great! going in, a consumer/client/person with severe and persistant mental illness, pulled along side in his car, honked, and waved. he was amazed when i arrived to center shortly after he did "man, you were moving. i just got here myself!" ( think a seed was planted)
on return home, i stopped and offered to assist another commutor whose path i have been crossing for about 1 yr now. he declined (re-setting lock/chain) but it was good to finally talk with the other commutor in this city that i am aware of. a good day!

cold !!

most noticeable thing about it was that it took place. after two days off in a row last week and then a weekend, i was starting to wonder if my unconscious was quitting without notifying the rest of me. also wasn't sure what kind of ride it was going to be, since four days off is (i think) the longest i've taken since back in the fall when i was sick. and i spent the whole weekend in pjs and a slouched position, eating junk food and knitting like a dufarge. it's all been a slightly surreal kind of struggle lately with all that darkness, so i felt like i couldn't really remember the ride or make imyself believe that i do it.

but it was great. woke up tired and strung out and put on that don't-think-just-do mental blinker, promising myself that i could stop to take stock once i got to the top of the bridge. the weather's been unsettling me. it's not uncomfortably cold, but cold enough to put a thin film of ice on everything and make even going places on foot feel like something you never got the hang of.

also put on my pair of ridiculously-chunky part-wool socks that i made on the weekend, just for curiosity's sake. they're like instant hobbit feet, so i thought they'd feel awful, but once i forced them into my boots they were lovely. warm and springy and just-right in every way. not sweaty at all. come next week i'm going to barricade myself into a corner away from the cat and knit me a whole flock of socks.

nice ride in the morning. really nice ride home too. i think the rest was good for me. i feel a bit sore, but that's a so-much-better feeling than the tooth-gritting aches of the past couple of weeks. and i'm not renewing even an extra day of my contract, so yee hah. two weeks and two days is all i'll have to do once the new year arrives, and then i might even get a chance to go talk to a physio.

songs: gonna be an engineer, peggy seeger; grey funnel line, traditional

After a 11 week hiatus from biking due to an injury, I'm back on the bike and commuting!

Spokane has been in a cold snap, and I've had to upgrade my gloves to these from REI. Part of the fun of commuting is figuring out what clothes work.

peace :beer:

it was kind of soggy down here in Ft Lauderdale FL..

road was wet and I got my first taste of no rear fender syndrome... aka: "wet a$$"

=)

I am picking up my fixed gear wheel this afternoon, we'll see how it goes !!!

23°F this morning, not too bad! No car doors thrown my way which is always nice. Went by one rider on a Schwinn Fastback wearing no hat, no helmet and possibly no gloves :eek:. Stop lights were very cooperative today so I made pretty good time. I did however hear the "how cold is it today" comment on the elevator from some red faced guy as he took a gander at my shoe covers. He was speaking to a girl who's face was as red as his. I'm sure their walk was much colder than my ride. I actually had to slow down a bit at the end because I was getting a bit too sweaty.

5C at the airport, must have been colder at home. Stopped about 1km into my commute to put my neck/mouth warmer on.

Got buzzed by a cop, 4 lanes, all clear.

Our car is available to me all week, it takes some will power every morning to fight the urge to drive it. I know that once I get in the saddle, it's no prob, but it's not always easy.

Clear and cold (26.5°F/-3°C). The lobster mitts and Rockport boots are working great for keeping the hands and feet warm. Had some nice Windham Hill jazz playing at low volume on the Shuffle. Nice winter ride.

Happy trails!

Welcome back dude!

First morning of the transit strike and there were two kinds of traffic; 1)fairly fast moving traffic above midtown and 2)barely moving traffic below midtown. All the cars that passed me in the beginning I passed later in my commute.

Since it is the first day of the strike, there were more cyclists on their way to work. Some were wobbly, some were slow and all were determined. It felt good to see them, but not so good to ride behind them so I ended up passing all of them while also demonstrating how to take a lane, split lanes, zig-zag and generally ride like traffic is there for your amusement.

Odd thing about today was that I didn't stop once. Not for a red light or anything. I ran every red light I came to and not in the dangerous way, but in the "traffic is stuck so tight that no one's moving and people are crossing in between so I can do the same" kind of way. I wasn't particularly faster today, just didn't have to stop which was good. I could get used to this.

Whoa Moment of the Day: Coming down Lexington Ave. around E47th St. where the road surface is really rough, I hopped/jumped a big corner sewer grating with a cab inches alongside me and right in front of some peds that went, "Whoa! Did you see that?"

Went home after 6pm yesterday without a headlight. What a dummy (I have one, but it remains unmounted. New bike with integrated lights coming next week). Didn't mean to go home that late, but was coerced into going to a bar after work;o). Lots of street lights, but it seemed like half were without light! Between the darkness and foggy glasses, I was going a little slow. I was glad there wasn't much traffic and it didn't snow. I enjoyed it nonetheless as I was pleased to get home without incident!

