mtessmer

It was a chilly ride in this morning (23 F) but I enjoyed a beautiful sunrise with allot of pinks and blues. That's been a rare happening around here in the Minneapolis area. In fact it's been cloudy all afternoon so far. Well, at least it's dry (knock on wood) for my ride home.

caloso

Perfect riding weather here in the Great Central Valley. I hope it holds.

Ouch !

Torrential Rain going to work and coming home.

Coming home was one of those rides were you feel like riding forever, the bike was as smooth as silk and it got me wondering if the bike is faster in the rain.

I ride to work on a Mtb with full tread but it seems to go faster in the rain, I'm sure it has something to do with there being less grip on the wet roads, of course turning is slower and more hazardous but straight line speed is excellent in the wet.

Any thoughts ?

John C. Ratliff

I had a nice, though fairly slow, ride today. Last evening I took my light off the Trek 1420 and put in onto my old Schwinn LeTour. It's set up for "wet," and it did a wonderful job. Thanks to the "Bicycle Mechanics" pages, I was able to fix a problem with shifting, and had no problems at all today. I found out that "Fenders really help in rain." That, I know, is a big revelation to everyone, but some don't really admit it. I've put the half of the an old water bottle at onto the fender to catch the spray, and it worked with amazing effectiveness. My socks did not get wet.

I was too dressed up on the way to work, and so biked home in my shorts, with a sweater (I bought a yellow one for commuting), good gloves, a bicycling poncho (which also works very well), my helmet over the poncho's hood, and a rain cover on the helmet. I look like a big, yellow blob flapping about going down the road, with my blinking light, and florescent yellow covers on my paniers.

Coming home, I took it easy, stayed away from cars (back streets, sidewalks, bike paths) and only had 8 cars pass within 15 feet on the street during my ride home. This was a very enjoyable, rainy day in Oregon for my commute.

John

Hants Commuter

I'll admit to having used the car today. The Weather is quite bad at the moment. Winds of up to 70 mph with heavy rain.

Ed, Ellie and all the other UK commuters look out as its moving north

mrfix

Nice ride, nice day, 29 degrees when I left, no wind and all the traffic seemed to moving slowly. I think the rain and clouds were getting to everyone. have a great day.

tnorman

Nice ride in this morning. Cool with wet roads and light traffic. First bike commute in a week. I guess you can call me the "fair-weather commuter" Riding in the rain in the dark just seems too dangerous around here; people don't slow down enough, and don't pay attention to where they're going. I get stressed out in my car, so I'll skip it on my bike...

vssn

It was very foggy this morn so my 1/2 hr commute was a bit more difficult. I cycle from about 6-7 miles west of Cork, Ireland into the city centre. Unfortunately there are no cycle lanes anywhere in Cork so I have to take my chances on a very busy road, bumper to bumper traffic. IMO Irish motorists show cyclists zero respect.

Ed Holland

It was starting to get very windy on the way in, which gave a cross-tailwind for most of the journey. I'm looking forward to the headwind tonight

Cheers,

Ed

tchazzard

Not a cloud in the sky this morning...temps in the high 30's F with only a slight head wind. The only down side to the ride is that I had a whopping 78 pounds in the trailer (deliverying some medical stuff for my fiance) and got a front flat. The tube has over one year on it and many miles. So did not feel too bad about replacing it.

Looking forward to a fast ride home as the wind will be to my back and they are calling for 20+ MPH.

brennser

a bee-yoo-tiful day Fall in DC to break up the seemingly neverending rain (another big storm forecast for the weekend) - my first ride of the week due to a combination of illness and veterans day - great ride - had to be a little more careful than usual because at several spots there were so many leaves it was difficult to see where the path was

Welcome Vssn, nice to have a representative from the people's republic of cork! I've spent many an enjoyable night in west cork...

vssn

Thanks for the welcome brennser, stumbled across the forum today. From your visits to Cork, I'm sure you can appreciate the kind of uneven road surfaces cyclists have to deal with here.

Andy Dreisch

First bike-commute in a record 1.5 weeks of downtime nursing a sore knee.

