Today was perfect. Could only be better if it were my friday instead of tuesday.

Today was my first commute via bike (Specialized Sequoia - base model):

Location: Portland, OR
Weather: Sunny
Temp: 70 beautiful degrees
Elapsed time: 36 mins
Max speed: 30.6 MPH (down a hill, and OMG that was fun!)
Avg speed: 12.4 MPH
Distance: 7.54 miles

Didn't really plan on starting today, the idea just kinda settled on my mind last night as I drifted off to sleep. :)

Since it's jeans-day, I simply rolled up a pair of jeans, a polo-shirt, belt, an extra pair of socks and stuffed 'em in my messenger bag, along with my 2-cup thermos, and lunch sack, and I was off. I just wore a pair of shorts, a t-shirt, and tennis shoes for the ride, and locked up the bike at a covered, crowded, government building a couple blocks away from my building....

Only two semi-difficult segments on the ride, for this outta shape rider, and the stoplights beyond them are little beacons of salvation! One thing I'm really enjoying is the surge you feel in your big muscles after a difficult (hilly) stretch, and a short rest; the sense of power is intoxicating!

Going to shoot for doing it once a week, and I hope to work my way up to perhaps 5-days/week sometime during the summer! ;)

Many thanks to all who've shared here, as it certainly helped make my first commute an absolute delight...

Cheers!

Woot!
RonH is my twin! Look out world if I ever move to his kneck of the woods.

Taking the high road is fine and all. It just feels damn good to let it out every once in a while. :D

Note to self: visit atlanta :D

I'm riding the roadie to work this week, as I managed to strip the threads of the axle on my fixie. I thought I could be clever and cannabalize an axle from an old hub I had in the spare parts bin. Didn't work so I need to stop at the LBS on the way home.

Spoke to two other riders this morning. The first was a jackass wrong-way rider: "Right side, idiot!" The second was a young woman locking up her retro-cruiser bike at the parking garage rack: "Nice bike!"

So I guess they even out.

Beautiful commute today; I took the advice of a fellow cyclist I met at work yesterday and took the Rock Creek parkway from the Watergate to Fort McNair. Other than missing the detour for Ohio Dr. around the construction and therefore getting totally lost and having to backtrack around the Lincoln, it was just great. Sunny, not too hot, very few cars and loads of cyclists. And just about zero stoplights! The best thing about the new route is that it's twice the distance but takes two-thirds of the time, due to the lack of traffic/stoplights/worries about getting doored on 17th.

incredibly fun day on the bike yesterday.

ran errands all over the city- very convenient and quick- makes me feel sorry for those who are not on bikes. Then a qucik cross town ride in thunder lightning and heavy rain part of it with another cyclist who joined me in laughing hysterically at how incredibly soaked we were and how much we were enjoying it.

great ride.

Today wasnt too good.

Great weather, and left my house setting my stopwatch as usual to time my trip time intended to nail it as far as I possibly can today including the big incline that I have to cover at the start (about 1.5miles of a gradually increasing gradient its like a ramp as opposed to a hill, and curves on the way up).

Progress was good, until I hit the outskirts of Cardiff when 4 punk arse idiot cyclists on BMX's went past me.

3 yelled curses at me making fun of my weight (woo..) the other wheelied his bike straight at me, I had to swerve out of the way or nail my bike into them, my only regret is that I didnt shove my arm out as I swerved past. He'd of landed with a nasty bump.

I get over them and lose my rage as I come alongside the river again, and start nailing it again after a few moments of taking it easy after passing the idiot quartet, the birds singing and the suns shining.. all is good as I come to a suspension bridge as im climbing up the curve of it I hear CLUNK!!! SCRRAAATCH and my pedals refuse to turn, looking down I notice that my rear chain has mis shifted and ended up half on... half on the cogs, so I twiddle the shifter and try and pedal again to flick the chain back on... another clunk, and now the pedals will not rotate not one bit. its completely jammed, I roll off of the bridge, around and through a cycle gate, and pull over to the side.

The chain has trapped itself at the rear between the cassette and the dropout, then the front one has fallen between two chainwheels and jammed there too. I manage to get the front out without too much issue, but the back is really jammed.

Two hands, gripping the chain yanking it up and out to release it from its captive place and I hear TWAAAANNNGGGGGG!!! I look closer fearing I've broken the chain, but its my pannier rack, I've snapped a bolt holding it to my frame with the chain. With the bolt gone another few yanks and the chain is free covered in lovely blue paint (the colour of my frame) but ridable again. I ride the last few miles into work cursing and praying that the loose rack arm doesnt decide to go into the spokes.

