When I felt the wind and the 24 degrees I decided not to ride today. But then I thought about how cold it would be standing for 20 minutes at the bus stop. So I hopped on the bike and the ride was terrific! Sunshine all the way, bike paths with no one on them, some space between the ice and I wasn't even cold. The handwarmers I bought are the only way I can ride in this weather. The best part is being asked when I get to work, "How could you stand it?" I shrug and just pity them for what they're missing.

Took a different route home today. Madison Ave. was closed to all but emergency traffic only and bikes! Or so I thought. When I got on Madison, I saw a few cars whose drivers had the right ID that allowed them to drive up Madison as well as a few private buses. Oh well, not as clear as I thought, but not a lot of traffic either. Ended up riding up the middle of Madison Ave. (literally), passing every bike and blader I saw b/c I was on a misson. Not a mission to drop commuting posers, but a mission to get home really fast. Call it a personal challenge. I was spent when I got home and since I forgot to reset my computer, whatever avg. speed I had blended in w/ this morning's commute and the lunchtime riding. Oh well, it seemed like I might've been going fast.

good riding, both ways today. i think the car drivers are catching on (trainable)!
i did see 2 older bicycle riders (on the sidewalk, no helmets) and another riding on the road, carrying a box, riding with traffic, but no helmet.
where are the other commutors? i have been riding to current job for almost 6 years now (3.2 miles each way, fire my honda cx1993 up to work sometimes), have not noticed much change here in increase of other riders/commutors. sites like this help encourage me to think this means of transport to work is alive and with cause. down here in south nj (vineland) thingschange real slow. enjoy your commute!

Left this morning about 7 am and it was 15F (-9.4C) I was warm as toast and had a beautiful ride into Boston. Cycled home, rode to the grocery store on the bike, cooked an early dinner and headed off for round two- cycled to my next gig in Cambridge. Just biked home in the dark. Tried the bike path but it was too frustrating due to ice and huge chunks of frozen snow. Roads were nice and clear. Ended up doing a total of 37m. (59.5k) today, my longest commuting mileage in a few weeks. The moon reflecting on the ice on the Charles River was gorgeous.

I add a mile to my commute today . Because the road that I ride on was a sheet of ice ,So I went around it . It is at least it was warmer today . Have a good nite .

unnaturally warm today - i think i saw 6 degrees in the morning and 9 on the way home. didn't appreciate it much since i'd dressed up for my usual 0-to-3 and stayed at work a good two hours later than i'd intended to with a good two hours less sleep than i'd meant to get. and oh yeah, that ESE 24 GUST 33 i see on enviro can's retro-list would be the headwind that kept me company all the way home. sez it's going to keep getting warmer all week too; it just better not rain all summer to make up for it.

something i really like about winter commuting is this: out on a bike i get to see so much more sky, and it's a so-much-more-textured sky than i'd get from a car. there's a section where i swoop through the intersecton and onto the bike path and then start the climb up the bridge, which gives me a view like a bruegel painting to hold in my mind every day. i can't picture myself liking the summer views quite so much. winter is so much more interesting once you get past the way it is and start to look for textures instead of colours. i like that pewtery gold that i got this morning.

the morning ride. i lost an hour somewhere, still don't know where it went. cat woke me at 6:30 with a fresh kill of somebody's steak (huh?). but it was 9 before i set out, and the day's first discovery was that my headlight was as dead as mutton. one of those typical left-handed-luck things: a pain to discover, but better noticed at 9 am in your own doorway than at 8:47 pm in a dark parking lot. kind of the way it goes when you can only claim 1/4 of the luck of the irish, i guess. i stopped at the only store-like establishment i actually pass on the way to work (a gas station), and got more batteries. that's so typical of this entire wrong-headed setup: you can get anything you want or need on your way to or from work, so long as it's either furniture, office supplies, gas or batteries. food you need a visa into the next planet to find. it works for people who live in their cars and give up all their free time to basic life maintenance, but anyone else can't help but fall behind in the count.

i've said this before: i have got to eat properly during the week. today i ate jelly beans and apples and a sleeve of french fries because that's what there was, and i had to be off-site to get the french fries. then i left work too late to consider any kind of catchup even if there had been anywhere to get it done. it just doesn't make for a solid ride home. brain the size of a planet and all down with the batteries, but she can't keep herself fed, sigh. i will miss the breugel vistas when i'm free of this place, but by god i won't miss anything else. fifteen commuting days left to freedom.

songs: 20 years, peggy seeger; don't look at me, michael marra; the homeless do not seem to drink in here, michael marra.

