In Boston it was about 22F (5.5C) this a.m. Decided the streets were the better bet since the bike path is seldom plowed and salted and has so many drainage issues so it has lots of ice. The street route shortens my commute both because it makes the ride about 8m (12.8k) instead of 11m (17.7k) and my average speed is higher on the road.

It was a great ride in. There is one split in the road that I can usually anticipate being overtaken from behind and cut off, and today was no exception, but otherwise it was smooth sailing. The "door zone" was also an ice/snow zone so I had to move right into the road most of the time but traffic in many of these sections is only moving about 20mph (32kph) or less. I'd given myself plenty of time to get in today and ended up getting there early because the commute was so manageable. More snow forecast for tomorrow.

Great trip home -- 30 F/-1 C. The snow was falling fast and sparkled in my headlight. I rode over one section that was completely covered, making my first tracks of the season. Here in the DC area, the reflections from snow in the air and snow on the ground scatters the light from the streetlamps, making everything a pale salmon color. It was beautiful. There is only one first snowfall of the winter.

Paul

Wild Mondays! Crazy day at work. Left at 6:00am with a gusty wind coming out of the north. One problem I have is getting an official historical air temp. I have a $4.99 window deal which is fair but when I read 28 others say 22. I've searched the web and have not found a nice tool that reports historical temps. Anal yes, but I always feel prone to embelish. This am, call it 29F. Yahoo says H40, L24. Cold for Memphis but not as bad as a ride last week. Wore wind pants over tights which makes for a warm ride.

At the very end of the ride with both panniers loaded with weekend work and my laptop, I got the desire to stand on the pedals and crank up the last hill before my office. As I was heaving to and fro....THUNK! What was that, as I looked behind to see what fell off? Laptop still attached, nothing in road. I sat down and started running the mental tapes. Maybe a cracked frame.....SPOKE dummy! Looked at rear wheel, bingo, way out of true. First ever broken spoke on my 25 year old steel (not SS) spokes. Of course on the freewheel side.

Before heading home at 6:00pm I opend the QR brake lever and centered up the wheel between the stays as best I could and started the ride home. Interestingly the temp was not much different, 30F so I decided to just take a low key ride home. Fix her later. Traveling on business Tue/Wed/Thu. Hope to get her fixed and ride Friday. Nice part about riding home in the burbs, all the Christmas lights make for a very magical ride home in the dark!

I had a good ride to work, it's rather cold right now at the low 20's Farenheit (-5C).

I had a crummy ride home, marred by yahoos THREATENING me if I didn't turn off my headlight?! AND I had no CF card in the digicam OR a cell phone, so no good way to initiate countermeasures.

:mad:

But I got my 20-mile ride home, with only one more set of yahoos yelling at me as they passed. I guess this should make me appreciate the days when we all just get along... must work on that, yes...

!! cold !!

read that as Wild Monkeys, so you can imagine how my day's been. i thought: oh good, it wasn't just me.

hmmm. slept in way too late this morning - poor kid, he doesn't need any help being made late for school. and suddenly, after last week's solid-freezing-all-week leading into yesterday's 0C-snow-1C-snow-0C-snow, we had 4 degrees, and it wasn't even raining. most of the snow i was messing around in yesterday was gone, which was sort of disappointing somehow. although i have a feeling we'll be getting some more - that lot came early for us.

kind of tired on my way in today. the snow playing took a bite out of me, i guess; plus i was sort of mentally set for snow and wasn't really in the pavement groove. i stopped on my way onto the bridge and definitively cleared about half of that grating that creates the huge lake. that was something i was not looking forward to yesterday when i pictured the snow still around: 18-foot-wide puddle of slushy ice getting all over your ankles no matter what manoeuvres you make.

nothing much else to say about today. drizzle at best throughout the day, and then a slight mist of fog came down at around 2pm. headwind parts of the way home. at around 3 i got one of those eyelashes in one of my eyes that you just can't get out, so the ride was a bit compromised by periodically riding with one eye screwed closed. i could have used a bit of a wind with some ice in it to whip up the tears and get rid of it, and i think maybe now it's finally gone.

nice ride home; quiet, still about +4 and not raining. it felt really strange after the past couple of weeks, actually. nice, but eh. i think one part of me needs the extreme weather to distract me from how very much i'm not enjoying this drab, wretched little job. 13 more round-trips till christmas, and then 13 more on the other side. caught my rain pants on the rear cog on the way home, and heard them tear a little. rude words.

songs: you'll never take me to the top of the hour alive, michael marra; i don't wanna have a nice day, greg brown. roll on friday.

Okay, so I'm about a week late, but here are links to the pictures:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pinkrob...n/set-1521986/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pinkrob...n/set-1521986/
I think it's a piece of paper caught up in the chain. I still don't know how she did it. She must have Real Ultimate Power.

Low 20Fs. Most of the snow and ice has departed the trail, but not enough to switch back to the road bike. Truthfully I'd rather there be a light layer of snow and ice along the entire trail so it's easier on my studded tires, but I'll take what I can get. :)

Supposed to flurry and snow shower all day today.

Wimped out today because of the potential for ice, however, I just placed my order with Nashbar for a pair of studded tires. Hopefully, they'll arrive this week in time to resume commuting by week's end. Although temps were warmer than predicted this morning, I encountered patchy ice on my walk to the Metro. I don't think it would have been much fun on my slicks, however, I feel bad not riding.

Nice ride in, about 28°F, which is fairly cold for Atlanta. The Nashbar lobster mitts and the Rockport boots kept the hands and feet warm. There were a number of black ice spots (we had a lot of rain yesterday), rode just fine over them, but them dang cagers would floor it to go around me and just spin their wheels. :rolleyes:

Life is good.

