Beautiful morning for a ride! I felt like I needed a couple more hours of sleep and didn't want to go to work, but I've felt like that since grammar school. Was running a little late so after zig-zagging around some fire trucks around the corner from me, I hammered it the two miles to work and got there 30 seconds earlier than usual. Oh well, it felt good anyways.

I haven't posted for a long time. I've had a great summer and fall so far. Being responsible for four different offices I get allot of extra mileage in. I got 28 miles on Monday, 43 miles Tuesday... ahhhh, working full time and still getting this kind of mileage is heaven. Life is grand.

Uggg...thank goodness for the commute this morning. I was having a rough day when I woke up, just generally annoyed. A lady rolled through a stop sign and made a right turn towards me. I yelled, she slammed on the brakes, and her bumper was literally two inches from my leg. I hate to admit it, but I exploded. Yelled at her, waved my arms, generally caused a ruckus. She looked kind of sheepish and when I yelled "I have the right of way!," she said "of course you do." As I rolled off, I noticed some kids walking to school and a crosswalk lady staring at me. What a loonatic biker. Luckily a few more miles cooled me down before I got to work.

Rain & snow mix for the ride home last night. Temp in the low 40s. I was pushed home by a 15MPH north wind. Was nice to have the wind a my back for the ride home. Was a nice, albeit cold, change.


My first ICE BIKE RIDE of the season.

It was sunny and 27F when I left the house this morning. With the snow/rain from the night before I had worries of icy roads. I was happy to see the snow/rain had stopped and the roads had mostly dried out. I had to navigate only a few ice patches. I'll be glad when my thermal shoe covers come in at the bike shop.

My morning rides are always a pleasure, but never very interesting.

Funny thing happened today, a take a 1mi detour thru a quiet neighborhood, 25mph streets, relatively low traffic. I approached at ~22mph two guys walking side by side in the very middle of the travel lane, backs to me, smoking grass (the air was thick with the smell). Looked me behind me saw a car well back, so I signaled left turn to go around them and passed nicely. Car (merged into opposite lane) then passed them and then shortly after me while I was in center of lane and the driver thru open window yells at me to stay off the street as they passed me at about 30mph. Huh? I was still going 22mph at the time, they speed off probably up to about 40mph in the 25mph zone and I caught up to them at the light and just gave them a stare. Why they yell at me and not the stoned walkers?

Al

Very chilly this morning. I think it might have been in the upper 40's. I've started to let the kids (11 and 9 yr old) ride to school one day per week. I ride with them for now hoping to build up their confidence and skill level so that they can ride by themselves eventually. After I drop them at the school I head to Starbuck's near the school for a coffee and a blueberry scone then to the gym for a workout and then to work.

Very uneventful but nice.

Mike

I was riding down L Street along Capitol Park on the last few blocks of my commute when I noticed a guy on the sidewalk pacing me. It's a wide sidewalk and designated as a bike route, but it's still not particularly safe to ride any faster than 10mph. I was doing 19 at the time and noticed that this guy was struggling to keep up on his full suspension mtb. He was trying to look cool, but I could tell he was laboring. When we got to 12th Street, the light was red and I sat up, but Mr. MTB rode on. Yeah, that's safe.

I should look elsewhere on BF. I bet there's another "I dropped a roadie" thread going.

Commute in was good today, I woke up late (it's getting cold and that makes it hard for me to get out of bed) but left the house only 15 minutes behind my usual time. Pushed it real hard on the way to work and got here only 5 minutes behind schedule. just took a real fast shower (I'm super lucky to have showers at work...my job rules) was just a few minutes late to my office when all was said and done. Commuting is getting real nice, a lot less crowded now that it's started getting colder, all the wannabe's are quitting for the winter :-) just about cold enough to break out my jacket...

Ride home should be interesting, just checked the forcast, and it says wind speeds of 40 mph at the air port...just a few miles from me :-) hope it's blowing with me!

I've had a similar thing happen before myself (minus the stoned walkers) but I think about 90% of people in cars just don't know jack about bikes, period. They don't know the laws, our rights, nothing...I had a guy in a full size pickup almost clip me from behind (I was actually doing the speed limit of 25 mph at the time) and then cuss at ME to get off the road. When he came to the next stop light (wich I know to be a very long light) about 100 feet later, I pulled along side of him till i was just ahead, got his attention, then dismounted, and then mooned him! I never looked back to see his reaction, i just got back on and road home. It made my day, especially since I was about to turn off that road anyway and I got to just laugh to myself all the way home.

mine was nice today- actually sunny and not too hot, but a bit humid.
I just wish I could do it more regularly so I can get up the hill in the Presidio w/o having to stop. Looking forward to the ride home today- and getting killed by the hill on the way out of sausalito! Wheeeeeee!

Went the short way to work again today. The "up and over route" I was clipping along down this little hill before getting to the bottom of the big hill when all at once I am in a fog bank and can't see anything...then I figure it out...duh, my glasses are steamed up. I pulled them down on the end of my nose and ride looking over them. (What a dork!)
I now have this 1/4 mile long, pretty steep hill in front of me, and so I gear down and up I go. I get just about to the top and I see this little old lady in her house coat getting her morning paper out of the box. I say good morning and she asks me, "Did you just ride all the way up that hill?"
"Yes, I did." I say.
She says, with some enthusiasm, "Good for you, young man!"
Which makes me feel real good, since I am almost 50.
It's little things like that, that make biking worth it...don't ya think?!?

