My ride in was about normal... overcast, a little foggy, and a little below freezing. The streets were damp, so I was careful about cornering in case of ice. Once I got to work, I began to realize I'm probably coming down with the flu :( so I did what needed doing, and then bundled up, rode slowly home, and took a nice hot bath.

Good thing it's Friday, anyway.

wow! 76degf yesterday on return trip, 28degf on the way in this am = chilled difference, but acclimated in route to work. traffic seemed lite and focused, even more so on return trip, +/-38deg. 5/5 commutes this week!

:rofl: rode my bike to work especially to get out of haiku duty, but oh well, 3-for-5 for the week probably counts under some other rule.

laurie anderson
forgotten in kitchen; bah
today my job sucked

had to make do with bruce cockburn all day. adequate, but just not the same thing when you're in an anderson mood.

perfectly, incredibly beautiful morning. the orange juice did the job, i took my time this morning getting up and getting ready and not leaving until i felt okay, and i was more careful all day today about eating a bit more adequately. took more oj with yogurt with me, and some other things.

the morning ride was cold. damp air, something almost-but-not-quite a fog hanging around. hazed up enough that you could look directly at the sun through the grey, and cold enough to have that wonderful freezing-air smell - left over from last night, i guess. absolutely my favourite smell in the world. it almost looked like okanagan-girl might have been right after all in predicting some snow (nope). tuque, tights, fleece, snowboarder gloves; wore the shell but left the rainproof pants in the bag. i left so late that traffic just wasn't there but the lights were; another massive bonus. only bad thing was that i located the anderson cd and all, and then on the other side of the bridge started to get that sneaking feeling that i couldn't remember actually putting it into the bag. eh. that's what you get for paying attention to packing a lunch.

evening ride was also great. left really late and didn't feel like going through the whole full monty to change. i kept my working jeans on (mistake; seams; ow) but put the rainpants on over them for reflectiveness and wind-breaking. nothing hurt!!! not enough to be a problem anyway. god what a relief. had to detour to the grocery strip for provisions, so i spent some time eyeballing braces etc in the pharmacy before i went home. i dunno; maybe. see how it goes next week. broke the other zipper-tab off my bag trying to close it over too much stuff so gee. :D i'm almost at the point now where i can justify getting myself a real biking bag :D

no conversations at all in the health club today; too late in the morning, i guess. but coming out of the hotel complex and heading to work i passed one of those conference-attendee types hanging around outside. he had a great big Hi-My-Name-Is type of sticker on the front of his shirt, only it said

Wounded Heart

and yeah. i did a double-take and looked back, and it was positioned on the left pec. that hotel is really starting to fascinate me.

songs: mincing wi' chairlhi, michael marra; wild mountainside, trashcan sinatras. guess we're in a jacobite mood this weekend.

[/QUOTE]
Thanks...glad to be back.

Only rode three days this week because of time commitments. I had to be somewhere after work taht I could not get to in time on my bike. Those three days were really good. The weather here in Portland has been great.
Funny thing: One morning, as I was walking from my bike to my machine a guy called at me, "Hey, how come you didn't even wave when I honked at you this morning?"
"I didn't hear you honk."
"Well, you were on the bike path and I was on the freeway, and I slowed down and honked."
"It wasn't me because I don't go that route to work, I was nowhere near the freeway path."
(Insert here a bunch of conversation trying to convence the guy that I really did not go on the freeway bike path and he honked at some other rider.)
Then he said, "Well, this is kind of scary then. You have a twin out there somewhere because the dude looked just like you...clothes, bike and all."
My daughter thinks he must have been on drugs at some point in his life.

I got you covered here:

Driving in my car
Is not as good as my bike.
I can't feel the wind.

Weekly report"

3/5 commutes. Slowing down due windchill. Traffic as normal. Peeling - adding layers as needed. Sweaty back with 25 degree farenheit.

No ... I am not buying panniers yet.

Today was a good ride into work. Mid 50's, little wind; it's rides like this that make we wish I worked farther from home. I like working weekends, no traffic. My co-workers have finaaly realized that riding to work isn't something I'm going to stop doing. I had to laugh at them today, they were all complaining about the COLD. It wasn't cold but they all had on jackets. That's California for you I guess. I didn't even bring a jacket to work. What will they do when it gets down to the 30's? I'm only averaging about 14 MPH on my way to work on my MTB due to lights. Is that bad? I'm still running knobbies because I like to ride offroad too and I only have the one bike, so no slicks for now. I'm willing to take any other suggestions. I'm picking up a rear wheel trainer in the next few days to work on my speed. 14 MPH is just slow. I'm no roadie but I gotta go faster. Ttfn.

What, everyone can't be Monday-Friday except for me, can they? The ride in was 45 degrees, perfect for really pushing for a higher average speed. The city and the state fixed the traffic sensors at the intersections I told them about, so I just had to slow down, not stop and wait when there isn't cross traffic. That made for a more enjoyable ride. Ride home was nice too, 55 degrees, light traffic, really felt the burn keeping my cadence up, but still cool enough not to sweat. Waved at the the guard at the courthouse as I flew through the courthouse/jail complex. It shaves 2 blocks off my commute, but its fun to weave through and my speed stays up. When I got home I got an email about a free Magtrainer, so I can ride even when I watch TV. Some days it all goes right. :)

A great morning for a ride. Had a sunrise as I crossed the Missouri River. 36F but little wind.