I picked my bike up for the 3rd day in a row ... awesome start to the week. I planned to ride rain or shine every single day ... but that was not to be.

about 2 miles away from my house, I hit a metal trailer hinge that was lying on the road.. sure enough it put a big fat hole into my front tire that went through to the innertube... sheesh.

I had to wake up my g/f and ask her to come pick my stranded a$$ up.

So, I had to pollute to work.. suxors.

=(

4C calm
Roads were a little wet, must have lightly snowed over night, or possibly rained.
I overdressed and my head was sweaty when I got to work.

I just moved into a house, I've never had garbage collection before (always lived in a complex). I put garbage out this morning hoping today might be collection day.

EDIT: Just looked it up on our city website, yesterday was garbage day

No bike commute today. Drove to NJ for a group luncheon. Traffic going downtown was horrific so I had to take the GW Bridge instead. Saw a lot more cyclists today and was wishing I was one of them. Oh well, tomorrow's another day...

Wow. If I didn't already know that denver was situated in a valley, I sure do now. I swear that I had almost a 10 degree difference between my suburb and Denver.
Still, it was nice and warm in both places. 41F or 30ish degrees.

Quiet commute home last night. The roads late at night are so quiet now, probably because the holidays are approaching and along my commute, there's mostly non-essential services, so people are starting to take vacations. Drove in today since I need to take a bunch of stuff home. No more commutes until January. Happy holidays, everyone.

Hi Folks, I've been away from the "how was..." thread for a while, but like to check in occasionally.

Grim December grey weather today, but an eventless ride. Yesterday, I arrived at the scene of an accident - A driver had approached the bend too fast and gone straight off the road into the ditch, seemingly a few min before I arrived. There were several other drivers stopped at the scene by this time. Concerned, I asked three times in plain English if anyone was hurt, is help needed/on the way to get the replies "I had to stop here because of the accident/he just went off the road/it was unbeleivable". I might as well have been invisible. I'm afraid I left them to it, as no-one did appear to be in mortal danger and there were plenty of cellphones around if any of the rubberneckers had the guile to use one.

As for the irresponsible idiot who drove off the road, it is their fault for speeding - there was no ice to blame. Perhaps the big bill for bodywork will improve their driving. I'm just glad I was nowhere near when it happened.


Cheers,

Ed

This mornings commute was pretty good. A couple of stop lights went my way and things are so much more civilized now that the College "Kids" have gone home for the Holidays.

Lastnights ride home was a bit of blast. I had to work late til 7 so there was quite a bit less traffic. I turned on to Comm.Ave from the B.U. bridge and saw two blinkies 200~250 meters up the hill, I thougth to myself "I think I can catch'em". As I caught them, one of them was turning off so I went right by the other. He eventually caught back when I stopped for a bus at an intersection. He sat on my back wheel for the next mile or so, I didn't mind. Going any faster up Comm.Ave (17ish) is just too risky. I eventually dropped him at the next green light; I tend to start off quickly. I'm still good at that from my BMX days.

100% precipitation in the form of rain today. Better than ice but lots and lots of grime, dirt and all kinds of branches, pine cones and whatnots on the streets I've also noticed traffic is getting lighter.

Winter officially starts today, btw with the shortest day of the year (in the Northern hemisphere).
In Portland -- Sunrise: 7:49 AM and Sunset: 4:30 PM

Crazy warm today. If I wanted to, I could ride home in a t-shirt and shorts. I switched back to my skinny-tire bike and thought I was going to die. That thing is completely squirrely. It doesn't help that the handlebars are 4" narrower than my winter mtn bike. Criminy! I'll get used to it in a couple more days - I hope.

I dedicate my 1000th post to this, the king of all threads.



...oh yeah, my commute was very nice today. Carry on.

Beautiful commute last night past the White House Christmas tree, the crystal clear blue sky and reflection of the Washington Monument on the Potomac. I left the office Christmas party early because I couldn't drink and ride, and without the wine, it all seemed so boring. This morning, it was clear again, and the river was icy. The Canada geese, which get in the way in the summer, were impressive floating near the ice and flying away with loud honks on a terrific day. But a couple of near misses with cars kept me alert.

I hate commuting by car. And the transit strike isnt helping. Nor the extra traffic. Or stupid drivers. Can't wait to get back on my bike tomorrow.

good rides, to/from! today i chose to use my lobster 3 point gloves, at work in am, when gloves were removed, my hands steamed almost as much as my breath, boss noticed and was more centered on "close that door, it's too cold"!
toasty warm and comfortable (nose and fingers sent warnings at start, but acclimated)
20f/35f, low brease, dry, traffic readable!

