Well, it seemed like we are getting a little bit closer to winter this morning. I still had a good commute and took the long way in. It's pretty cloudy and gloomy and they are talking some snow tomorrow... we'll see.

Ride home was fine except for traffic enough to bring me to a halt once or twice. Got home and found that the building across the street from me had a small fire. Managed to find a parking spot fairly quickly which was nice.

It was windy today! 15 mph from the East. Since I live west of work, this made for a long ride in this morning. The ride home, however, was alot of fun!

There was just a touch of black ice on the side streets starting out. One motorist almost pulled out in front of me, probably having a hard time seeing me because the morning sun was in his eyes. +1 for the Flamethrower HID and the neon-yellow jacket

Going home in the dark, I had a nice ride and added a few extra miles by visiting the local REI store on the way. Oh, and I got my cheap clear safety glasses today, replacing my scratched-up amber ones.

to work this am, +/-60deg f, was eventless, traffic flowed, and space-distances i felt were respected . i was just getting fully into "the zone" and i was there, time to work :-( .
after work, temp was +/- 70deg, traffic still "sane" but about 1 mile into return trip, a firetruck, without lights or sirens, started to cut me off to apparantly park at a local drug store. i heard someone from the truck (the driver?) yell "moron", i responded with "excuse me" while slowing down and holding my lane. i was thinking of further action (make a phone call, write a letter) but decided not worth it for now.
the rest of the ride home was great!

It was a really nice morning. Low 50's with clear skies, and light traffic. The trees are bright with fall colors. This afternoon traffic was light again, and temps were near 70. Tomorrow is suppose to be slightly warmer. Caloso, riding the American River sounds like a great commute!

Wet!!

what an amazing morning...50s and sunny. the way home was a little different. a large cold front came in and douced any chance of a relaxing ride home...let me say one word about my ride home. "ICE"! my rear brakes stopped working my glasses iced over and my derailer frooze. but with my winter gear i was totally warm. cold weather is great! heres some pics just for the fun.

Great ride in. 53 degrees and a 0-10 mph wind. Shaved a minute off my best time to work. Unfortunately I had forgotten that I need to drive in today so that I could go to a meeting with my Search and Rescue unit. I hauled butt getting home to pick up my car to drive to my meeting. It was a comfortable 74 degrees coming home but the wind was gusting to 33mph, making the trip home feel distinctly like work. Made it to the meeting just in time. Good thing I drove, the wind actually got worse during the meeting. I 'm looking forward to tomorrow, supposed to be record warmth, maybe even 80 degrees.

EDIT: After reading about RACING2GOD's commute, I feel silly complaining about the wind.

clear. cold. not as cold as it felt, probably. there was thick frost on all the dead leaves and snow on the mountains but the road itself felt fine. [beam] so did my brakes [/beam]

morning was probably 3 or 4, sunny. i left at around 8:30, all dressed up and somewhere to go: tights, wind pants, t-shirt, thin fleece, silk shirt on top, snowboarder gloves, tuque under helmet, runners . . . and sunblock! thought i was overkilling, but not having the airtight rain shell on for a change meant it was just about right. so nice not to arrive at work all clammy with sweat for a change too. stopped at the storm drain that builds up the lake going onto the bridge, and cleared at least one little edge of it. i didn't realise just how thick the leaf-layer was, but it explains why it gets like it gets. curious now to see if it'll make any difference in the size of the lake in the next rain.

in the showers i noticed a pair of my magic-stretch gloves still clipped up to a hanger from where i put them last thursday to dry and forgot about them. i reclaimed them and wore them to come home in.

coming home i saw a led display that said 5 degrees, a bit warmer than this morning. moon hazed up a little, so maybe it will snow later this week after all. . . it felt a bit closer to 0 than that, but i'm a wimp. still wearing my rain pants which i used for wind-stop on the way home (too lazy to go change all the way back after work).

appointment tomorrow at 5 and i booked out from 3:30 onwards, probably my last non-full work day until february. know i should drive and do the other life-threatening stuff that just won't wait that long, but just don't want to.

Another decent ride but managed to pick up a lot of sand coming through Hyde Park this morning. This is the trouble with rain, when it hits, it sticks.

There is one ideal space at work at the end of the racks that is much coveted as it is easy to get in and out of and doesn't involve the people putting their pedals in your spokes. As I rolled into the parking area this morning the person who occasionally beats me to the spot was there. Finally I come face to face with my bike rack nemesis, dubbed the Red Baron on account of the red carrera with red tires and handlebar tape. Seems the Red Baron is indeed the Red Baronette and Foxy Lady to boot.

She smiled at me. Clearly she is deeply in love and we are destined to be together forever.

Nice pictures!

There's supposed to be a "wintery mix" here today but I took the road bike in anyway. It was dry this morning when I left (~6:50) and is supposed to just be rain by the time I leave this afternoon.

Temperature was in the mid 30Fs. Gray overcast.

Encountered alot of people heading the wrong way on the bike path on the way home yesterday. Was it some kind of Sadie Hawkins day thing or something? or since the royals were in town, folks decided to ride on the left.

I've got something going on with my front derailleur so whenever I try stomping on the pedals in the middle ring, the chain jumps. Need to take a look at that.

The good news is I have seen paving on several sections of the greenway, specifically by the cruise terminals and south of Chelsea piers. Maybe they were waiting for all the projects to be finished and then pave them all at once? Now we can wait for the area by the sewage plant. Doesn't look like anytime soon.

Nice commute in this morning. The temps were right around 20 and there was no wind to speak of. We had a light dusting of snow yesterday evening, but the path was in very good shape this morning. I saw one other bike out this morning. The ride home this evening will be cool as the highs are not going to be much above freezing. Tomorrow morning the temps are supposed to be in the mid-teens.

