A harried morning: I washed, lubed, and trued the rear wheel of my commuter last night but didn't get around to putting the fenders, saddlebag, and lights back on it. So I came out to the garage to find a naked bike. I'd forgotten what a good looking bike it is when it's clean and stripped down. But it's going to be a late day at work, with a good chance of rain, so I need all that other stuff. Took probably less than 5 minutes, but that still made me 5 minutes later than I needed to be.

T'was a lovely morning for a ride. Though I did have my first commuting-crash, which wasn't so bad. Got a little overconfident in the snow & hit an unexpected path edge. Ooops!

When good commutes go bad!

My commute to work went about 1/2 mi before I caught a flat. I quickly pulled over to the side to assess things..."hmm, no time for finding holes, I'll use the spare tube". Within minutes I had the spare tube installed, so I reached for the mini-pump I got for XMAS. WTF! "I can't engage the fr!gg!n thing"..."how do I attach this thing, it's suppose to be Presta and Schrader". After 5 min of screwing with the pump, I decided to walk back home and change pumps or get the cage.

As luck would have it, once I got home and played with mini-pump some more, I found that I had to press down on the head (hard), twist and pull it off where beneath it was the rubber gasket I had to flip to fit Presta :mad:. So, I went to put air in the tire using my floor pump since I was home and the stem screw popped off :eek:. I guess I damaged it trying to use the Schrader attachment, but I really wasn't pressing that hard. Inevitably I changed clothes, took the cage and arrived an hour late.

What I've Learned:
1) Try new stuff before hitting the road
2) Keep a Schrader to Presta adapter handy ( I passed a gas station :o )
3) Bontrager tires (in my experience) are of questionable quality, 3 flats in 10 months (2 Bonty Selects, 1 Race X Lite)

Avoided the car all weekend and put 60 miles on the Roadie but eh, it was soggy here this :am so I wussed out and took the car :(
but I am living vicariously through all of your posts. Thanks for enlightening an otherwise typical :crash: Monday

:)

Warm. Unseasonably warm. I like it. What I didn't like was that I was supposed to be working from home today. But then the VPN server decides to take a lunch break so I packed it in and came to work for the rest of the afternoon. Oh well, what the hell.

OK ride in, doing what I thought was a fair speed until this fella flies past. Tried catching up but no way. I just decided it was Lance Armstrong on holidays in Ireland. Heavy traffic as usual....I can't wait till the days stretch and it's daylight coming and going.

I carried a picture to work this morning. It didn't fit in my saddle bag, so I carried it in a plastic bag, using my hand. It took about ten minutes to get to the office.

I can't even remember anything about the ride home, that's how unremarkable it was.

FOG in am, new planet-bike flashers paid for self again, +/-35deg! on return, the sun burnt the fog off, temp +/- 60 deg (i stopped back at home during the day med runs and changed to short pants). with the wind on my back, 60deg, shorts, 700x23 tires, and leaving work for the day, i was momentarilly in "the zone" !

amazing commute today!

we had a high of 58 degrees today, and lucky me, I didn't have class until 4:15! so at around 12:30 I rode in to campus and did a 3 hour ride around town... mainly the places where I usually ride but still... so much fun. can't wait for the weather to get warmer.

the ride back was my first night commute of the semester, since the above class in question goes until 6:40... great ride back... it was a little cooler. rode by the aftermath of a car crash about halfway through the ride back (at a rather dangerous intersection on my commute route)... hope everyone involved was ok and there were no serious injuries.

weather report says rain and heavy winds tomorrow...

My first day commuting to school after 6 months off. Took my brand new raleigh supercourse. I am way out of shape and was only going 16mph roughly most of the way. It was a beautiful day in manhattan though. Like tomg said, lots of fog (which looked awfully cool in the morning), but the sun came out later. On the ride home I rolled up my corduroys and put my jacket in my bag. Nice ride home. Once I get in shape I think I'll try to go to the end of the bike path or the WTC site and ride back up to my school. Until then its a 11mile round trip. Best part is passing the cars on the west side highway, and I was only going 20 max. :)

Fast & wet .

It was a heck of a lot better than work itself was. This is usually what gets non-cyclists interested in commuting, thank Dobbs.