What an ugly route you have. How do you stand to even look at that putrid view?

My commute home was quick since I had to take my car to get an oil change. When I got home, my neighbor held the door open in the lobby and said, "It's great that you ride!" Yes, it is!

that would give me the perma-grin for at least a day.

haven't commuted at all this week, since it seems like god did get me for last week's foolishment. the lurking Disease came down with full force on sunday evening and got me sent home again halfway through monday. i'm so sick of myself, i just got home from doing a couple of slight-uphill miles to the grocery store. may have been a mistake, but i wanted to see:

a) what it's like to bike in the dark
b) what it's like to bike in the rain
c) whether i'm better
d) whether i'm better enough to commute again tomorrow.

seemed like a good idea, but it may have been an awful mistake. it seems like some part of me would rather be really sick than slightly sick. i just hate this feeling-slightly-awful thing that leaves you conscious enough to be frustrated with the whole deal. but even if it was a mistake, at least i did find out some of the biking stuff i wanted to know. rain's a lot colder when you get a good windchill going, i learned that much.

Very windy ride today , but still a good ride to work and home . Have a good nite .

Nice cool ride in this morning. I have been seeing more bikers out on the roads lately, I usually pass a couple every day. It's nice to know others are out there riding to work as well.

I hope you get to feeling better real soon...I know, it's no fun being sick.

Had to be on the keyborad at 5:30 this am, so I left the house at 4:45. The city was like a ghost town... was able to ride no hands down the middle of the 6 lane with not cars to worry about.
Weather.com called for 32 this morning so I dressed in my ski shell, hood, nylon sweats, and windproof fleece gloves. Turns out the temp was 44 and I stuffed all that crap into the pack just before the last 2mile climb. Stupid weather.com....DOH!

The ride is so much better that early....1 hour later and the streets are a zoo. The best part is that I'll get out of here at 2:30. That should be a better ride than the 5:00 crowd.

Y'know how some mornings it just feels grrrrreat to ride in? This was one of those mornings for me.

The lighting was odd, almost like a rainbow was somewhere.

wooohoooo.... Great ride this morning at 5am...

Last night when I got home from work (@9:30pm) there was a box on the porch... A pair of "Gator" Booties!!!

They came in handy this morning with the temp hitting about 38 degrees (F)

Felt great!

No bike commute for me today. Winds are SSW sustained at 30MPH gusting to 48MPH. I am going to error on the side of caution.

Beautiful cool morning here. At 39° it sure feels like winter is on the way. I need to work on my gear, I'm consistently dressing for weather about 5° warmer.

The ride home yesterday was hot (103) and tough! I have one of those personalities that does not let me just ride home. I have to do it faster than I did the day before. To my surprise I beat my wife home from work! I don't know exactly how much time I shaved off because I did not look at the clock when I left. I do know that I did not leave early and I got home about 10 minutes earlier than normal. WOOHOO! Thinking back I did catch a few green lights. Hmmm?

I was rather slow coming in due to a strong headwind, but had a great commute nevertheless! First of all, it didn't rain as the forecast warned me it might. So the coolth of the morning didn't bother me at all and, in fact, was actually very pleasant. And of course "early morning" = "few cars".

When I reached about the halfway point of my commute I got passed by another bike commuter. He wasn't going that much faster than I, so we had time to exchange "good morning"s as he overtook me. I must say I was surprised - I do get passed by roadies all the time but I say I move at a decent clip for a Toronto commuter. And this guy didn't even have clips and straps on his pedals and his bike looked like a 30-year-old ten-speed with flat handlebars... definitely not a roadie type. So I followed the guy fairly closely - not actually drafting, but not letting him drop me either. As we came to a long red light, we chatted a bit and then continued to chat as we rode abreast for the next couple of kilometers along a fairly quiet road. It turns out he commutes for about 10 km each way, and rides through the winter too! I told him I intend to keep riding this winter. Such a conversation never happened to me before on my commute and it sure was nice.

Then, as I arrived at the university, I met a fellow graduate student who gave me an amazed look and said that riding a bike to school was, in her opinion, "awesome". She asked me how far I ride and how long it takes and was surprised to learn that I am about as fast as public transit. She said she takes subway + bus to the university every day but really likes the idea of biking. She actually doesn't live so far from me, as I found out, so I suggested that she takes up bike-commuting and she and I ride together one day. She said, quite reasonably, that she is probably not ready to start commuting given the seasons, but that she'll definitely consider it in the spring. Hey, perhaps another commuter will join our ranks thanks to me! That would be really great!

Anyway, sorry for the slightly lengthy post, but I just loved the experiences so wanted to blab about them for a while.

This one post can cover yesterday also. Hot. Tuesday was perfect, then on Wed. the Santa Ana's kicked up and temps were in the 80's on the ride in with a strong wind picking up all sorts of stuff and throwing it in my face. It sucked. The ride home was super windy and hot, 90's I bet. This morning the winds were a bit less but the temps were in the 80's. There is a fire somewhere over towards the San Fernando Valley, and the smoke is blowing this way, the entire south view is covered in smoke, while the entire view to the north is a very nice shade of blue. Both days ride came in a 10 minutes or so.