Don't drive! It's supposed to be super warm for the rest of the week! I'm looking forward to a white and brown Calgary x-mas!

Rode in with the wife today. It was a wee bit chilly at the house this morning, but got a lot warmer downtown. It's supposed to be above 0C for the rest of the week. Yay!

Yeah, I couldn't believe the forecast when I read it this morning. I really should push myself to stay on the bike this week because I have next week off and rarely bike when I'm not commuting.

Commuted in, and I feel unusually bad on the bike. Not that I didn't enjoy my commute, but man, I really need to get out and ride more. My last long ride was on Sunday, not this past Sunday, but the one before that. My only significant ride in between was last Sunday, for 15 miles. Today, my legs feel like putty, my abs feel like jello trying to resist my legs, and my heart feels as if it's pumping maple syrup.

My thought's exactly. I had a nice commute, it was a little warmer this morning (5F/-15C). I took a different route, it was interesting but I think I'll use that one for riding home instead of coming in. It's suppose to warm up as the week progresses. Maybe I can expand my route. This dark in the morning and dark on the way home, constant snow, is starting to bring me down a little and it's not even officially winter yet!

Finally able to get back on the bike for the first time in about 2 weeks. Last week I couldn't ride since I had to drive off site for my job. It was pretty cold (24F) so I bundled up but stayed plenty warm. It was nice to get back on the bike and ride to work. I am looking forward to the ride home and to be able to ride a couple more times this week.

When I felt the wind and the 24 degrees I decided not to ride today. But then I thought about how cold it would be standing for 20 minutes at the bus stop. So I hopped on the bike and the ride was terrific! Sunshine all the way, bike paths with no one on them, some space between the ice and I wasn't even cold. The handwarmers I bought are the only way I can ride in this weather. The best part is being asked when I get to work, "How could you stand it?" I shrug and just pity them for what they're missing.

Took a different route home today. Madison Ave. was closed to all but emergency traffic only and bikes! Or so I thought. When I got on Madison, I saw a few cars whose drivers had the right ID that allowed them to drive up Madison as well as a few private buses. Oh well, not as clear as I thought, but not a lot of traffic either. Ended up riding up the middle of Madison Ave. (literally), passing every bike and blader I saw b/c I was on a misson. Not a mission to drop commuting posers, but a mission to get home really fast. Call it a personal challenge. I was spent when I got home and since I forgot to reset my computer, whatever avg. speed I had blended in w/ this morning's commute and the lunchtime riding. Oh well, it seemed like I might've been going fast.

good riding, both ways today. i think the car drivers are catching on (trainable)!
i did see 2 older bicycle riders (on the sidewalk, no helmets) and another riding on the road, carrying a box, riding with traffic, but no helmet.
where are the other commutors? i have been riding to current job for almost 6 years now (3.2 miles each way, fire my honda cx1993 up to work sometimes), have not noticed much change here in increase of other riders/commutors. sites like this help encourage me to think this means of transport to work is alive and with cause. down here in south nj (vineland) thingschange real slow. enjoy your commute!

Left this morning about 7 am and it was 15F (-9.4C) I was warm as toast and had a beautiful ride into Boston. Cycled home, rode to the grocery store on the bike, cooked an early dinner and headed off for round two- cycled to my next gig in Cambridge. Just biked home in the dark. Tried the bike path but it was too frustrating due to ice and huge chunks of frozen snow. Roads were nice and clear. Ended up doing a total of 37m. (59.5k) today, my longest commuting mileage in a few weeks. The moon reflecting on the ice on the Charles River was gorgeous.

I add a mile to my commute today . Because the road that I ride on was a sheet of ice ,So I went around it . It is at least it was warmer today . Have a good nite .

unnaturally warm today - i think i saw 6 degrees in the morning and 9 on the way home. didn't appreciate it much since i'd dressed up for my usual 0-to-3 and stayed at work a good two hours later than i'd intended to with a good two hours less sleep than i'd meant to get. and oh yeah, that ESE 24 GUST 33 i see on enviro can's retro-list would be the headwind that kept me company all the way home. sez it's going to keep getting warmer all week too; it just better not rain all summer to make up for it.

something i really like about winter commuting is this: out on a bike i get to see so much more sky, and it's a so-much-more-textured sky than i'd get from a car. there's a section where i swoop through the intersecton and onto the bike path and then start the climb up the bridge, which gives me a view like a bruegel painting to hold in my mind every day. i can't picture myself liking the summer views quite so much. winter is so much more interesting once you get past the way it is and start to look for textures instead of colours. i like that pewtery gold that i got this morning.

