Today's commute was a total gas. I rode my Aurora roadie/commuter after a week of commuting on the fixie and it was like biking on air. I easily sustained 25mph and breezed through the first 5 miles without hitting a red light (a very very rare occurence). Coasting feels so... decadent.

Rain last night cleaned the roads. I left before sunup this morning, but it was warm. Lots of traffic, but as usual the drivers caused me no trouble.
I haven't been able to ride for two weeks due to travel, so today was the first day back on the bike. It felt good, but all down hill in the morning. We'll see what it's like going up hill 6 miles this evening.

Yep, that's usually the ritual for this time of year. It was a beautiful full moon out this morning too. I took the long way to work, did a long lunch run (it was tough to come back) and I'm checking out early and taking an even longer way home. You have to grab this nice weather when you get it, it' short lived.

... and never leave your gloves out long enough for your better half to misplace one before you ride again. <grumble> No gel gloves today. :(

Today was a good day. I left early around six and enjoyed a traffic free commute to work.

Clear skies, windy, tried new route approach on fixed. Hill almost killed me.

Tomorrow will be geared bike. Give the knees some rest. Coastfest.!!!

Thank you tokolosh...I'm glad somebody caught the irony.

This weather is amazing here in Oregon. The only thing that betrays the notion that it's early spring is the falling leaves and fir needles on the ground. What a wonderful smell as I ride over them.

This morning I used my new light and it was great!!! It lit up my road llike it was day time (I might be over stating that.)

I have been seeing a lot more riders on my trips to and from work. I passed the same lady on the hill today. As I went past her I said, "The hills do get easier." She just kind of chuckled and said, "Yeah, when?" I just said, "You'll get there, keep riding!"

People at work still are amazed that I am still riding. they have no idea how pleasant it is!!!

Last week was bad for me. After a neck injury had me bed ridden for 3 days, and an emergency stop/fall that happened on the Tour Du Port in Balitmore on Sunday which left me with both knees and an elbow skinned I knew I probably should take the metro. But with a 60 degree clear sky, forget it - I went! And enjoyed it, knees still hurt, and um ... some neosporin leaked through the bandages onto my leg warmers, but it was worth the ride - even with the knee killer hills on the Custis Trail. I made sure to stop at CVS on the way home to get some extra large bandages for tomorrow.

alarm clock lost half an hour somehow while we were out all weekend watching the pennant playoffs in other people's living rooms, so i got a reasonable amount of sleep by accident. i think it rained a bit this morning; nice actually. just a gentle continuous spitting. i was a few minutes behind my last week's time getting down to the bridge, but still covered the rest of the ride in my usual number of minutes despite what i'm pretty sure would have been a headwind even to everyone else for about half of that part, so i only took a few minutes longer than usual. and coming home i made astonishing speed; only 10 minutes longer than it took me to get there in the morning. mcwow. i keep thinking 'but. . . but that part has the HILLS.' a month ago it sometimes took me that long to do the easy part. i don't understand it either, but i'm happy.

anyway, it was really nice. more than the speed factor, what's really cool is that i'm not getting as tired to make those speeds as i was getting to do it all in a lot more time when i started out, if you get me. it makes the whole thing so much more fun, and it's like a bonus because i was prepared to keep grinding just as it was if necessary. if this keeps up or doesn't regress through the rest of this week, i think i might start letting myself get used to it. so that's what this week is about.

note to self: the recruiter who's handling this contract called me during the day. i'll have to take the kid's phone with me tomorrow and call him back sometime during the day. remember that when he asks how it's going, he means the job and he wants to hear about the project. he's not asking how my commute's coming along, and he doesn't want to hear about my shiny new times. three months left on this thing.

i don't do my little ride through the wild side any more. i'm leaving work late enough, and i'm confident enough now to just use the road all the way, and go over the overpass with the cars to slide round the cloverleaf. that part of today was fun too; something was up with traffic way up the hill on my home-side of the bridge, and i actually passed several cars. a novel sensation for me. i miss the backlotty chunk in a way. i like this speed thing, and it's fun to have a long chunk of road with nowhere to stop now that i don't need to stop.

songs: freedom come a' ye, hamish henderson, while showering.

