SNOW! Yippee! First snow ride of the season. It started yesterday around 3PM and was a wet, sloppy ride home. A bad headwind made it uncomfortable. I made first tracks on the trail. :)

This morning it was flurrying and around 20F. Light coating of granular snow that crunched loudly under my tires. Some ice here and there but nothing dangerous. I haven't put the studded tires on yet. Just knobby MTB tires.

Last commute of the week due to the holiday. Don't eat too much, and if you do, go for a long ride on Friday!

Well, today marks the start of real ice in Bucks County, ~20 miles north of Philadelphia. The soccer socks I bought over the weekend do a pretty good job of subbing for leg warmers. Though I lust after some Merino wool ones, oooooooohhh Merino.
There was a point where it got a bit dicey trying to avoid the ice patches on the shoulder and the traffic on the backroads, but all in all it was satifying. Especially when I got to work and a coworker told me I was "a very brave man" for my commute. I don't think there's anything particularly brave about getting to work happy, envigorated and (just a little) smug in the thought that almost all of my coworkers *could* do it, but only I do do it. Ha, doo doo.

Oh, and anyone in the colder climes should check out
http://www.schampa.com/item.asp?iid=934
for a bandito/lycra face mask. Super comfy, super light and packable, and if you MUST have biker style flames, Schampa has them for you.

A note of introduction. I usually post on the Fixed Gear forum, but my interest in advocacy and bike-as-lifestyle topics has grown since I fininshed school in Philly and started working in an office environment in the suburbs. I feel there is WAY too much reliance on cars and trucks out here, starting in people's minds and manifesting itself in their flabby bodies. Not that there's a dearth of flabbiness in the city, but come on: driving .24 miles in your GMC Envoy for coffee? I'm serious about that one, I measured it.

Ugh! That is the only non 4 letter word I can express in relations to my commute home yesterday. 20 miles into it something odd happened. I lost all energy and my body felt like a limp noodle. I had to really push hard the remaining 15 miles. Plus, I detoured around a set of hills by my home. It was that bad. I knew it was something odd since I hardly became winded during that period.
I have concluded that it was a lack of energy caused by an inadequate amount of food for lunch. Especially, since I ate 2 large calazones, a peanut butter sandwich, and several cinnamon rolls after I got home. The heck with healthy foods. I was freakin' hungry!
On these long commutes I need to pack extra food for lunch.

No commute today. I need to get home early and hit the library.

Cloudless sky this morning. I passed a few people coming in, but then I miscalculated traffic and got stuck on the wrong side of 4th St. Duh. I'm thinking of saving up for a Surly Steamroller and getting a flip-flop hub in the back. I think I might be able to handle fixed after riding SS for a while.

I think the four-letter-word you're looking for is BONK! Maybe not a weave-all-over-the-road-until-you-fall-off-your-bike-and-can't-get-up bonk, but I'd say you definitely ran out of gas. You should bury a Lindt Sur Fin chocolate bar in the bottom of your bag. It's handy for when your body taps out but you're 20 miles from home.

OMG
That is such a simple solution. Thanks!
Sometimes I can't seem to see the forest through the trees.

Near the end of my 6 mile commute home last night, next to a grove of woods a deer bolted out across the road about 25 feet ahead of me. "Bambi" was really moving! I thought to myself, "Look at'm go!" I love seeing wildlife on my commute.

Then next thing I know, a big black lab comes screaming out of the same grove! I'm now within about 5 feet of him and closing fast! I grabbed all the brake I could and held my breath.

I'm here to tell you, the dog's paws were on fire after that deer. He didn't even notice me or the barbed wire fences he was ducking under.

I managed to avoid ruining the dog's grand chase. As I peddled away, they were last seen blasting through the woods on the other side of the road.

A happier dog I've never seen!

fingers froze on the hop in this morning
rocking fingerless gloves below 29 degrees...

My ride to work is on Beav. Hillsdale Hwy, Terwilliger and then up the hill to the VA hospital. And you're right that the view I get when riding home is impressive, particularly when it's not raining. The past few days I've been able to see clearly both Mt Hood and Mt Saint Helens.

I'm not sure about the tram. I know that it's taken longer to even start the project than it was supposed to... I'll probably leave before the whole thing is finished.

I had the race bike set up with blinkies and lights in preparation for a pre-work training ride with my buddy but he bailed out with the stomach flu. Rather than throw it all back on the daily bike, I rode the fast bike in. I didn't get the full workout on my own, but was able to get a few extra miles by riding south towards Freeport before turning around and heading back north to Downtown.

Maybe I can get a few extra on the way home tonight too. Anything to lessen the guilt of a second or third helping of pie tomorrow.