Riding in today was in shorts and short sleeves, about 66 degrees, with a good tailwind. I dripped a nice sweat and still got in to the train station with well over 15 minutes to spare. I just cut out a about 1/4 mile of the route where a busy street crossing and a curb-hop has been necessary and replaced it with a 70 step stairclimb, carrying my bike and backpack, to the top of a bridge.

Going home, this change also removes the necessity for riding wrong-way down a one way park road (never any traffic there, but my fates are suckers for temptation, so why push it?).

It knocks that leg of my commute down to a hair under 10 miles, but I've added a monster climb to the other end to balance it out, which also avoids a section that's consistently wet from overnight sprinklers. On the left turn at the bottom of that climb, there's always a ton of sand and leaves in the road, so I have to scrub my speed way down, or risk sliding out. This morning I had to to a motocross style power dab on that corner to stay up. As a result, the climb is all leg, no momentum.

I've discovered why stem shifters suck : my knees hit them on stand-up climbs and screw up my gear choice.

Poll: Barcons or downtube shifters - which is better?
The frame is set up for an odd sort of downtube shifter. I'm sure I can find a set, but it seems like barcons would be more easily reached.

The wind is shifting today, going home, I'll have a tailwind, too, with gusts of 40+mph. And tonight we're expecting a solid freeze. Makes me sort of glad that I"m out of clean clothes at work, and I"ll have to drive some more in...

The forecast is 55F-60F today w/ occasional showers that get heavier later this evening. So I packed my rain pants, helmet cover and rain jacket. Rode in wearing jeans and techwick t-shirt while the sky lightly sprinkled drops all over. On the way in, I realized I'd forgotten to bring a shirt for work. Guess I'll just have to sit here in my t-shirt.

Saw a couple people riding to work: one messenger and one guy on a mtb commuting and zig zagging between lanes w/o looking. He got honked at by a couple cabs for swerving wide into their lane. I'd have honked too.

Hurt my ankle yesterday after ice skating when I slipped walking out of the bathroom. Doesn't hurt when I ride, but it does hurt a little when I put my foot down at red lights. Guess I just won't stop at red lights.

A bit colder today - around -10C before windchill. Still, not that bad. I definitely need to put some air in my tires when I get home tonight. The cold has dropped the psi to ~80. For the second day in a row, some yutz in a truck has tried to squeeze me out of the road. There's a short but steep hill near my house on the way in, so I zip down that pretty quickly. Yesterday/today, there was a truck coming up the hill at a pretty fair clip, and he basically drove right in the middle of the road. This left me with a 6'-8' gap to punch through between the parked cars and the truck. A bit narrower than I'd like, as the pavement is a bit rough and somebody could open a door and/or the truck could slide another 2' closer to me [by accident, of course]. Anyway, just thought I'd complain a bit.

Well, if you can't find a set of cheap STI brake/shifters, then I would lean toward down tube shifters. I've used bare-end shifters in the past [Dura-Ace] and haven't really liked them. See if you can try out a set in a store. I think some touring bikes still come with them.

6 degrees (C) with light drizzle. Turns out my rear fender doesn't really keep the water from striping up my back. And my jacket isn't really waterproof. And if I cross wet streetcar tracks at a 10 degree angle when it's raining, I fall down. I was reminded of Hurst's "Road Rash is a gift. It's a reminder of what not to do.", and sure enough I got smacked down because I was getting cocky. Ah well, just a small reminder of the lesson for the next few days.

But all in all, sort of a fun ride. I mean, I really got quite wet, but I had a change of clothes in my pannier, and I fell, but I didn't really get hurt, and I still far prefer the ride with the wind and rain to the subway ride with the far-too-many-people and the avian flu.

Windy.

Today's commute. 17ºF with sunny skies. Roads were intermittent snow pack and ice. We only got about 1/2 inch of snow. Just enough to mess up the roads. In the past, I would have driven due to the road conditions. Today, I rode the Raleigh Mustang equipped with the new Nashbar Studded ATB tires. The commute was much slower on this bike. Of course, it was a victory to ride at all. Even if a bit slowly.

Beautiful! Brisk cold weather, but traffic moving at a crawl. Since the traffic normally moves 65, just blowing by miles of cars was pretty fun (and it made the highway seem so much quieter and safer)

61F for the ride home and the streets were wet from rain, but it had stopped raining when I left work. I put on my rain pants and jacket anyways to keep me dry from road spray and any other rain that may fall on the way home. Got home sweaty all over. So much for breathable. Also, since I have SPD platforms, my regular shoes were a little slippy on the pedals. Some observations:

- Those zips where my pants pockets are aren't pockets, their holes where I can reach in and adjust myself. Their secondary function is ventilation.
- The back of the pants don't really reach up that high in the back.
- The back pockets are so deep that I sit directly on top of whatever's in the back. A surprise if you're not expecting it and your keys are there.
- I get sweaty with that stuff on.

THE PERFECT FALL: 33F, foggy with patches of black ice. Riding past the "Igglesia Christo" sp? church, took the corner to fast, slid into a curb & down I went. I knew I would fall when I saw I couldn't avoid the curb. Went right over onto a grassy hillside, tucked & rolled down, about 3 or 4 rotations which made me dizzy. Got some mud on my clothes & the bars were off center but I was quickly on my way & changed into clean clothes when I reached work. No road rash, just a sore shoulder & a couple small abrasions on my legs & arms where I hit a few rocks. Gotta slow down & be more careful now that its Winter.

It was dry and about at the freezing point this morning, uneventful ride into downtown. On the way home I took the highway out south of the city, then came up the back side of the South Hill on a dark two-lane country road, and that was a pretty nice ride too.