An otherwise nice commute was marred by a ped. I was flying across 45th, going from Times Square towards 6th Ave. I see that for the first time in a long time I have a chance to make the left turn on to 6th before the red light, so I gun it. A ped starts inching out into the crosswalk. I'm forced to slow, dodge and holler. At this point the light is turning red and I have no choice but to complete the maneuver, and get yelled at by the ped! Was I pushing it a bit, yes, though I would have made it through unimpeded just beating the light. Was I wrong? 89 out of 100 survey respondent say "no". Was the ped wrong? Absolutely! how a ped can yell at someone for running a light when standing the crosswalk while traffic is still flowing (not to mention cutting off a clean left turn) is beyond me. Meh.

Oh, and I was hit by a little rain squall about a mile from home. I had left the jacket at home (arm and leg warmers, FTW!) so I was worried that I would freeze. Not so -- the rain stopped after a few minutes. In the end it was rather pleasant.

:eek: Almost didn't get in today. Bike path is routed onto a sidewalk at the corner by my office, As I passed a gas station a delivery van almost took me out. Don't know where he was going as there was traffic, and he couldn't have gone anywhere. His bumper left some dirt on the left rear panier. If I had been clipped in I would have surely fallen into traffic, but with the regular pedals on, I was able to get my feet down without falling.

Way too close!

Most of my commute is on two lane road with heavy traffic on a narrow shoulder. But it's the sidewalk portion that I always consider the dangerous part.

Take care!

Nice ride in this morning. Had a couple of drops when I was on the Greenway. Its getting real dark in the mornings. Just added the Flare headlight, made a big difference.

Oboe, you had the clear, the ped should not have made a fuss.

I get that once in a while if I take the inland route and take 7th ave down through Times Square. The peds in the 50's- high 40's, just walk right across in a pack against the light. I'm hollering and pointing and generally making a spectacle (while occasionally clipping a backpack)

Oboeguy had the right of way, but pedestrians in NYC feel that traffic is just a nuisance to deal with when walking and that they always have the right of way no matter what. A whistle helps get their attention, but that part of town is notorious for non-thinking peds.

My ride in was mostly uneventful except for the part where I almost got hit from behind by a light grey Honda civic that was in the bus lane illegally. Bus lanes in NYC are restricted to buses only during rush hour. Cars can't drive in the lanes except to make right turns. Other than that, there shouldn't be any cars at all in the bus lanes. I was in the lane, to the right of center because of the potholes, etc., when I came up on an illegally parked truck and had to steer left to go around. When I turned to see if the coast was clear, I saw the civic thisclose to my rear wheel. I pedaled faster, went around the truck, gave the driver a nasty look and kept going. After that, it was the usual commute and my usual thoughts about how *****ty Lexington Ave. is south of E50th St. cuz of the rough surface that passes for a road here.

Nice ride in today. The sun wasn't quite up, and the clouds were dazzling - rose, orange, yellow and purple on an azure bowl of sky. Most of the leaves are off the trees, and there's snow coming for Thursday. I should get my other SS up and running tonight.

I tried out my new Under The Weather [http://www.under-the-weather.ca/clothingSit.html] pants today. I rolled up the legs to the knee and they actually stayed put all the way to work. They are super-comfy and fit very well when riding. I also was trying out my new Shimano MT50 shoes. Very comfy for walking and biking.

Awesome ride in today. My office is 4 miles north of my house but I left early to ride 13 miles southwest, over the Sacramento to Yolo County and back up through West Sac along South River Road. For a long stretch it was just me and the herons and hawks.

I fought a strong headwind for the first half but when I turned north on Jefferson Boulevard it became a sweet, sweet tailwind. I jammed it on the big ring and flew.

I ended up with a 27 mile loop and a million-dollar smile on my face.

Multigeared hybrid ride today
coastfest
Max speed 46.2 mph.

I like lex below 34th down to 23rd. The roads a bit hazardous, but you can catch the lights and get down to make the left on 22nd.

1st is good up from Houston. I have gotton up to 34th without a red light

Ride home was dog ridden.

My ride today was one of the best I've had in a long time. The moon this morning was grand! My new light is great! I was flying! I don't know what it is about this cooler weather, but I really love it. I wasn't even winded when I got to work, or when I got home. The up-hills seemed to be non-existent. My left knee hurts a little, but I'm dealing with that.
If this weather keeps up like this I will be riding well into November...and beyond!

