By far that is the best way to ride in the rain during summer months. I may toss on a long sleeve wicking layer if it's slightly cool out, but ideally less is more.

Rained last night, so it was cool and cloudy on the way to work. Nice though.

Muggy, but nicer than it's been the past few mornings; not terribly hot. However, TWO downed trees on the DCR bikepath! I got off my bike and eyed them to see if I could move them, but, to no avail. Much too big and unwieldy for me to handle on my own.

YESTERDAY:
maybe it was a case of the Mondays but I was really slow coming in. the ground was wet but no rain. I packed the rain gear just in case I couldn't beat it home. temps in the 70's and really muggy. the ride back was to my parents' house and was relatively fast. it started to rain as I was about to leave so I locked my bike back up, changed into my rain gear inside then came back outside to find the sun had come out. oh well. the heavy rains held off until 3:00 and I was long off the road by then. the jacket came off halfway through the ride back, didn't have that luxury with the pants. first time wearing those rain pants actually (Novara Express), pretty comfortable as far as pants go when worn in 75 degrees with 95% humidity.

TODAY:
pretty fast ride in from my parents house. temps were pretty much the same as yesterday. wore the rain pants and packed the jacket. first commute without padded shorts in a while... I've really grown used to having them and it felt kind of rough without them today (even though I didn't even start wearing padded shorts until the weather warmed up). nothing but the padded shorts from now on for sure. good ride in other than that.

teacher didn't show up today so I went on the computer for a little bit then left and hammered home along the most direct route possible, beating the rain. the ride back was fast and good.

It rained last night so there was heavy fog this morning. This evening the fog was gone, but the humidity is crazy high. Not so hot though, 88º, which beats the hell out of 98º.
--A

Didn't commute today but went for a nice ride. As I was struggling up a hill a guy passed me going down and shouted "Keep it up!" It was good to hear some encouragement. I was riding on my commute road and might think about adding that hill to my commute and then backtracking just so I can master it. I did have to stope once in the middle and that bugged me to no end.

Took a ride to Queens after work to have dinner w/ a friend at a Thai restaurant. The food was excellent and I had to stop myself from eating too much since I still had to ride home over the Queensboro bridge. Tackling that bridge twice sucked cuz of the climb. This makes the 2nd night in a row I rode back and forth to dinner at a restaurant. I gotta ride more to lose the weight now.

did a little daytrip commute to South Seaport from the West side around 20th. It was my wife's first foray into bike commuting in Manhattan so we rode the service road that runs east along part of 20th to the FDR and took the path down to South Seaport. We went to the Bodies Exhibition, which was extraordinary but left me wondering about where they got the bodies from so a bit unsettling (to say the least) with that regard. Then rode back taking the bike laned 9th street to 4th avenue and uptown that way. My wife loved riding in the city and handled it beautifully ( I was inwardly a bit aprehensive as her tour guide but tried not to let on).

Fast ride last night. After work I managed to beat the thunderstorms home. Fell once taking a different line cutting through a school play yard. Hidden 4x4 lining a swingset. Sand on both sides. Oh well, sand is soft.

Got my second best time. I realize now I need to pick up the pace to get out the door. Dropped 5 min. Then when I got home the sun comes out. *sigh* I took advantage of it and did some singletrack at Stoney.

Started out in a light drizzle this morning, but that stopped. The humidity is awful at 90%.

I saw a cyclist about a quarter mile ahead and moving fast so I tried to reel him in. I got fairly close but he kept looking behind him and then getting down and pushing as hard as he could. I could've caught him if I had more time. :)

Fairly fast commute, but now I'm sitting here, stewing in my own juices. Jeez it's hot.

Great temps this morning, freshly cleaned air from the rain yesterday, and light traffic. Too bad I hit nearly every stoplight on the way. Oh well, it was still a good ride.

Made it home last night without getting wet from any rain. Uneventful ride in this morning. Took the short route in since I wanted to mix it up a little bit. No golf course paths and people to worry about just cars. Had a car buzz by me with about a foot of clearance around a corner on a 2 lane road. Almost caught him at a light but it was up a hill so I didn't get a chance to talk to the person about it. Still warm and humid, still trying to dry off and I have been here over an hour. Going to be a hot ride home this afternoon.

Sadly I had to pass commuting today. I need to get home to be able to pack for a bike ride in the mountains of Colorado. (including bike pedals). Leaving tomorrow from work to visit #1 son.

Naturally tickets to the game on the 4th are part of the tradition. Go Revs.

Good ride in this AM, though the humidity was about 98%. Lots of dripping sweat. I've noticed that riding home in the heat, I don't drip nearly as much. It's hotter, but the relative humidity is lower, so more of the sweat evaporates....either way, I'll be soaked by the time I get home. 89F and dew point of ~70F

Pleasant weather this morning. Bike paths mostly dry after the rains we had this week. Caught my front wheen in a hole in the blacktop and almost bit it, coincidentally in the exact same place I crashed last month. New bike continues to be way 'funner' than the old one!