Cold this morning but glad to complete my commute without a puncture!!!!!

One on the way in on Friday, "repaired" by LBS, re-occurred after 3 miles on way home.

"Fixed" by another LBS on Saturday only to re-punsture again yesterday on my way in to work.......

So relieved to have got end to end trouble free today - 4 punctures in total for January not a good start to the year.

Very cold this morning....-5ish brrrrr.

Keep safe everyone....I've noticed light is lasting longer at night and appearing earlier in the morning over the last week or so........Spring is just round the corner!!!!

May I suggest a Mr. Tuffy tire liner ?

I have one on my back wheel so far, to my knowledge, it has resiteted at least 1 puncture attempt by a random paperclip !

I will install the front one soon ... =)

__________________________


My commute today was fun, easy and quick !

=)

Nice ride this morning. Stopped to watch a hawk making lazy circles in the sky.

Temp in the 40's with high winds, but enjoyed the ride anyway. Got a late start this morning so there was a little more traffic, but no fellow bike commuters.

Roads were wet and no one hassled me which is good. Pants were dry when I got to work so the Freddy Fenders did their job.

Warm n wet this morning. Nothing special. Bike was just a little sluggish. I imagine it's stiff after yesterday's unprecedented lunchtime jaunt to rejoice in its new rebuilt bottom bracket...

Nice hawk Bikebuddha :) Was a bit harried this :am but finally got it together and made it out the door. Little over 70* kinda hazy. Far too many folks drive in the bike lane. Had to run the roadie aground a coupla times :eek: A little push into the office from the NW made record time. Looking forward to the long way home :D

A couple inches of snow overnight had cars sliding through intersections with alarming regularity. Things didn't get dicey for me until I got on some of the busier streets, and the mounds of sludge kept pushing my front wheel away. I almost bailed half a dozen times in 4 blocks, then said f*** it and took the lane with vengeance. I;m battling a cold, so my speed is down a bit. Bleagh.

Wrassled my self back out of Lazy Mode this morning. I drove in on Friday and was lazy again on Monday. I hate it when I drive, but sometimes it's just too tempting while fumbling around in a pre-coffee fog. Must work harder to resist.

Was a great ride in... temps were really strange this am. It was a balmy 48F on my patio, 38F on the sign 1/2 way in, and 26F at the office. Pretty large variance in a 6 mile range.

Got my new CatEye[LD-1000] blinkie and hung it on the seatpost this morning. That mutha puts out some massive photons. I thought my Performance ultra bright blinkie was bright, but it pales in comparison during the side by side test against the CatEye.

Found a quarter this morning. Stopped at the light to cross the six lane and there it was. There were 4 more pennies on the way up the hill, but it's not worth 4 cents to stop on the hill. They will be there for days to come.

Looking forward to the ride home!

It was a bit cool this morning but still bright and sunny with no wind. The ride to work took about 10 minutes.

I came to the stop light this morning and it was red. I was ten yards behind a Hummer, when it turned green. I was going straight through the intersection and he was turning right. After the light turned green the Hummer stayed still until I had passed him and way most of the way across the street. Then after I was safely out of harms way, he (it?) made the right turn. Welcome to Camarillo. I find my biggest complaint on my short commute here is people that constantly want to give me the right of way, it gets sort of annoying at times. As a firm believer of first to the line first to go, I wish sometimes that people wouldn't be so considerate.

Ugg. Nearly joined the Great Peleton in the Sky this morning at 21st and Q. I was anticipating the green and a car coming from the left was trying to beat the red. Stupid on my part. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Luckily, I was able to pull an emergency 90 deg. right turn and I lived to ride another day.

Don't be stupid like me. Wait for the green.

caloso, glad it turned out okay.

A nice beautiful day out today. I woke up early, but then decided I was still a bit sore from my Saturday century, so I didn't want to ride pre-commute. So my commute was my first ride since Saturday. Took it at about 80% of normal commuting effort (which itself is pretty relaxed except at hills) at first, but then when I reached the hill on the way in, I felt as good as normal and had a blast. Not that I wasn't having a blast the rest of the way... one doesn't have to be going fast to be having fun. (Though going fast doesn't hurt.)