Hooray for Nikwax. As it started to rain last night, I remembered that last time my pannier rain covers soaked through. So I rummaged through the work bin and found a spray bottle of Nikwax "Tent and Gear" proofer. Sprayed on liberally, wipped off excess, and hung to try. This morning it was still raining and my stuff was dry the whole way in.

I am a little disappointed that my headlight bulb decided to sputter out in the driveway. But otherwise a fine rainy day commute. And picking up my new Mungo bars from the shop on the way home.

West Kentucky - 36, North wind 10-15, gray skies, kind of dull. Yesterday was nice, partly cloudy, upper 50's, 0 wind. Did 40 miles around the county.

I'm a bit of a wimp because of the remnents of my cold. It's 33deg out this morning so I am driving to work. I don't want to risk a relaps.

My coworkers are looking at me strange. Apparently, wearing shorts when it is 30 out qualifies you as a loon. One of the benefits of wearing a different outfit in the office than what you rode in wearing. Common! It's going to be 60F later today.

Nice uneventful commute. This week I have started working on my cadence. This helped me show up a few minutes early.

Non-descript ride in today. A bit of a headwind, so I didn't feel fast [nor slow]. I'll be enjoying a roast beef sandwich with horseradish today for lunch.

The usual. 43F when I left and it may rain this afternoon so I brought the rain jacket, but left the pants at home. Some kind of Nor'easter scheduled for tomorrow so that should be interesting. I hate helmet hair.

It's closer to Thanksgiving. I didn't ride my bike because my wife told me that the traffic today is a little bit erratic. I noticed that there are more cars during the time I usually ride my bicycle to work. Have you noticed any difference in traffic during holiday season? I am afraid there will be more DUI on the road, so I am going to drive for next few days until the alcohol clears those DUI cagers brains.

:)

-5 °C (23 F) this morning in Oxford, with reports from car driving colleagues of temps down to -7 °C.

Glorious sunshine though, Glorious sunshine, really, glorious........

Cheers,

Ed

48F (9C) at my house when I left at 6am. With the mist along the American, it felt 5 degrees colder on the bike path so I'm glad I wore the full tights and a ski cap.

I feel bad for people who don't realize there are other ways to get to work than driving a car.

My wife was looking through the new Performance catalog for gift ideas -- it looks like I am getting Triflex tights and a new commuter jacket. Whoooooohoooooo!

Both my rides today were uneventful except for this AWESOME view I had the good fortune to witness on the way home. I was riding downhill facing east but i was still high above downtown Portland. With the sun just about to set, the sky above the Rockies was this delicate pink color and so was Mt Hood which I could see absolutely clearly. The mountain range in the distance was a deep green/indigo color and was immersed in low clouds that made it look eerie... I just had to stop and stare for awhile and wish in vain for my camera.

Beat the rain home.

ride to/from went well. there does seem to be an increase in offensive drivers, but manageable.
i did loose a "blinky" flashing lite on return trip when i hit a road bump. it flew off (gotta figure a better way to mount) and i was in the process of retreiving it when a car drove over it, pieces went everywhere. still had my other flashers (4) and head light.

fog fog fog. fog in the morning, fog at night. THICK fog - couldn't see up to the stop-sign from the mid-block alley just before it.

fog is extremely cool. of course i wouldn't want to live in it, but it's sure neat for someone who never sees it. i love that mysterious effect where the edges of things just suddenly show up at you, where one pace before there was nothing there. magic! really neat pearly kind of light filtering down through it too. and riding, i could actually feel the individual little droplets meeting my skin. it's as quiet and private as snow without the disadvantages of snow, very very neat. and ooooooo, the smell of it . . . could breathe that for days. i was more careful than usual though. got no idea how visible any of my visibility stuff is through fog, so i just assumed it wasn't at all and based myself on that. started late again, so traffic was pretty mild anyway. dunno the temperature, something between 5 and 10 probably.

must have been low cloud, not river fog. when i got down to the last steep descent and was almost at river-level, it thinned out very suddenly. then thickened up again as i went up the bridge, thinned as i came down . . . couldn't see the river as anything but a shadow from up there. like a whistler painting. i liked it a lot. was even more careful coming home, what with the dark on top of the fog, but it was fine.

nothing in the health club at all. but as i came into work there was a van with a trailer parked just outside the doors. odd. van and trailer had washington plates. trailer had a texas-based url sign-painted across the back of it. and the van had a 'university of so cal' decal along the back window. you wonder how they got all of it together in the first place, never mind up here to bc.

counting down the final two months. yee HAH.

Overcast, a little above freezing, and a nondescript 5-mile ride to work. There was a natural-gas leak somewhere in the building, so I grabbed my bike and gear in case we couldn't go back inside, but we were given the all-clear. Darn. :p

Going home, I went ponderously slow most of the way, taking it easy, feeling (and hearing) the IRC Blizzards gnawing on asphalt with carbide steel at ~35psi/2atm. Arrived home in the dark to see the apartment manager changing light bulbs on a stepladder under the carport. "I figured that might be you," she said cheerfully. "That looks like a nice bike. So do you ride all winter?"

:)

Bit of fog this morning so I rode my old Centurion Le Mans with its home made headlight & yellow strobe lights. Every car passed with care & gave me lots of room. Forgot how visible this old tank is, made for a nice,peaceful commute to & from work.