The ride home: It was dark, it was 9:00 PM. As my bike has niether refectors or lights I put on a white (pure white) turtle neck. The route home avoids traffic, and in the 2 miles I was near only three cars. It took about 10 minutes to get home. Oh, and it was real cold.

Wet, sloppy snow, no significant plowing yet. Wiped my glasses a whole lot.
But as I'm getting more secure in my lane positioning, I had no problem with traffic, they just hadda wait. I got no hassles, though I got a lot of slush splashed on my legs.

jschen - last fall I decided my 11 mile ride was too short to bother with water, as well. Especially in the winter, when the damn thing freezes solid halfway through anyway. I am a bit thirsty at the other end, but not badly so, and I don't seem to be fatiguing at the end.

30 mph winds directly against me !!!

not fun !

7.5 miles of hell ... I think this is why I choose to ride my bike.. .just for days like this.

I still made it here in 29 minutes .. that includes stopping for a few random lights... and fighting the strong headwinds !!

Average Speed: 60 / 29 * 7.5 = 15.5 mph !

I typically average over 17 mph but this awesome wind kept me down ! LOL

Got to work today via of "cage". Needed to return some DVDs to Hollywood video which is in the exact opposite direction from work. The wife and I each have a car and we both work locally now, so its a challenge just to start the things up during the week. Rain and wind today and I hate wind so, it all works outs. I'll be back to tickling the pedals tomorrow.

Surprisingly warm at 6am. Firefox tells me it was around 50!

There was some gusty wind, from time to time, which was strong, but at least it was a warm wind.

Crazy Colorado weather!

Rather wet but mild. Nobody wanted to sit next to a wet biker on the train. Should be a sweet commute home 50'sF Charlie
PS: T minus 7 weeks until they close my train station!!!

Just a bit above the freezing point and pouring rain. The worst surface conditions I have ever experienced. :eek: The trail was one long ribbon of ice. I mean, like, tractionless, glassy, smooth ice.

What a fun ride! :p

I didn't notice the ice at all with the studded tires. Once in a while I'd put a boot down to verify the surface, and it just slid along without any grip at all. I heard a lot of sirens and had to wait for an ambulance at one trail/road intersection. :rolleyes: Bad morning for a cage commute. I heard more sirens as I was coming in to Burlington, too.

Rainy and 58F this morning. I blazed to work at an average speed of 8.6 mph! Traffic was horrific. I could barely filter and b/c of the rain, I used my clipless shoes which I'm still not comfy with in traffic. I saw more fire trucks and ambulances and cops running to and fro this morning b/c of accidents and fender benders. Typical cager mentality is, "I hate being stuck in traffic. I'm gonna accelerate from 0-45 mph in the next 20 feet to keep anyone from cutting me off." Then they crash into something and cause more traffic. And slowing me down to 8.6 mph avg.

Rode home at 10 p.m. yesterday, back at work by 8-ish this morning. The snow continues to recede along my route, but it's still slippery snow and ice for the first 1 km of my route. That means I'm still on the spikes. I long for a chinook to bring snow to the mountains and dry pavement to my commute. Sigh.

I saw a good fender-bender this morning. A Civic drifted through the tail end of the light and smoked a minivan in the rear. No braking of any kind, just rooooolling along at 10 km/h and... pow. No visible damage to either vehicle, so I didn't stick around to see the outcome.

Was the civic driver using a cell phone?

I don't think so. He probably just needed a bigger cup of coffee. Seriously, it just drifted into the back of the van like it was invisible or something. Mental lapse?

Perfect! Stayed above freezing overnight because of the strong southerly winds. Those layed down nicely for my headwind commute. They should be 20-30mph by quiting time to give me a tasty tail wind for my homeward leg, and all at 70 degrees to.

It was cold again this morning, somewhere in the 40's. It was dry and otherwise pleasant. It took about 10 minutes to get to the office.

I nearly wimped out this morning. I'd gone out for a training ride at 6 and got soaked. When I got home and showered and dressed for work I was trying to figure out how to get to the office, either driving or taking light rail. It was just getting too complicated so I got back on the bike to ride to work. And now the sun is coming out so I know I made the right decision.

Uneventful commute in this morning. Nice day out. Fun, though non-memorable, ride. :)

I wonder if the SUV driver is on an online forum right now complaining about how his SUV isn't visible enough and that idiot cagers keep hitting him.

Nice commute this morning, 16F, no wind to speak of, and dark all the way in as usual. The nice thing about my afternoon commute after work is that it's daylight almost all the way home now. The days (day light) are getting longer, this is a good thing. Now if it would just be clear skys and sunny once and a while that would be nice.

This morning's commute was fine but now as I'm getting ready to head home I realize I've lost one of my socks. So I have the choice of biking sockless or wearing my stylish brown work socks. Probably wouldn't matter except of course that I have to swing my the grocery on the way home.

The ride home could be described thusly, sockless, frustrating because of heavier than normal traffic all of whom were speeding, extended, and exhuasting due to strong headwind I ran into on the last half of my ride.

My commute home was the opposite of my commute to work. The roads were dry, it was raining, it was colder and I was moving much faster. The commute to work took about 15 mins. The ride home took 9 min. Gotta love it.

WIND (agaist 30mph w/55mph gusts) in the dark, Rain, and "Cold" +/-33f, on the way in. when i got to a clearing (State road sr) the wind KIcked a.., and i questioned WHY?
so did my wife, friends, and co-workers later!
ride home was less taxing, but still pretty major headwind (the direction reversed from am). i felt pretty beat-up today!

Had last week off from commuting (still rode but didn't feel right to post but must admit it felt great to break out the road bike and ride the temperature one day- 55F=55miles) Yesterday and today were great commute days. With a change in temperature of almost 40 degrees! Yesterday icy and dry. Today bizarre weather with intense wind as I rode in- at times gusting well over 50mph and such a strong steady headwind I practically had my chin on my handlebars and was pumping the pedals hard to get the bike to go 10 mph.

Rode home with a little less whallop from the wind but the melted ice on the bike path made for a sloppy ride. Oh yeah!- saw what I think was an off course wood duck flocking with some of the more common mallards on the Charles. I took notice of him because he panicked as I rode by and the mallards all gave him the "get used to it" look. Two miles down river I think I saw his mate just west of the Mass Ave bridge looking lonely and forlorn- I hope they hooked back up and made it on their merry way to wherever they might have been headed.

I dressed for the temperatures I expected this morning and was sweating like crazy when I got to work. Stashed the long underwear and the polar fleece in my panniers for the ride home. Much better. We have been enjoying really good bike riding weather here in Colorado this month. I keep looking to see the foot before it drops but so far so good. My daily commute is only 13 miles round trip. I sometimes extend it out with different routes for more miles.

man i am beat. i have an annoying sinus infection. freezing rain and 40 - 50kmh winds. Going home i puncture twice within 1km. at that point i called it the quits and got my brother to give me a ride.

:eek: Oh dear... sorry to hear that.

Ride home was decently nice. Only thing is, it's a bit cold out there for no head covering other than a helmet. (Which is supposed to help keep your head cool thanks to the airflow, right?) I think I should invest in a head/ear band.

Haven't been riding for the last two weeks. It's killing me since the weather has been so nice. I went to the doc and he promptly sent me to the ER. After and EKG, blood work, chest X-ray, and exam of my lungs and heart, they've returned a preliminary diagnosis of exercise induced asthma and sent me home with an inhaler (they said that I'm as healthy as a horse and are perplexed by my recent shortness of breath). Freaking great! I have to schedule a CT scan, then it's another appointment with a pulmonary specialist next Wednesday. I hope it's allergy or infection-related (although I feel fine otherwise) because I've been really happy with my cardio performance for the last few years (with the exception of the shortness of breath the last month or so that prompted my visit to the doc). Anyway, I decided that it's best not to ride right now until this gets sorted out. I hope everyone else is enjoying their commute.

33 F / 0 C and my studs got some ice to bite into for the first time in a month. I love that smooth, ballroom-floor feeling of studs on ice. I'm hoping winter returns enough to make some ski trips possible.

Paul

Crisp ride! I woke up to the radio saying 41F going to 53F later in the day. Wrong, we were below freezing. So anything that was black, was ice. Luckily yesterdays winds dried up much of the water so roads were clear and fast. Unfortunately I was tired and slow.

Hope ya feel better. Lots of folks have trouble with asthma in the cold. I was just off for 3 months with a broken wrist so I feel your pain.

Houston is having some crazy weather again. Yesterday's ride in - 38 degrees. Yesterday's ride home - 70 degrees. Today's ride in - 59 degrees!

As to why I enjoy commuting so much....I was riding along a bayou and saw a beaver working on his damn. I have driven down this stretch of road for five years and it was only with commuting I was able to stop and watch a beaver at work.

On a side note, the end of this month marks 6 months of solid commuting by bicycle! I have found that I have increased my route from a 7 mile commute (one way) to an 11 mile commute (one way). This is awesome!!

Chris
NW Houston