Nice ride to work this morning, a little sun due to the time change. Then 12 hours later I was dodging jaywalking trick or treaters on my way home. Rather, I was dodging thier parents, the kids look first. I had an idiot honk at me trying to startle me as he passed too close, then I passed him at the next light and waved. Guess the SUV isn't that impressive,huh?

I had a very good commute this morning. First time I break some real sweat on my commute for a very long time. There was a foot of wet snow on the bikepath that made the day very interresting, to say the least. I ride on knobbies now, and with the normal 65 psi the tyres cut through the snow, the rear wheel was spinning and I had some serious gravity-problems. But after I let out the almost all the air from the tyres I had some flotation, good control and managed up to 8 mph on the flats.
After I got from this bikepath and on to the streets I sure had good traction, but the rolling resistance was immense. I think my max speed today was around 12 mph.

Good commute this morning. I gotta say I love the cooler weather. I overdressed again tho - didn't need the base, sweater and vest. I switched from riding in tennis shoes to leather docs and it made quite a difference in hills and warm feet!

Great commutes the past couple of days. The weather was in the high sixties yesterday afternoon, lots of sun. Got up early and was on the way by 6am yesterday so I could take the kiddies trick or treating in the afternoon. I figure compared to last week I am getting up a half hour later (even though its a half hour earlier).

Sunny, and no wind. Should have been a good ride, but traffic was much heavier then usual. I was cut off at both stop signs, honked at by a pick up, and close pass by a little sports car. There were long backups at all the lights, and I also got cought at a train crossing by a long freight.

I'm still not happy with my lights for the trip home, I picked up a mag light that I'm going to attach to the front fork and see if it helps. If not I'm going to be looking at a 12 volt DIY project.

First commute in 4 days. Wonderfull commute. Fast, warm, and due to the time change the sun came up midway through it.
The only problem was a splitting sideache partially up my last hill.
Time to research this problem.

Sunny, low 50s (~12C). Nice ride but had to unzip the lightweight vest half way to work. The arm warmers were almost too much but no arm warmers would have been cool. :o

The ride home should be nice, ~70F (21C). VERY nice for Nov 1 :)

Raining as hard as rain can rain. Many of our city's brightest—and wealthiest—citizens solve their leaf problem by shovelling huge piles of leaves into the street. Makes the bike route particularly treacherous, and blocks up all the drains, so the streets are rivers, some running about 3 inches deep. Thanks to my poncho and booties, I was 82% dry arriving at work.

Argh! Commuted to NJ via car for a meeting that I found out was postponed to next week when I arrived! So no riding, no skating at lunch and I gave up a perfectly good parking spot that was good until Friday! FUUUUDGE!

I'm getting to be less and less impressed with my PI Amfib lobster gloves. It was 0C, low humidity and I don't think I got going faster than about 45 km/h. Cold fingers. Boooo! The ride home last night was somewhat entertaining. It was completely dark, and my headlight did a good job of not getting me killed by errant vehicles. Traffic volume has increased dramatically since last week. I'm going to have fun going home today in the middle of rush hour...

Dang it ollo! I tol' ya to watch out for those sharks :p Yeah the monsoons are definately here.

It's warmed up significantly from that cold snap we had a week ago. Over 80 on the way home this afternoon. Took the son's MTB today. I didn't count the teeth, but man that thing is geared low. On the way to work this morning tried the lowest gear just for giggles. At a cadence of 100 I was doing less than 5 mph. :rolleyes: :D

Made one mistake. Looked at the size of the chain rings and thought, "Hmm, his big ring is about the size of the middle ring on my road bike and hybrid. So big ring on this bike and middlish of the cassette should be just about what I'm used to spinning." About a mile from the house with my thighs on fire I figured out them 26X2.1 knobby Velociraptors have a lot more rolling resistance than what I had been riding on.

Other than that everything went well. Ironed a minor shifter glitch for him. Dag-gone jay-walking deer are a hazard to look out for. The one I saw this afternoon I saw early enough that it wasn't a problem, but the one this morning. Must have surprised her with her escape route back across the road. Got to give her credit for being quick though, she cleared the whole road in one bound. :D

The ride back was fun tonight. Started with a little drizzle, I had no urge even to put on my rain gear, my fleece is somewhat water resistant. Then BOOM, the cats, dogs, elephants and the kitchen sink came down on top of me. I saw the wall of water coming, but it was on me before I could even get stopped and I was soaked. Only five miles from the park-n-ride, I said hell with it and just kept going. On the bright side, between my butt, the tent of my fleece and my fenders, my Brooks barely got wet!