Telecommuted today since I'm leaving for the holiday. Everyone have a happy and safe Thanksgiving!

It was a typical morning commute for me. 8 miles one way to the office. Almost ran over a gecko. They are stupid, but it'd kill me to run one over.

really cold ride in today... 35 degrees but wind chills made it feel like 25... definitely a three-layer day today. I took the "flat" route (the one with one less hill) in and the light I usually have to stop at was green for once so I made really good time going in... until I got to the uphill part of the route of course

everyone had gone home for the Thanksgiving holiday by the time I set out for the commute back, so campus was all but deserted, only a few other cars on the road... I made really good time going back as well

It was a little above freezing with damp roads again. Overcast. On the way to work a guy in a Subaru passed much too close... seemed to be in a very big hurry about something. I let it go.

On the way home I was going to do the long way again, out on the highway, but before I had reached the highway I noticed D'oh, I'm down to one green dot on the Flamethrower, I forgot to charge it two days in a row now! so I turned and took an in-city route and had a good ride home in the darkening dusk. And the light system IS on the charger now :p

Great ride up here in Edmonton, good weather, clear skies, nice people. Only downside is that my rear blinker vanished on the High Level bridge.

cold ride to work, contrary to my earlier listed plans. i had team building in philly at dave&busters, we left there 3pm, prior to holiday rush traffic.
ride home eventless, warmer, with apparent lull in traffic. 2/3 commute week!

Really cold and icy ride tonight. Not alot of traffic on the way home. It was still a pretty good ride.

Happy Thanksgiving!

"the next day is mean and cold and miserable from its inception, a perfectly useless day for anything except suicide by sleeping pills, a day that came out of the oven too soon" - peter s. beagle, i see by my outfit yeah. pretty much what he said.

i'm about done with fog, i know that much. more super-thick versions of it today, and it's just getting at me. i can't go fast when i want to go fast, i can't breathe like i'd prefer to breathe, i can't see where the cars are, and my joints just really hate it. i had to get off and rest a couple of times coming home, and sheesh. i haven't had to do that since week two. and really, given the location and the peculiarities of the job and all that, this thing isn't anywhere near long-term sustainable.

:cry: i want a normal commute. over normal territory through normal neighbourhoods past normal stores to work among normal people who wouldn't have to club together all their pop-can money for the whole year and mail off to outer mongolia in order to display a fragment of personality :cry: or at least some place where it's possible to eat more than chocolate bars if what you've brought with you isn't quite right.

the morning was pretty good, actually. got all the good lights and was there sooner than i expected to be. didn't look like it was going to stay foggy at all, because the sun came up and actually burned us some blue by the time i got there. but by the time i was ready to leave it was all over us all over again. couldn't see the next lamp as i came up the bridge. and obviously i'm also just having one of those bad-body days too. maudit, but i'll be glad to change to whatever's coming up next.

health-club conversation this morning was about someone's kid. suddenly it occurred to me that any of these people could be parents of kids my kid could be playing ball with next year. they have that sound. i better make sure i keep my lip zipped.

in no kind of mood to sing anything

My ride in was fine. My wife had a different story to tell:
from e-mail: "My bike broke! The derailer? Thing twisted off. Looks like a piece of tissue paper got wrapped up in the chain and the whole chain holder thing twisted off so that there's a metal nub and bound up chain. :( :( :( I had to walk from 10th Ave and 5th St. So Sad."

D'oh!

One of the best things about winter cycling is coming home with snowflakes swirling in the beam of the headlight. Last night was like that, even though the snow failed to amount to anything.

Paul

First real winter commute this morning. -5.5°C, wind, snow, ice, slush, very slow, bike messy, biker happy.

Need studded tires and bigger carpet for dripping bike.

slept too long for the bike today. it didn't make me any less late to drive, actually, since i got halfway there before it seeped in that my id tags were at home in the bike bag. i always appreciate the rest when i drive, since i don't usually drive unless i need to. yet i'm always kind of sad and disappointed as well. i hope tomorrow goes well.

Brilliant ride in today. I flew up the hill and there was very little traffic.

I examined my wife's rear derailleur last night. She actually snapped the thing in two! I'll post pictures tomorrow, but I have to say it's pretty impressive. She's totally pissed that she has to take the bus in. There was talk of cannibalizing one of my bikes for parts, but I shut that down in a hurry.

Good ridin' tonite. Coldest ride yet at -9°C but much easier than warmer days with 40-60km/h wind. :eek: Streets were pretty much free of snow but wet and icy. I applied too much front brake at a stop and went down knee first. Ouch! Well, nothing serious.

nice ride there, nice ride home.