I haven't been posting here regularly, but I am a commuter. Rode in today, yesterday was raining with the threat of sleet, so I bagged it. Today was really nice 30 degrees to start, with some patches of ice. Just brought a new jacket for the commute and it is great, kept me very comfortable this morning. The jacket is from Lands End.

Already got a late start for work today and my bike decides not to cooperate. Let's talk about massive drivechain failure. Somehow the rear derailleur lost tension and the chain got jammed. I've got bolt-on axle so it's a pain in the rear to mess with the wheel. The first order of business is switching back to a quick-release in the rear. Second order of business may or may not be switching the commuter to a SS.

Other than those troubles, the ride was nice. Not too many cars and good temperature. Life is moderately good.

Skipped yesterday so I could drive to NJ instead which of course, I didn't want to do, but when you're summoned by the boss...so today's my first commute of a short week for me. The snow we were supposed to get fell last night and was melted by this morning. Streets were clear and the only sign of snow was on the parked cars. Bummer. Still took longer to get in because of construction traffic creating a bottleneck at E67th St. Oh well, still felt good to ride today. Peds crossing are just oblivious to the world around them, especially when they don't expect bicyclists to be coming right at them as they cross the street looking the wrong way down the street!

First below freezing commute of the year at 29.2F

Al

Temps ranged from 20-12 degrees. First time commuting on snow and learned that I need to be more careful. Did a 180 going down a hill and tipped over into a snow filled field. :p
Plus, riding on solid sheets of ice is not much fun.
I anticipate snow fall on the way home. This may be amusing.

A little humid but cool.

http://www.nicomachus.net/images/canon/ATT/1.jpg

http://www.nicomachus.net/images/canon/ATT/2.jpg

http://www.nicomachus.net/images/canon/ATT/3.jpg

http://www.nicomachus.net/images/canon/ATT/4.jpg

http://www.nicomachus.net/images/canon/ATT/5.jpg

http://www.nicomachus.net/images/canon/ATT/6.jpg

First commute with the winter weight gear, with ride temps around 20 degrees. The only thing that I noticed was that my face stung like a biotch for the first 10 minutes. Otherwise, I was toasty and cranked out a great time. This is the coldest day of the year so far but the funny thing was that I saw more joggers, walkers and riders than ever.

First half commute (other half tonight). Nice pleasant 3 mile spin, with a modest hill along the way. Reasonably warm and sunny, and there was a nice break in the traffic just as I had to cross 3 lanes of 50+ MPH traffic. (I plan on normally just using the crosswalk at that point.) Had to figure out how to lock a bike once I got to work, but it wasn't too bad. Happily, the LBS had explained to me what to do. Hope I can manage to fumble around in the dark with the lock and putting my lights on tonight without too much trouble. :)

The highlight of my commute home was the dog blocking the FDR MUP where the MUP narrows to about 4 '. It was a cute little mutt blocking the path and looking at me expectantly, probably saying, "Well, what are you waiting for? Pet me!"

Mine was really bad coming back today. One of the jocks at school wanted to be "cool" and let all the air out of my back tire. with no frame pump, I had to walk! I still don't know who did it. I am going to find a better hidden place tommorw.

Wow, very nice. What camera/settings are you using for those shots?

Took the Allez Elite w/utility trailer to work this morning.

When you get soaking wet riding home in the rain, do not wear the same wet shoes the next morning when it's in the low 40's. :(

On the way a lady passed me in a p/u, pulling a jonboat. The right tire on the trailer blew before she passed, I could hear her coming, but I had no way to let her know. The next vehicle to pass me was another p/u pulling an identical boat. The lady apparently realized she had a flat when the tire came off the rim. She pulled over, the next truck pulled over, then I pulled over to see if I could render assistance. The lady and the gentleman in the second truck, husband/wife I'm guessing, held a quick pow-wow and decided to head back home on the rim. Must not have been very far. He thanked me for stopping, we held a quick chit-chat and went our separate ways. :)

Approaching the last paved intersection I move to the left side of the right lane in preparation for a left turn. There is a car approaching from behing, but it's way back. Signal my turn, and begin to turn when Moron Cager decides since she'd turning left too, she can pass in the turn with a cell phone stuck in her ear. Fool. I got her plate number with the idea I would hunt her down when I got to the island. There's only one road in and out. Then thought better of it. It wouldn't have taken much for me beat the snot out of her when I found her. Threw away the notebook page with her plate number on it. :mad:

The ride home was a little chilly against the north wind. When riding against the wind like this and especially when pulling a trailer against the wind I have found it better to ignore my speed and concentrate on my cadence. :)

My commute to work was pretty mild. No rain today fortunately. Bad thing is that I got hit by a SUV on the way home :( The driver made a right turn (signal at the very last second) right in front of me. I managed to make half the turn with him but it was too sharp so I hit the front of his SUV and of course flew to the ground :( He just rolled down his window and by the time I had managed to say "Yeah, I think I'm ok", he had taken off :( Too bad for me. I should've looked at his license plate number but I just wasn't thinking about that. I was more concerned with checking for damage on my bicycle and myself. I guess you can say I learned my lesson and I'll be more prepared in the future in case something similar would happen again. I just feel stupid and keep thinking I should've shouted "Hey, wait" or "Stop" because he most likely would've. By the time I though of that, he was already gone.

:(

If your helmet took a hit at all, then do replace it. I'm sorry to hear you got hit, glad you didn't take any worse harm than that but it's still the kind of thing that shakes you up. :(

thanks :) my helmet wasn't even scratched. I think somehow I landed in a way that spared me from any serious injury. My poor bike suffered though. I had to replace the rear derailleur and freewheel.
Anyway, I am riding tomorrow :)