Great ride in this morning! I was running late and had the opportunity to see the sky lighten and color over a foggy James River, plus I made it from the Carillion to the Diamond catching only one red light, which is sort of unusual (sometimes it's the little things that make the commute great, right?).

Dark and foggy. I had to put lights on my bike. Temps are gonna be pushing 70°F today. That's just crazy.
Also, spring semester has just started up, so more kids to dodge on campus... I get rather used to living in a "ghost town" between semesters... then all of a sudden, BAM! Tons of peds and bikes and cars and buses, etc etc etc...

Finally back on the bike this morning after over a week off. Had a nice ride in, still wet from the rain and it was foggy but I took it easy. Very warm, in the 50's on the way in and around 70 this afternoon.

Flatted today about 1/2 way to work. Oh well, at least there was a nice plaza where I flatted to sit and change the tube out. Pulled over, pulled out the pump, levers and spare tube, looked at the wheel and realized it wasn't the quick release wheel I used to have. And me w/o a wrench. :O Pack it all up, call the boss and tell her I'll be late and walk the rest of the way to work. Oh well, at least it's a nice day out.

The commutes this week have been nothing out of the ordinary.
I have been getting annoyed with the bus I take on the way home. It has been taking roughly the same amount of time as what it took me to ride to the bus. The distance it covers is maybe 5-10 miles more than what I cover on my bike. Thus, getting me up to my suburb 15-20 minutes late. This leaves me 10 minutes to cover 4 miles. I can do it since it is downhill. However, it is still a stressful and exhausting way to end the commute.
Anyhow, I decided to ride a bit further into downtown and take a bus that runs every 8-15 minutes. This change enabled me to arrive a full 30 minutes earlier. Yippie!! Plus, it is still light when I exited the bus. :)

No new snow, so the roads are a little faster today. I rolled by a bus stop and saw my manager there, so I flashed him with my light. :D I chatted for a minute, then I rolled on. Even stopping for breakfast, I still beat him to work by about 5 minutes. He cursed me a little. Perhaps I can get him on a bike when the weather gets nicer...

Once again, winter has failed to arrive as planed. Looked out the window when I got up and no snow... dry as a bone, and a balmy 38F to boot.
Starting to get light on the way in. Not sure if it's the sun coming up earlier or if I'm just being lazy and leaving later. Most likely a combination of both.

At the start of my climb to the office, there is a 1/2 mile speed up/right turn lane. A tanker truck is coming up and not giving an inch. He passes within a foot or 2 to my left. [There was nobody in the next lane] The funny part was that when he got to the right turn, he went all the way into the next lane to make the corner. Guess he values the concrete curb more than the local cyclist.... sigh.
I guess I've been riding long enough that these things don't even spoil the ride. Idiots are becoming a common part of the landscape. The trick is to stay out of their way.

After a pretty uneventful couple of months things went to pieces this morning.

An unmarked white cube truck (everyone's favorite road-safety icon) squeezes past me on Steeles Avenue. Close enough that I reached out an tapped him without extending my elbow too much. Within 5 seconds he has to slam on the brakes at a red light. I pull up alongside him on the right-hand boulevard strip (I was on my freeride bike) and make a 'you nearly hit my handlebar' gesture. He of course makes a 'raised middle finger' gesture.

He then rips off again and I catch him, again, a mile down the road. I'm on the other side of the road now in a parking lot, he sees me and makes more gestures. He was doing some yelling too, but he kept the windows of the cab rolled up (it was too cold I guess).

He turns across (and cuts off) oncoming traffic on an "imaginary advance green" just so he can pull alongside me on the next road and bluff me with his truck. I pulled off the road. He stops there and just looks at me, flashing the trucks lights like he's going to do a driveby or something. More yelling and gestures. My cellphone rings and I answer it. This spooks him enough that he takes off again.

I don't need this crap. I got the plates. I've already sent in a police report.



Edit: The place where the truck brushed by me was the EXACT same location where last fall a pedestrian yelled at me to "get on the road". He would have liked to yell "get off the sidewalk", but I was riding on the boulevard strip again.

I guess he doesn't want me getting in the way of... whatever is supposed to happen on a 25' wide zone between the cube lane and the sidewalk.

30 F. Roads clear. Perfect.

I'm really enjoying the SS MTB conversion. Got my fenders and rack re-installed. Mounted a rear reflector last night as a backup for my taillight. I almost look like I know what I'm doing now.