Great day to start back. I missed all the storms last week and today was clear as a bell.

Funny how the downtime affects your routine. My rock-solid routine was a little off, but it allowed for some much needed little changes to make it all better.

So, I was happy for the downtime (I needed time off the bike) but I'm really, really happy to be back.

Sailguy

Felt useless this morning. Got out of bed, went back to bed. Woke up and drove in. Last nights commute proved very difficult for some reason (until I raced down the road trying to beat the bus to my turn off it's route. I won by about 20 seconds ) I think I need to tune the bike a bit, its been acting up.

So today I took it easy, hoping tomorrow I will feel better.

Ouch !

Today was the first dry day this week , so you might be right about the bad weather moving north, though I hope it's pouring down tomorrow night.

The wetter the better on fridays because friday night commute is the one I dread.

Jean Beetham Smith 

Today was the first clear sky day of the week. It made up for the downpour 2 nights ago, the rain yesterday, and the wind. Hopefully, the worst of our scheduled yucky week-end will be confined to the week-end, I still don't have a rear fender on my new commuter and along with a split saddle that leaves are very damp rear end to start the day with.

Inkwolf

All week, my commutes could have been described as cold, dark, windy and not much fun.

Today I had some moonlight, but when I reached up to wipe the fog off my glasses, I scraped off ice instead. The scarf I breathe through iced over, too.

I think I'm pretty nearly ready to hang up the bike for the year...

Andy Dreisch

Ink, you can't hang 'em up yet!!! All right, so I'm in balmy San Jose. I have no room to talk, I realize. But there have got to be others here in BF that commute in cold weather beyond this point. Maybe they'll talk you into hanging on for a while longer.

My ride tonight was along a different route so I could meet my wife for dinner. She brings a change of clothes, I jumped in the back seat, peeled away all the geek clothing, and mere moments later emerged a regular human being.

danr

A little cold and wet. Kept shaking off my glasses and the shoes were pretty much soaked when I got home. Overall, not too bad.

Chris L

Tonight we received the first tropical downpour we've had in almost two years. :thumbup:
And more is apparently on the way!

The downside is, I'm going to Victoria for two weeks tomorrow, so I'll probably miss most of it.

Inkwolf

Bah, Andy. Not worth getting hypothermia and pneumonia if I break down on some cold, empty stretch of back road.

tnorman

Nice ride in this morning. A nice treat with the weather; it was 45F when I left. I actually started to overheat a bit. (We deserve this weather for the snow storm they're forecasting this weekend!) Felt a little low on energy, and it probably didn't help that I waited to eat breakfast until after the commute...

VERY light traffic today. I counted: 45 cars passed me on my 22.3 miles. Only 2 passed me during the first 30 minutes. It'll probably be 10x that on the way home.

Last night, a guy about my age came up behind me on his Trek 5500 half-way home. He insisted on passing me, so I let him. He looked pretty unstable on his shiny new bike. I was tempted to give him a little race, but I contented myself to follow him; he was going about my normal pace. I'm usually super-competitive, so I'm surprised I didn't pass him. Maybe I should have; it would have been fun to see me with my big old backpack drop some skinny kid riding a bike that cost over 4x as much as mine. Maybe I'm just too competitive

Tim

Ed Holland

It was nice and sunny for the ride this morning, but not before a heavy shower of rain had made the road all nice and wet. Sometimes there is no escape from getting a soggy bum.

Have a good weekend,

Ed

chewa

cold, damp, but no wind and one of those days when I just felt strong. no tiredness in the legs and going up hills on my outer chainring, at least a gear higher than usual.

Don't know if that's because I had a day off the bike yesterday (gales)

pinerider

Less than ideal weather this morning, +3 C (37 F) and steady rain, into a light headwind. Was a little overdressed temperature wise, but rode a little slower, had a comfortable ride in. Only missed 1 day's commute this week (drove home 1 night due to working until 8:30pm). Weather has been warm (+10 C) and damp all week.
Mid November and still riding daily!! Who'da thunk it???