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.

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.

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.


Calgary Skyline


Cagers! Bwaaahahahah. I look down upon thee!




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!

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!



.

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.

This was not me this morning...buhahahahahaha!

We got about 2" of snow last night. That isn't too bad, but it rained for a good portion of the day, so the snow stuck to the wet pavement and froze. Then it melted a bit - slicker than goose grease! I switched to my mtn SS for the ride in, but I'm worried about going home in the dark after everything re-freezes...

Hehe! I love cruising on my bike on the feeder lane while others sit parked on the expressway. Even at 20mph, I beat those cagers home.

Today....45 degrees and beautiful. I have three "courses" to work. A long, medium, and short route. With the wonderful weather here in Houston......it was the long one (11 miles). Can't wait for the 72 degree ride home in perfect weather. FINALLY, low humidity rides.

Suburban passed me approaching intersection. I stopped a few car lengths back in next lane over. Kid in back rolls down window and waves. I wave back. Kid yells "You Rock" It made me smile the rest of the way home.

Al

Ride in was interesting b/c of two things:

1) Ended up in a short line of myself and two other commters. The woman in front passed me at an intersection. I followed behind her and another commuter came up behind me. At a multi-car jam, she slowed, signalled left to get around traffic and went around. The commuter behind me followed her. Meanwhile, my keen instincts picked up a good path around the traffic to my right, so I squeezed between two cars and shot forward with a clear path for a block. I thought to myself of the other two commuters, "Suckers!". What's interesting is that I actually thought this while riding my bike. Usually, I reserve this thought for driving when I get ahead of someone trying to get the jump on me and they grab the wrong lane and get stuck.

2) As I was widening my lead over the other two commuters and squeezing along a slowly moving bus and a truck w/ about 3" to spare on either side and moving at about 15 mph, as I got to the front of the bus, a ped jumps out in front of me causing me to slam on the brakes, skid and take away my beautiful momentum. I don't think the ped realized how close he came to getting creamed. Any faster and I wouldn't have had time to react.

The rest of the ride was the usual zig-zag and squeeze with occasional ped dodging. Tonight is the extra long way home since I have to run some errands downtown before heading home uptown. Yay me!

Today's commute was different.
Had to stop for my first physical therapy appointment (preparing for shoulder surgery) on the way to work. I ride right past the PT place every day. It is about 4.5 miles from home so I was just getting warmed up when I had to stop.
After an hour of arm and shoulder PT my leg muscles were cooled down so the first couple of miles were harder than usual.
When I arrived for the appointment I was wearing knee warmers, arm warmers and vest.
When I left it had warmed up enough so all I needed were the arm warmers.

Some of the trees are FINALLY starting to turn so the second part of the ride in full sunshine was gorgeous. I gotta remember to carry the camera.

Fall has been late coming this year. Usually the trees have all turned by early November, but we've had a warm fall. The daily highs are in the hi-60s to lo-70s. I'm still wearing shorts at work.

This morning was awesome. My buddy and I are trying to reestablish our early morning training rides on the American River Bike Trail. Pre-fatherhood we would meet 4 times a week at 6:30am to ride a 20 mile out-and-back. He's on a 10am-8pm schedule so he'd ride home for breakfast. I have to be at the office by 8, so I'd just ride into work. We're going to try and do this 2x a week, with our wives' blessing of course.

Anyway, it's just a pleasure to be out there chatting with a good friend about politics, our kids, bikes, movies, whatever. Might rain this afternoon so I rode the commuter while he rode his beautiful new Bianchi.

The weather is gorgeous this morning. 55F and wind on my back. Unfortunately I am still the lone commuter on the road here in Plano, TX at 9:30 AM.

I started a month ago commuting to work. 3 or 4 times a week. But I still haven’t got over the “sore to the touch” phase. My leg, butt are still sore to the touch. It’s only a 9 mile ride one way. Still out of breath from time to time. Hopefully I will get over it.

How about commuting like this:

I had a nice commute in this morning, a little chilly at 33F but for the ride home it's in the mid 60's. Hmmmmmm... wish I would have remembered my shorts. Well, as the sun sets it cools down anyway. At least I remembered my lighter tights. It's been a beautiful fall so far. I'm still getting extra miles in every day.