an email. <Jedi Mind Trick> Plow The Bike Lane. </Jedi> At this rate, I should take "the long way" every night.

Of course, tomorrow we get another 2-6 inches of snow, so I'll mainly be hoping to hit the "sweet spot" in the plowing cycle.


What is this "impossible?" We have no such word in our language. :rolleyes:

CommuterRun...so where are you that you have such a plethora of deer? Today I looked into the area where I saw my first deer. I realized that due to the hard 90 degree turn in the road, three lanes going to two and an uphill climb all at once has caused me to not once look into this wooded area. Odd to think I have never looked at something after 3 months of 75% two wheeled commutes but I guess it can happen if there are other more pressing things to watch.

Official temp somewhere around 22-26F on this am ride. Everything was white with frost which was quite pretty. But w/o booties I could not feel my feet. The one time cars and a long red caused me to unclip and put my foot down, I almost went down because I had no feeling in my foot. Even worse trying to get my foot back in and clear the intersection! Not sure I can wait until xmas for booties. Rode home in 100% darkness which is not too bright literally and figuratively. Month end kept me at work and I decided like a fool to ride home and ensure I avoided another 20 car miles. Have to drive kids in am as my oldest has unicycle club at 6 am at school! Worthy reason to burn dino fuel.

Short day today, threw in an extra 12 mile ride after I got home. Down in the low 40's today. That's cold for California. By January I may need to wear more than shorts and a long sleeve jersey...maybe. Fog around town and rain threatening all day, had to ride before it pours.

20 MPH swirling headwind at 35F makes one lousy commute home. enough said

extra...for me today! rode to main center for "training" on how to write tx plans that are beh generated.
anyway, ctr is 8.4 mile dst and after "training" rode to p/u and then deliver meds locally. my regular 6.5 mile commute increased to 34 miles and i got paid while doing most of it! life is good!

things were much more normal today. quiet, grey, some wind, some of yesterday's snow still lying around, but nothing very exciting developed during the course of the day. 2 degrees going in, 2 degrees coming home . . . it feels like being in wait-mode. one of these days we will all get caught at work by weird weather developing; we all know it. i'm looking forward to it mostly as an excuse to ditch in the middle of teh day. now that i've done kite-lifting wind and tree-drowning rain and a small bit of snow, serious snow is the next thing on my to-tick-off list.

nothing much to say about today. i am so very much counting down weeks to the end of it all. coming home it seemed like there was some frost building up as i came up the ridge towards home, but i can't say anything gave me any trouble. there seemed to be some squirmy patches here and there, but i don't know if that was ice or imagination or something else. at these temperatures i admit i'm glad it's not raining as well.

songs: tonight i fancy myself, the beautiful south; chain of sorrow, john prine.

The MDC bike path in Boston, MA has moved into winter mode this week.

On Monday I saw only 7 bikes on the path for the roughly 8 miles I'm on it. Far more joggers, runners and walkers.

Observations:
The non-migratory Canadian geese that have taken up residence along the Charles River over the past 10 years are actually learning to leave the bike path clear. There are still the occasionally surly rogue geese who strut into the path and hiss but for the most part Konrad Lorenz would be impressed with their learning curve and adaptability. I wish I could say the same for the headphone wearing pedestrians and joggers.

Squirrels can run more than 15 mph for at least 25 yards. I startled one today who ran parallel to me and it took me quite a bit of time to pass him and I was traveling at 19.6 mph.

Despite having all my rain gear with me I neglected to put it on for my ride home despite the threatening skies. Naturally, I ended up getting soaked. But it felt good because the air temp was unseasonably warm.

We dodge deers in suburban SE pennsylvania.

My commute to work is all rural with about half of it either bordering or through the St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge. Some of my fishing commutes also take me through the refuge. I think the deer I'm seeing are the same ones every day, since they're always in the same area. One of them is a big, reddish doe. I see her quite often on that stretch of highway. :)

That is my light bike. :D Always wondered how fast I could go on a very light bike.

Back to seasonal temperatures this morning. Mid-30Fs. A quiet ride in. Slight tailwind. Saw some ducks.

Oh I just realized... First day of December! I've now ridden to work every single month of 2005.

Woke up this morning with the distinctive signs of a head cold. So my commute was greatly reduced from seven miles to ten feet as I telework and try to avoid a full-blown illness.

Finally back on the bike for the first time in a week and a half yesterday. Also rode in today. Yesterday was a great day back, mid 40s in the morning and low 60s on the way home. Today was more dreary and overcast, but still in the 40s so it wasn't too bad. Had a headwind the whole way though but I should have a tailwind on the way home. Glad to be back on the bike :)

Second day commuting this week. I had to drive to a service call yesterday. Days like those require me to carry my laptop and a couple of hand tools, as well as project folders, etc.

When I got to work this morning, I weighed my case. It seemed quite heavy, and it was. 22 lbs of additional weight in today. Luckily I don't have to carry it all home tonight.

This was my first commute in upper 50F temps. It was cool when I first started, but it was nice not to be really sweaty when I got to work. We won't see snow here for quite some time. :)

Haven't driven the car in a week. The bus routes are getting more and more familiar to me, but I can't wait to get back on the bike again. Maybe next week?? Spokane got 5 inches of snow and the streets are solid ice...should be beautiful weather for my new studs when they arrive.... :D

Business as usual. The snow that has fallen since the weekend is getting packed down on the side roads, and is being scraped off the main ones. So, half my ride is on pavement with the odd ice patch, and the rest is on various types of snow and black ice. I'm getting a bit more used to the handling of the bike, and I feel more comfortable at higher speeds. My commute time has increased by less than 5 minutes since I switched to the mtn bike with spikes. It's mostly timing with the lights, I think. I used to get to key intersections about 10 seconds after the light had turned red, now it's more like 1.5 minutes. It was a balmy -18C today, with snow forecast for this afternoon and evening.

Still battling my cold, but I think I'm over the worst and just have to deal w/ the coughing and congestion. Hopefully the fever's gone. Ride in was a minute off yesterday's all-time best mark, but that's ok cuz I was late anyways cuz I overslept. Still feel like I need some sleep though. A little chilly today, about 40F when I left so I had to throw a light corduroy jacket over my t-shirt. Had a nice chat w/ a new commuter in our bldg. that rides a fixie from East NY to midtown which is much longer than my short 2 mi. commute.