Lesson of the day: don't mess with the status quo. I'm taking a bike tour this holiday weekend so I switched my trusty moustache bars for drops and screwed up everthing. Without time to buy a set of my favorite Nitto touring drops, I'm going back to moustaches today and for the tour.

Besides having to fiddle with my bars and cables the whole way into work, the commute was uneventful.

mustache bars are the jam!:) :) :)

Well, a brief break in the monsoon has given us a beautiful morning:
- sunny, low humidity, temps in the mid 70s...

Lots more commuters out recently, every year I seem to see more and more.

Been dialing in the fit on my newest conversion, the thing is a blast to ride.
Especially days like this - I just wanna keep riding past the office...

I need to weigh this bike at the LBS. I bet it's sub 20#s - sure seems light as a feather.

Hot, sticky 100% humidity here last night riding towards an omnious cloud, pelted with a thousand gnats... pphhhtttt! i made it home before the rain came. Feel you NE Commuters in the rain, may be take up kayaking? ;)

A lil' cooler here this :am but the humidity is up, actually feels like tropical FL again.
YAY! no gnats :)

It's humid. The techwick t-shirts that served so well wicking sweat away and drying quickly now don't dry so quickly and their odor control protection is gone. I'm going through a t-shirt a day while in winter, it was more like a t-shirt a week.

Yesterday evening's commute was a nightmare--got soaked in the steady rain and kept having to detour due to EVERY big road having some kind of flooding closure. Even the sidewalks on Constitution were closed. Walking back from Dupont later that evening after yoga, I was alongside the veritable parking lot that 20th had become--one driver even rolled down his window and asked if there was an accident up ahead. Nope, just too many cars and not enough roads! Gave a thumbs-up to the guy on a Cannondale sailing past all the angry, frustrated cagers.

This morning was fantastic! Cool, dry, and sunny. Way less traffic than usual. Made it in ten minutes early! Would have been perfect but for the left-turners on 17th who don't understand that if they don't have a green arrow, I have the right of way coming at them! I wonder if they'd try to zip in front of an oncoming car like that...

Another bright sunshine Colorado morning . Plesant 59f with a slight headwind. An older commuter pumped me off going up the hill... I hate that. Need to work on powering up that hill in the am.

Ride home was fun last night since traffic was backed up all over the place. It just seems more fun when you get to pass all the cars lacking forward progress.

Took the long route this morning. Weather was great in Raleigh but it got really foggy around Lake Wheeler and Apex. Finally cleared up as I was making my way into RTP. Doing my best to stay hydrated in the heat but over did it last night/this morning. Glad the restrooms in the parks were open early.

Nice ride, not quite as hot + humid as previous days and no mad cager stories to tell so all was good. Oh...I was cut off by a wobbly cyclist but I pegged him for a Fred early enough so no biggie :rolleyes:.

[The server ate my post so I'll try again.]

Lots of fellow bike commuters out this morning. One guy I gave some friendly advice about staying out of the doorzone. He thanked me and said, "I never thought of that. Good advice!"

And there was a back up of bike traffic at 15th and L as three of us waited for the intersection to clear. Love to see my brothers and sisters in velo.

Ok, just call me stupid! Had two flats on the ride home last night. Why? Because some stupid bozo never checks the wear on his rear tire. Seems it's "hidden" under the fender and hard to see. :o The tread had worn so thin in a few spots that anything tougher than a blade of grass could puncture the tire.
I must have hit some sharp gravel or glass that has collected at one end of one of the campus roads I ride on. Caused a slow leak. By the time I got to the other end of the road my tire was a little squishy. I found out just how squishy when I tried to make a fairly sharp left turn. That was a scary moment. Luckily there were no cars coming toward me.
I pulled over, analyzed the situation, fixed the flat, and prepared myself for another one, since I still had 3.5 miles to go. :(
Had another one less than two miles from home. :crash: Fixed it and made it home. Whew. :o

Today I drove. :( Walked to the bike shop during lunch and picked up a new tire. See you on the road tomorrow. :)

Ride home included some lane taking and lane splitting in the middle of a 5 lane road. That's always fun and in some sense, feels safer than riding on either the right or left.

In other news, Daimler Chrysler is planning to introduce SMART cars in the US. If I still need a car next year, I may just pick one up because it should be easier to find parking.

It's getting pretty warm these days. 30C right now, and far more humidty than I'm used to. Rumour has it that cooler temps are coming our way, but I'm not sure I believe it. Warm is good...

As always, the morning ride in is pretty much glorious. As usual, the ride home is tense due to the folks in cars who are hell bent on shaving 2 seconds off their drive home. For the first time, a small rain shower hit me on the way home. Not too bad though. It was actually sort of refreshing.

I Love that! :D

except for an SUV at a red light, half in the bike lane, yak yak yakkin' on her cell phone... :mad:
and the friggin' bugs...

All Good! :)