One dog at the bottom of the hill. It was the white one. I think it's the unambitious one. He just barked at me a couple times from the driveway.

Relatively warm and quite commute today, nice. I did however have borrow the rear wheel from my wife's Giant this morning because I notice a broken spoke during last night's commute. I picked up some replacement spokes, but I was too lazy to do the install last night :D .

There was a thread in the cycling forum asking "≈what people thought of Alex Wheels". In my experience, pure crap!

Sort of cold, but very clear and sunny this morning. The ride was good, and I made it to the office in about 10 minutes.

The commute today? Not so hot. On Thursdays I meet my wife at the local bakery/coffee shop for breakfast. I always ride through the local college campus. For the uhh, scenery. Anyway, this morning since classes haven't dtarted I took a slightly different route through campus. There are some of those barrier gates for the pay parking lot that I didn't see until it was too late. My last thought was maybe it will break and I won't fall. It broke and I fell, hard. Road rash on the side of my face and my sunglasses dug in to my eye brow so I got several stitches there. Bled like crazy. First person to see me was an RN so she gave me some kleenex to help stop the bleeding. Plus, I missed breakfast.

Cold and foggy. Typical for Sacto in January. It's only in the 40s but the dampness just seeps into your bones and makes it feel so much colder.

So I had to laugh to myself as I passed a teenaged girl on a cruiser, jacketless and wearing sandals. Ah, high school vanity! I was going to offer her some unsolicited advice but thought better of it and just said good morning.

The wind was in my face steady but single digits on the way in. I can hear it gusting at 35mph out there from the same direction at the moment. Going to be a really tasty tail wind all the way home. :D

Tried to retune the RD last night, following some directions I found on the web. Couldn't do it. Maybe the hanger's a bit bent. Maybe I just don't know what I'm doing. Either way, the LBS will deal with it on Monday. Until then, my commuter is idle. :(

Took advantage of the warm weather - put my slicks back on and did my first commute since surgery. wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be. Beautiful day. :)

Hey, it was 40-36F this AM for my commute and I didn't have a jacket and was wearing sandals too.

(but I had wool socks and a longsleeve baselayer) ;)

Al

I normally only post the ride to work, but today I'm doing the double :D

Very nice ride home tonight (52°F), it really felt like a early fall night once I got the body temp up. No scull cap beneath my helmet for the first time since...who knows when. Not much traffic either so I was able ride a slightly quicker pace than normal.

Ride home was nice and easy. Legs were tired after skating for like 3 hrs. today.

According to my Snapple cap, if you put all the streets in NYC in a straight line, they would stretch all the way to Japan. Now that sounds like a challenge to me. Time to get a map and ride to Japan.

to tango6: hope you heal quickly! when i was about age 12 and racing in an abandonned cement co, i focused too hard on speed to jump a set ramp, and hit the back of one of the truck's swing arms = hit head above eyebrow = blood rush + hsp!!
commute in was 60degf and sunny and after taking "clients" to evening group (w/Honda Van), commute home at 10pm had much less traffic! 4 blinkies used and space was shared!

Good commute tonight. I rode a little further than usual. It was still nice and warm out. It had to be atleast 45 degrees. I hope the rest of the week stays this warm. Have a good night.

I had a good ride around town, going to 2 dr's apts, and then to work. It took the bus for 5 miles, of my 20 journey today. On the way home, my chain broke....luckily the folks at REI in town were good enough to lend me a chain pin to fix it.

The ride home was nice this evening, absolutely perfect weather at 4:40PM and when I arrived home at about 4:50PM it was still wonderful.

I found a bunjee (sp?) cord on the ride home. I'm so happy!

I had a great ride in this morning. It was 39 degrees so I really cranked up the effort because I didn't have to worry about sweating. Rode arterials all the wayin and only hit 2 lights. I sprained my back at work when a 1000 lb load bounced back at me, so the ride home was by minivan with the bike in the back, then off to the hospital. Two days off from work, like I can afford it. ARRRGGG!

another build day, sigh. i drove since they weren't delivering it until late in the day and i knew it was going to be a long one. as the lead and i were locking it up finally at the end of the day she asked again about me and my biking life, how long it takes me to get home and all that. she said something about the weather too, and it's only occurred to me now to say that i'm only cold on the days i don't bike. it's true, dammit.