Just a rainy day ride today. It was starting to clear up at lunchtime but I had to drive my car back so I could get to Novus to fix a rock chip in the windshield so I missed out on a good afternoon commute. Don

Well, I'm back to commuting today. I was out of town on business last week and was de-motivated the week before. Some may remomber the "How do you keep motivated to commute this time of year" thread I started as few weeks ago. I bought some MEC thermal tights (love them, the best thing I've purchased for quite some time I must say) and Specialized Deflect gloves. (Good to stop wind but a little chilly this morning at 34 degrees)

Ma nature welcomed me back with a nice headwind and rain on my way home. It is snowing right now and should continue through the night with below freezing temps. This should provide a bit of an adventure riding into the office tommorow. However, I will not be denied my commute tomorrow! I might have to take the FS MTB depending how much accumulation we get.

I'm glad to report that the motivation is back! I rode home with a ear to ear grin dispite the weather. Here are a couple shots on the way home. It was too dark this morning to take pictures.

T.J.

My wet path home by the canal.
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c7...8/IMG_1594.jpg

Calgary Skyline
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c7...8/IMG_1595.jpg

Cagers! Bwaaahahahah. I look down upon thee!
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c7...8/IMG_1598.jpg

http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c7...8/IMG_1599.jpg

Hey, they fixed the "Ass kickers" This section on my commute had a series of huge bumps that really hurt to hind parts. Nice discovery! :)
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c7...8/IMG_1600.jpg

Good ride to work & home .Still very muddy and wet .
I hope the wether clear up . Have a good nite .

Felt fast going in the morning, but the computer said differently. I found the glove that I dropped on my way home yesterday in my rush to get home to take the kids trick or treating. Had a slow time coming home, my wife called me on the cell so I stopped to take the call. It would happpen as I was just getting into my rhythm on the longest leg of my trip home; arrrgghh! Even a bad ride home beats driving on the Highway. I'm off tomorrow, so my son wants me to ride with him to school (another convert in the making). Riding to work is becoming the high point of my workday, is that normal?

Was 5 feet from getting creamed riding through an intersection tonight (with a green light). Someone decided to start a left hand turn into me and stopped just short of nailing me. I'm sure the driver had to stop further down the road to check his drawers due to almost getting side-swiped after stopping to keep from hitting me....

HEY!!! be-bop deluxe!!! well, i'll be.

what everyone else said about rain. i hit one of those puddles, right in - and over, and across - my bike shoulder on the entrance onto the bridge. heh. i edged over as far as i possibly could, given that the rest of the ramp was full of queued-up container trucks. couldn't just freewheel through it with feet out at the sides since it was uphill. so then i thought eh, should be okay if i just take my time and i got curious about how deep it was. nah; up over the knobbies and maybe even over the pedals; i looked up around then so i don't know if i got myself with my own bow-wave. i'm still newbie enough that it was kind of fun, but i can see how i'm going to want real shoes pretty soon.

i'm definitely the only one crossing the bridge these days. at first i thought it was just a scheduling fluke, since some of the people i've been passed by in happier times were obviously much more competent cyclists than me. but in the past week i've been on the normal workday schedule and i think i've only seen one person, coming home one dark night. makes me feel a bit undefeated; a nice feeling. and i like having the bridge to myself.

the squash-club conversation this morning was about somebody's winter vacation trip. apparently they're going to disneyland first, and then straight on to tasmania. i swear. there were elaborate explanations of the baggage-handling or scheduling rigour this brings, i don't recall which.

coming home - eh. i didn't get wet; otherwise unremarkable. fireworks still so prevalent it's a good thing gunpowder is one of my three favourite smells.

too fascinated by the disneyland-tasmania thing to try the scale this morning.

Had a nice ride in this morning. Temps were already in the mid 50's so I was very warm by the time I got to work. I am also starting to eat breakfast after my ride instead of before it. Left a little late and the roads were very busy.

No ride today. A spoke decided to snap while the bike was sitting in the office last night, the shop was closed by the time I was able to get over there, and the most I would risk was riding it home. These spoke problems never end!

On the positive side, new bike toys had been delivered by the time I got home. The key stuff was upgrades for my road bike's aging drivetrain. I look forward to some wrenching in the near future!

Fewer and fewer other riders in the morning now. The only bad thing about this weather is that I am running out of clothes at work. I may have to carry the big backpack home to bring new stuff in tomorrow.

Hey! LOOK OUT FOR THAT COMET!

:p

.

Indian summer here .... temps in the upper 60's ... pushing too big of a gear, sweating rear off.
Boy ... that Creatine works wonders to prevent muscle soreness. Another record time in the fixed gear. Friday will be multigeared time.

For the first time in my six weeks of commuting I avoided the bike lane this morning. The rain and wind of the last two days has stopped. The road was clear but the bike lane was covered in a thick ooze made of ground up leaves, pine needles, water, and petroleum residue. I had much more control riding in the travel lane.