Damn! Coming into work it was mid 50's. I was all decked out, warmers, windbreaker, helmet hat ... then going home; like mid 70s! Talk about surprised. I just wanted to start stripping on the sidewalk (but thought better of it).

forgot to eat yesterday. explains the tired today, probably.

morning was clear and cold. not seriously, but a change from the way it has been now that we have no overcast. sun bright in my eyes, so a little more cautious coming at intersections, which slowed me down a little. but really a nice ride all the way. if it's clear again tomorrow i can always aim for leaving half an hour earlier so as to get there before the sun. someone cleared all the scary/dangerous/ugly crud off the bike section of the lead-ups to the bridge - some total stranger i'm very fond of.

coming home two odd things happened. one was on the cloverleaf. traffic was backed up to the intersection before the overpass again, and there's this border painted onto the road that's a good two and a half or three feet wide. could be an intentional bike path, although it's not marked. so i did my usual thing and just rode on the line, keeping pace with and passing the cars. it's a nice wide cloverleaf, so there was lots of room between me and the cars; nice little co-existence model. but this one car . . . it seemed like it saw me coming and was sliding over as if it wanted to pinch me off. don't know if that was the purpose or not, but i can't think of any other explanation, really. didn't cause me any problems because i noticed it acting strangely in plenty of time to slip through and leave them behind, but still. huh. is it possible i'm now such a speedster i put someone's knickers all in a knot? gawsh.

then the other thing happened on the other end of the bridge. coming down, i saw a pedestrian ahead of me, going the same direction as me. it's narrow there, and the pavement is ripply for some reason and affects my balance, never my strongest point anyway. so i was quite happy to just creep along behind him a nice non-freaky way back. pedestrians have the right-of-way anyway. but he saw me after a while and stopped to let me pass. only thing was he didn't make room for me to do it comfortably. just stood there, leaving me about a foot to get by in, gesturing, and he was a kind of stocky shape too. i tried, then i caught a wobble, so i just kind of went 'eh' and got off to walk it past him. the guy took off. ran down the rest of the bridge, ran across the marked crossing over the first exit, ran the strip that leads to another mup. he was still jogging when i joined up with that one, so i just rode on the road with the cars for the rest of the bridge after that. i mean, what was i going to do? chase him down yelling 'hey you! come back here and stand still so i can walk my bike past you!'?

scrambled eggs on toast for dinner, with orange juice. weird day.

Had an interesting commute yesterday. Left work early for an appointment for a shoulder MRI. I had to ride on roads that were new to me. I scouted them out last week to check for traffic, etc.
The ride wasn't bad but I could tell that some of the cagers WERE NOT used to seeing bike commuters. They weren't as patient as some of the drivers I encounter on my regular commute.
I saw a bike commuter on the other side of the road and waved.
After the MRI (oh my aching head :crash: ) I decided to take a REALLY busy road to get home - shorter route. Saw two bike commuters on this road -- still the cagers were very impatient. Some honked their horns. I never get honked at on my regular route. :)
I'll go back next week for the results of the MRI and see what traffic is like in the AM. :eek:

Commute here is DC this morning was great. It was a crisp 56 degrees when I left the house this morning. My commute is just short of 19 miles each way, and I was making great time this morning, i.e. the legs felt great. About half way through my ride, I got my first flat. Fortunately, I had all my tools with me along with a spare tube. Changed the flat in about 10 minutes and was off. By the time I got to my office my rear tire was flat again. Grrrrr! Really need to fix the flat before my ride home tonight. Guess I will be running to the bike store at lunch to pick up a few more CO2 cartridges and a new tube.

Regarding my flat, does this sound like a pinch flat? I have changed a million tubes on bikes over the years, but this is the first on my roadie (Campy Vento wheelset). I'm going to check my tube and see if I can see where the damage occurred. Any suggestions?

GB

65 degrees and little bit of wind… Got to LOVE October!

54 degrees when I left. Very tired, one of the kids was up during the night with a high fever. Turning those pedals were pretty tough this morning.

Hey NYC'ers- did Bloomberg order up some headwinds this week? I figure the week before the election, he will order tailwinds so he can say how much he is benefitting the bikers.
It seems I have been riding into a headwind both ways all week. Maybe the wind is coming from a certain angle where it blows up the river and down the river at the same time? I just keep thinking about how good a workout I have gotten. Oh yeah- 70 degrees yesterday afternoon? Sounds good to me.