Good ride to work & home . It was a little warmer today . I hope the rest of the week stay that way . Have a good nite .

My ride has bike lanes, now 1/2 inch of gravel make travel in the bike lane more dangerous that riding in the road . I liked riding in the rain today, I'd rather be wet than cold.

My commute is all dark now, 6:30am to work and 4:30pm back home.

My commute yesterday was interesting.
Coming down a hill in on an inner city residential street and a guy in a Volvo station wagon pulls out of his parking spot not far in front of me. I'm not easy to miss, I was wearing a hivis shirt and riding in the center of the lane, the guy just hadn't looked.

Anyway, I chased him down the hill and met him at a set of lights. I pulled up alongside his door and he opened it and got out...... he was on the phone and going to check something in the back of the car.

I yelled at him "You're meant to f***ing give way when you pull out of a parking spot!" and he just gave me a dismissive hand gesture, apologised for the noise to whoever he was talking to, and walked to the back of the car.

I was so mad, I was tempted to jump off the bike and smack him in the mouth. Then I realised that I could easily grab his keys from the ignition and throw them onto the very busy street we were stopped for

Thankfully I took a deep breath, realised it just wasn't worth the aggro, yelled at him again "You are a f***ing tool!" and rode to the front of the lights. I did the constructive thing and found a bunch of hills on the way home and took it out on them.

mid day of the week, and the solstice. it's all up from here on.

i'm getting back into the groove. not really sure why i felt like i was out of it, now that i think it over. i think i had my head set down for the much-colder weather we had a bit of a while back, so then all these warm balmy days are disorienting and don't feel like they count.

today the led said 130C in the morning. pretty sure it was wrong; it was warm, but not as warm as all that. in any case, learning from yesterday i did without the tights and the fleece, and just wore a techwick shirt and a silk jumpsuit under my rain layer. muuuuuuuuuuuch better. and i made a mental note on the way in to take those 'road closed' signs seriously from now on. two nights ago i deked around one of them and met a sort of anti-speed-bump in the dark that levitated me for a second or two. this morning that speed bump was a trench six feet deep and four wide. not at all something you want to hit in the dark.

my grating on the approach to the bridge looked nervously close to being blocked up with leaves again. i dithered a bit about stopping to clear it, but i was enjoying that section too much and didn't want to waste it. the lake might be back tomorrow; if not i will, i promise myself i will - i will stop and clear it. and there's a two-by-one lying across the bike lane on the cloverleaf on the other side. i will clear that one for sure tomorrow before it hurts somebody. especially me. garbage dumping in general seems to be on the up alongside both ends of that bridge. such classy behaviour, feh.

i ate something real at work today, and the ride home was muchmuch better than yesterday. working a lot of late time this week purely by accident, and the guy i'm working with keeps donating food that he's forgotten to eat. don't know what that's about. i sure hope it doesn't mean he's decided Something Should Be Done about dysfunctional me.

haven't seen mr spandex's bike in the rack for weeks now. heh. found out too that he's the project manager on my project. double-heh. now that i replay my encounters with him and think of the handbasket this project is in, that figures. he's the version of pm i don't admire much.

songs: peggy's kitchen wall, bruce cockburn; that duet from tommy; me and julio down by the schoolyard, paul simon.

Whew!

Made it here in one piece !

I rode to work with the fixed gear setup for the first time... Interesting ride to say the least !

I squished myself between a bus that was slowing down to stop in front of a railroad track (they do that down here in FL) and he got real close to the edge and I had to get almost on top of the side walk edge... sure enough, my pedal gets jammed onto the side walk and certainly sent sparks flying as it ground off 2 of the teeth on the bottom of the pedal !

Lucky for me I didn't end up underneath the bus ! I just kept on fiddling to get my foot back in the strap !! Its hard enough to get my foot in the strap on the freewheel, but much damn trickier on a fixed gear !

so thats that. =)

It was nice to fly again. I took my road bike this morning since snow/ice won't be in the forecast for at least another week. I moved my headlight over to the roadie and pumped up the tires and took off. My Nashbike commuter is the preferred mode when commuting but the studded tires are killing me, I think I'll save that bike for the bad weather. Other than that, temps were in the low 30's and the path appeared to be tack-free. Looking forward to the ride home when temps should be in the 40's with 50's predicted for tomorrow.