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This was not me this morning...buhahahahahaha! :p

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. :o
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. :beer:

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:

http://http://www.bikechina.com/imag...s/DSCN5596.JPG

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.

Took the day off from work to hit the river and see about a nice largemouth and grits supper.

Took the Townie3 and utility trailer loaded with the 25 qt. cooler, my pack and two casting outfits down the road to the canoe livery. They were closed when I got there so I got on the cell to their office. No answer, but found out by the recorded message that they've gone to their winter hours, which means closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

"BAAAAH!!! WTF??!!!"

It wasn't the ride that caused the consternation, but the missed bass and grits dinner. Oh well, I'll be back Thursday of next week. Can't do it tomorrow because I need to get a project at work finished up. Looks like grits and mullet again tonight. :)

The ride was very nice, ~3 miles one way, oak canopy road, very little traffic, no bugs, cool, almost chilly in khakis and a T-shirt. The pieces of PVC pipe that I Zip-Tied to the frame of the trailer to carry fishing rods vertically worked very well. :D

• Construction had me fighting heavy traffic from the start
• Pothole knocked off my rear light
• Saw a dead cat.
• And it is getting sort of hot

Sounds like a bad ride and when I pulled in to work, I was convinced it was. But as I let things sink in, I was not so sure. Then I started to type this just to get it out of my system and now I am convinced that it was great.

• Construction had me fighting heavy traffic from the start.
  At least I was able to fly by much of it. It was even worse for the people in cars.
• Pothole knocked off my rear light
  Fortunately I heard it clack away and was able to retrieve it and the batteries with a minimal amount of car interaction. If this had happened in the dark on my way home, I would have never found any of it. Bad event, but timing could not have been better.
• Saw a dead cat.
  Reminded me of why I ride and why I should be careful about the drivers around me
• And it is getting sort of hot.
  And this is a problem why? Most people are wondering if they have enough layers, I am wondering if I have enough sunscreen!

All in all. I am glad I ride. Sometimes it's hard, but is always worth it.

I was a little chilly coming home, especially cuz I took the super long way by going in the opposite direction from home to run some errands. I added about 12 miles to my ride home which is about 2-3 miles depending on which route I take.

The ride home included some jarring bumps that I didn't see even w/ my light on and a car honking for a long time cuz I was in front of him instead of the other way around. I just grinned and thought, "At least I'm not behind some slow-ass biker!". :D

Ever feel like the wind is going to blow you backwards? Yeah, that was my ride home. I was supposed to meet my wife about 10 more miles away from home, but there was no way I was making it. Had her meet me at home.

I just got my bike's service done at the shop and rode home. (thank god, the bike guys were as friendly as usual, they even let me tried an expensive high performance racing bike which i totally had no intention to purchase at the moment)

Its getting windy here, i can hardly on 2-6 gear on a flat road. When i was stopping near the traffic light, a big as truck flew past me and blowed me half meter to the left... But the ride was still enjoyable, i also plan to ride in the wind again tonight just for fun.

DC was a beautiful ride in this morning. I took the last few days off because the last distance ride I went on killed me. Finally felt strong enough to tackle a ride into work - part of me knew that it was time to take the bike out!

Played some bike polo with a crew out in DC - wiped out twice but no sever bruises to complain about - have to start learning how to handle my bike instead of just ride fast and in a straight line. The ride home at 10pm is great - no headwind! Even the potomac was still. It was so good that I even got a chance to practice no hands for a a while! Great day for a commute.

30 MPH headwind in the morning and 18 MPH headwind going home. Stupid wind!
Good ride anyway, just wish the wind directions were reversed between morning and night.

the ride this morning ruled... nice day, and I'm having a much easier time with the hills... I've shaved a good 5 minutes at least off my commute since I started a month and a half ago

the ride back tonight was alright, a few knuckleheads honking and a couple people passing too close, the nighttime seems to bring out the bad drivers out here

such a schlub, me. i'm tired.

cold, clear, grey morning ride. puddles all drained away. not nearly enough sleep last night, so i was late starting out, and button of all buttons. tired.

the ride was a write-off as far as not dying in the first block, so i kind of lost the main plot and started to hyperfocus on tiny side-things instead, like timing the light at the bottom of the bike path on my stopwatch. chunnering away to myself, leaning on the button and channelling frank burns at it: "come on, come on, come on; what the zark is your stupid problem? rome is burning; the sky is falling; CHANGE ALREADY!!" secure in the knowledge that Nobody Bikes To Work Anymore In This Weather, and i've got the world to myself. and i look right, and there's another commuter on a loaded white commuter bike at my shoulder. dunno how long he'd been there, but once i'd finished yelping and almost falling over we had a nice little chat about something or other until the light finally did change. i'm not too sure what. about five minutes later, heading onto the bridge, i kind of remembered his nose and it occurred to me he might have been the manager of my kid's summer team. it's hard to tell under a helmet. it was that kind of day. still is.

woman in the health club sitting all by herself on a chair outside the door to the court, like a kid in high school waiting for the principal to come out and Deal with her. waiting for her partner, i guess. she got an eyeful of my whole flight-squadron gear while i was weighing myself right beside her, and she was VERY impressed when i told her where i'd come from. so impressed that i didn't have the heart to tell her how milquetoast my performance is considered by Real Commuters. so i swaggered a bit and spit in the dirt and answered her technical questions about 'don't you get COLD' for her like i really was some kind of rareified astronaut type with special knowledge. then i went and washed myself.

still tired coming home. there's a new person in my 4-person cube these days, and she - i tracked this - never let more than 40 minutes go by ALL DAY without starting a new little popularity session with the other denizens. fries my head so i hardly know which way is up. i've really messed something up with my gearing system, so i didn't have all my gears on the way home and that didn't help, but i was kind of too far gone to notice what kind of difference it made.

lawd. just put me to bed and don't bend me. today the scale says i weigh 150.

Cool ride in this morning but it was nice riding into the sunrise. Lots of cars out this morning but overall they did well passing me. Didn't see another commuter today like I have most of this week. Should be a nice warm ride home this evening into the sunset.

No more commuting for me. I got the axe yesterday. Out of the blue, no reason given. I guess my position is bein eliminated. <sigh> Back to full-time student for a while I guess. At least my road bike should see some more love in the near future.

^^^Ouch baby, that hurts ...

Today I got a friendly nod from a motorcycle cop, a rarity in this roads. I waved back and he saluted! It made my day!

The rain and wind are back today so I got wet riding in. I haven't figured out how to dress for my commute yet (this is week six) so that I'm warm enough on the easy first three miles without cooking myself for the last two. I was getting chilly until I hit my first hill, then I could feel the warmth spreading through my body. First the legs, then the rest of me soon after. By the crest even my fingertips were toasty and I was gloveless at 44F degrees. If only the hills were at the start of my commute instead of the end.

Damn, sorry to hear that.

At the risk of sounding lewd, what are you wearing?