the morning ride. i lost an hour somewhere, still don't know where it went. cat woke me at 6:30 with a fresh kill of somebody's steak (huh?). but it was 9 before i set out, and the day's first discovery was that my headlight was as dead as mutton. one of those typical left-handed-luck things: a pain to discover, but better noticed at 9 am in your own doorway than at 8:47 pm in a dark parking lot. kind of the way it goes when you can only claim 1/4 of the luck of the irish, i guess. i stopped at the only store-like establishment i actually pass on the way to work (a gas station), and got more batteries. that's so typical of this entire wrong-headed setup: you can get anything you want or need on your way to or from work, so long as it's either furniture, office supplies, gas or batteries. food you need a visa into the next planet to find. it works for people who live in their cars and give up all their free time to basic life maintenance, but anyone else can't help but fall behind in the count.

i've said this before: i have got to eat properly during the week. today i ate jelly beans and apples and a sleeve of french fries because that's what there was, and i had to be off-site to get the french fries. then i left work too late to consider any kind of catchup even if there had been anywhere to get it done. it just doesn't make for a solid ride home. brain the size of a planet and all down with the batteries, but she can't keep herself fed, sigh. i will miss the breugel vistas when i'm free of this place, but by god i won't miss anything else. fifteen commuting days left to freedom.

songs: 20 years, peggy seeger; don't look at me, michael marra; the homeless do not seem to drink in here, michael marra.

I picked my bike up for the 3rd day in a row ... awesome start to the week. I planned to ride rain or shine every single day ... but that was not to be.

about 2 miles away from my house, I hit a metal trailer hinge that was lying on the road.. sure enough it put a big fat hole into my front tire that went through to the innertube... sheesh.

I had to wake up my g/f and ask her to come pick my stranded a$$ up.

So, I had to pollute to work.. suxors.

=(

4C calm
Roads were a little wet, must have lightly snowed over night, or possibly rained.
I overdressed and my head was sweaty when I got to work.

I just moved into a house, I've never had garbage collection before (always lived in a complex). I put garbage out this morning hoping today might be collection day.

EDIT: Just looked it up on our city website, yesterday was garbage day :mad:

No bike commute today. Drove to NJ for a group luncheon. Traffic going downtown was horrific so I had to take the GW Bridge instead. Saw a lot more cyclists today and was wishing I was one of them. Oh well, tomorrow's another day...

Wow. If I didn't already know that denver was situated in a valley, I sure do now. I swear that I had almost a 10 degree difference between my suburb and Denver.
Still, it was nice and warm in both places. 41F or 30ish degrees.

Quiet commute home last night. The roads late at night are so quiet now, probably because the holidays are approaching and along my commute, there's mostly non-essential services, so people are starting to take vacations. Drove in today since I need to take a bunch of stuff home. No more commutes until January. Happy holidays, everyone.

Hi Folks, I've been away from the "how was..." thread for a while, but like to check in occasionally.

Grim December grey weather today, but an eventless ride. Yesterday, I arrived at the scene of an accident - A driver had approached the bend too fast and gone straight off the road into the ditch, seemingly a few min before I arrived. There were several other drivers stopped at the scene by this time. Concerned, I asked three times in plain English if anyone was hurt, is help needed/on the way to get the replies "I had to stop here because of the accident/he just went off the road/it was unbeleivable". I might as well have been invisible. I'm afraid I left them to it, as no-one did appear to be in mortal danger and there were plenty of cellphones around if any of the rubberneckers had the guile to use one.

As for the irresponsible idiot who drove off the road, it is their fault for speeding - there was no ice to blame. Perhaps the big bill for bodywork will improve their driving. I'm just glad I was nowhere near when it happened.


Cheers,

Ed

This mornings commute was pretty good. A couple of stop lights went my way and things are so much more civilized now that the College "Kids" have gone home for the Holidays.

Lastnights ride home was a bit of blast. I had to work late til 7 so there was quite a bit less traffic. I turned on to Comm.Ave from the B.U. bridge and saw two blinkies 200~250 meters up the hill, I thougth to myself "I think I can catch'em". As I caught them, one of them was turning off so I went right by the other. He eventually caught back when I stopped for a bus at an intersection. He sat on my back wheel for the next mile or so, I didn't mind. Going any faster up Comm.Ave (17ish) is just too risky. I eventually dropped him at the next green light; I tend to start off quickly. I'm still good at that from my BMX days. :p

100% precipitation in the form of rain today. Better than ice but lots and lots of grime, dirt and all kinds of branches, pine cones and whatnots on the streets :mad: I've also noticed traffic is getting lighter.

Winter officially starts today, btw with the shortest day of the year (in the Northern hemisphere).
In Portland -- Sunrise: 7:49 AM and Sunset: 4:30 PM :rolleyes: