I had an awesome ride this AM and this PM.

I avg 19.2 my best so far on the way in and a 16 on the way out. It was a very beautiful day. of course this is only a 4 mile ride (8 round trip)

I went past work in the AM and picked up a coffee at speedway. But when some kid moved from an out of way place to stand by my bike when I walked into the store I got nervous and walked back out. I stood by the door watching him watching my bike. I was wondering if the coffee was worth the worry or worth now being late to work. I have a cool boss though :D I ended up getting my coffee and my bike didn't get stolen.

My highlight of the day was on the way home. This minivan buzzed me and as I leaned away from it my tire cliped a rock and flipped it straight into the side of the van.... PING!!!! I was thinking "score" :lol: And then another goood thing. When I got to an intersection where I make my left hand turn. There was a truck sitting at a stop sign on my right. They had plenty of time to pull out in front of me but they decided to wait. Ok I'll be curtious also. I came off the saddle took the lane and made their wait as short as I could :D I then waved, and got a wave back.

Minus the 18-20 year old ish kid acting funny and eyeballing my bike, I wish we had more cloudless beautiful weather days, that are not to cold and not too hot like today.

rather than gearing down for the dreaded elysian park hill, i kept it in 7th and stood up to the pedals. glory be! then i carried the damn thing up three flights of stairs. gotta get a lighter bike.

Well, Friday was my first "official" commute. I've commuted in when I've had to work weekends, which is informal and without full staff. It's about 7.2 miles, a slight downhill the whole way. Today was so foggy that each stoplight I had to take and wipe off my glasses (temperature about 58). Any advice to combat? Then after a while the fog burned off. When I got in, the stars were aligned - an elevator was waiting (a rarity) and I didn't have to ride with anyone but the bike. Took me about 25 minutes which includes stoplights and cobblestones. Beautiful and energizing start. I'm going to try to commute this way whenever the weather holds, no meetings, and every Friday.

I drank too much last night, rode too fast and hard this morning...
and my head is throbbing now, as I languish in my office :( Uggh.

Funny thing happened early this morning, when I stopped at my neighborhood biscuit stand
for some breakfast, some construction worker saw me climbing atop my bike and remarked,
"I gotta get me one of those, the gas is killing me" - I didn't bother telling him I hadn't filled up in months.

Have a good week, everybody

Ahh, to be back in the City. After a long weekend of cycling in the Fingerlakes area, where drivers courteously give cyclists wide berth on the on the road, I have a story from today. Short, but ugly.

My commute to work involves me driving by UPS' main facility in NYC so I contend with their crazy drivers on a daily basis. Don't get me wrong, my UPS guys at work and at home are quite nice fellas and some of the drivers appear to have some sense, but for the most part, they act like they own that part of town.

So a couple of avenues down from the facility (this would be 8th and 44th now), I am getting close to an intersection where I always just make the light. Well, UPS man drives up next to me, holds his position for a bit, and then attempts the classic right hook.

I never, ever trust a car right next to me to not right hook, so it wasn't even close (compared to previous close shaves), but it could have been very ugly were I less attentive. I rather lustily cursed the guy out along the lines of "what the bleep do you think you're doing?" to which he replied "what do you think you're doing?!?". A hearty belting out of "getting your number to get your stupid a55 fired" made me feel all warm and fuzzy. Does that make me a bad person? :D I didn't really get his driver or plate number because I was in a hurry to get to work and this kind of crap happens too often to spend my time on it. However, it was nice to see a ped also yelling at the guy for his stupidity. Glad somebody pays attention!

Beautiful morning! Weather was wonderful, cars not too nasty. Students on campus not too oblivious.

Great "Monday" commute.

Today I tried an alternative to my usual commute. It was rather pleasant in some ways - instead of getting 6 km of a very busy major street with long stretches of NASTY pavement job I had to get only 2 km of it (and avoided the worst of the pavement too). However, other kinds of difficulties arose. First, I was confronted with a lot more stop signs. Stop signs are annoying! Also I discovered that this alternative route goes by an elementary school, and, my, was the street bustling with cars unloading the little passengers! I remember, when *I* went to school (not so long ago but in a different country) there was at most ONE car in the parking lot at any time - that of the shop teacher. A few parents dropped the kids off and drove away immediately, but the vast majority of students took a bus or walked. The school was about a mile from my house and I walked there and back every single day, not once was I driven there. When I was too little to walk there by myself, one of my parents accompanied me to school before heading off to work (yes, by foot also)... Oh well, anyway, just a little rant... :)

All in all, some variety in the route was nice though - taking the same old streets, especially if they are boring and unremarkable, gets very tiresome. I welcomed the change, despite the fact that this new route takes a few minutes longer.

Fast commute today. I averaged my best time and speed yet. For my 9.5 mile commute I averaged just over 19 mph today and shaved about 2 minutes off my best time!

Not like I'm in a hurry to get to work but pushing myself keeps me entertained and getting faster is always a good thing.

Today I rode in my newly rehabbed POS. I'll post a pic and a description in the appropriate thread.

Coming down Capitol Avenue through Midtown this morning I hopscotched a gigantic Ford Expedition several times. It contained one petite driver, no passengers. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense: 5700 lb. vehicle to convey 120lbs of payload.

This morning was nice, it was cool, I think winter time is starting in Ventura County. The ride was good. I like it when I push the stop light button and it changes immediatly, as it did this morning.

My bike commuting week is complete, 1 of 1 for another 100% week.

I haven't been posting here because, frankly, there's nothing worth reporting. :) But this morning was the first of the season when I felt like fall was around the corner. Low 50s. My hands were a little chilled, as were my arms, but they warmed up once I'd been out for a couple of miles.

It's squirrel season! Be careful out there. They're looking for nuts...

Speaking of nuts, I crunched a few acorns on the Greenway part of my commute. I can't say that I've ever had an acorn-induced flat, but I will be more careful in the coming weeks!

I agree: it feels like Fall is right around the corner! A bit cooler, a bit darker this morning. I'm not complaing; Fall is probably my favorite season, in fact. There is nothing in the world like a Fall ride as the leaves are starting to fall. Just cool enough for arm and leg warmers and to feel the cool, crispness of the air in the lungs. Ahhh! I'm looking forward to it. :)

I made it home before the rain started so the commute was awesome! I switched from my clunky old cruiser to my '87 Schwinn Tempo so the bike weighed half as much as usual - double awesome!

Best,
e.

Be VERY careful!!

Yes, I guess I notice this in the morning and in the evening. But the days are still very hot here in Toronto - I had a take-out lunch outside today, and was desperately looking for some shade. :)

Low 60's in southwest Virginia this morning. Like vtjim the arms and hands were a bit chilled. But I didn't mind. I love riding in the cool weather of Fall. The bad news is that drivers around here seem to be less patient and more aggressive. In the past I've had drivers going my direction yell at me to get on the sidewalk. But today one going in the opposite direction slowed down -- tying up traffic in the process -- and yelled at me to get off the road. This was on a section of road where there is no sidewalk and no paved shoulder. So I reckon he was telling me to stop biking. On a happy note, every day for the past week someone at work has casually struck up a conversation about my bike and then asked some form of the question, "So, how often do you commute and how do you manage it?" I've never seen so much interest in biking before.

Great commute this AM. Again, nice and cool. I rode part of the way with a lady roadie who apparently has spotted me on my route in the past (hard to miss on my hot mango folder). Had a nice chat before going our separate ways. She was pretty strong so I got to work fast today. :)

It's rare that I ride with anyone in the mornings. A couple of evenings I've ridden a few miles with someone, not many, but more than in the AM. It's nice once in a while.

Hey, I just moved to the finger lakes area. Any tips on some good rides?

Hey Oboeguy,

I just moved to the finger lakes area. Have any tips on some good rides?

Cool and windy ride in this morning, but overall pretty nice. Cars passing pretty close to me lately, don't know why that is.

Cool, foggy, and dark. The smell of the cut grass by the sailing marina reminded me of "back to school" time. I considered wearing a jacket but knew that I would soon get too hot and have to lug it back home. My headlight now stays on the entire ride in--a sign of what's coming: winter. I'm recovering from tennis last night, after playing a Junior National Team member who's half my age and put it to me last night. I did a pretty good job considering I'm just picking up the game again after about 10 years. My legs were good and sore with half dollar size blisters on my feet. The ride home should be very nice today.

What a great morning for a ride! My commute is about 7 miles one way and it is a great ride in. I don't pass many cars, the traffic isn't so bad, but I sure feel a lot better than they do when I arrive... and I'm not paying almost $3 bucks a day for the pleasure of driving my car. I figure I get about 20 MPG in my truck and a 14 mile commute is about $2.50 or so for the day at $3 a gallon. Needless to say, I have on my happy face today.

Slow commutes yesterday and today. I'm not certain, but maybe it has something to do with the copious quantities of beer drunk over the weekend... :)

Today was my first day riding to school again, yesterday I took the TTC. What a difference. I biked all of the warmer month's last year. But yesterday I had to show someone how to get to school. Because my school is a good 9km from our area. This morning the temperature was nice and cool, the sun was just right, and it wasn't as humid as usual. My comute to school is more downhill, and a rough section of the trail was repaved over the summer, so I had the best ride ever and I felt great when I got to school. Comming back it was nice and hot, but not too humid so I worked up a nice sweat without feeling overheated. I also had no breakfast but drank around 3 liters of water during the day so my energy level wasn't as bad as it might have been.

frickin' painful.

Had a catastrophic blowout (front) in an intersection, with an SUV directly behind me. I had the green light and I was fairly flying through on a slight downhill grade. Tire dismounted itself and stopped the wheel, and I augured in and scraped all my elbows and knees. A rough estimate is about 18-20 square inches of hide lost, overall. The sidewall of the tire tore, so it's ruined, cheap sunglasses crushed and my Swiss army watch was pulled, nylon band and all, from my wrist and run over.

The SUV lady DID slow and sincerely ask if I was okay.