Lock up the bike just outside work, then check my bank balance, but the cash machine swallows my card. Seems the idiot on the phone I spoke to yesterday about unblocking my card didnt do what I asked.

Ugh... then I dont get invited to the company outing to the cricket this year either, "your place has already been taken by someone else im afraid".

Bloody day.

:eek: ron? you seemed so sweet and innocent?! :lol:

yes well...you have been cleansed from some rather horrible karma.;) take comfort that it cannot get any worse from hereon. chin up, buttercup. :)

apparently on thursday evenings there is a deluge of cyclists on road bikes (i ride a clunky hybrid) that travel on my way home. they leave me alone; some wave. as i rounded the second leg i notice a guy driveway bound with a flat, shout if he was okay, he said yes. he was with the deluge. on my final leg there's congestion due to a concert nearby. so i chuckle silently as i slip off my bike and walk it over to the conveniently just-laid side walk and walk to my front door. brilliant. about 20 minutes later my neighbors drive up, turns out they were stuck in traffic and had seen me go home. bikes are FREE!

for this morning, not much excitement except i think i pulled my arse muscles again so i was doing sitting lotus stretches while watching germany v. argentina at lunch. can't wait for the ride home tonight.

happy weekend!!! i have MONDAY and TUESDAY OFF! YAY AMERICAAAHHH!!!

o snap

great commute-- hot, but nice.

Hello, had a nice (but tiring....3 hrs of sleep...built my second wheel last night)......commute home.

I had another commuter follow me and then ask me for directions. I knew where he wanted to go, but he had me talking about winter commuting.....and when I talk about biking I tend to lose sight of everything else.....like directions....

Hopefully I didn't send him down a dead end....

Ride in was good, only going in to work a half day. As I was riding home I had a guy on a gas scooter try to drop me. His scooter could only do 23 Mph so I dropped him. His smirk fell as my fat butt on my rack equipped bike passed him like he was walking. I hate the chainsaw sound of those stupid things. I'm off this weekend, looking forward to going to the Vacaville Gran Prix this Sunday and seeing my first bike road race in person. I wore out the rear tire on my new bike and picked up an Armadillo, boy are those hard to mount. Hope it lasts. Ride On.

Sadly it was by car, first time I've fired it up in a week. I had to head into the city and am not up to a 140 mile round trip on the interstate only powered by peanut butter. Happily it was to pick up a my new frame.
--A

Nice commute in for my half day of work today. Was going to cheat and get the train in before realising that I had no change on me, and no card!! Grr (see last post in here :D). Decided to just nail it as fast as possible, spent most of the 11miles out of the saddle pumping for all I was worth, must have been quite a sight, a 44inch waist bloke standing on a bike sprinting, huffing and puffing away.

Made it here in a damn nice time though 36minutes and that includes 2 or so mins to sort the lock on my bike before checking the stop watch. Arrived at work hot and sweaty but as its only me and my mate here no big deal (I dont carry a change of clothes as im only here for 3.5hours :D) just utilise the deodorant in the restroom and get down to business. My legs are still burning from riding and that was about 40 minutes ago, a really nice deep burn.

Perfect weather for riding. Took the long way home, made all the longer by frequent stops to pick and eat fat, juicy, wild blackberries.

Life is good!

Rode home as well today, after doing some cycling around the city (still get shakey when im being overtaken by an artic!! :D), had to run errands.

On the way back I took it fairly easy, sauntered around, popped into tescos to get some food and buy a nice water bottle mounting thing, and then enjoyed the journey home along the river.

Climbing the hill back into my place was hard... I was tired, but I was faster than I normally go :) With the weather as well I could just get my head down and just concentrate on the riding, get a rhythm... work it... and enjoy the air. :)

Still got nailed by a guy on a trek hybrid of some kind... blew by me on the uphill section but you could see from the shorts he was wearing, he had calves of iron.

Oh... and forgot to mention... had a tiny wee race with some club riders this morning along the trail :) had a few mornings and what not from them, decided to over take them as I was nailing it hard on the way in, heard "thats how your playing it is it!!" and got blown by the bunch of em on road bikes :D lol I reckon I did quite well to hold on as long as I did on my little cheap halfords hybrid :D lol. But it just added extra fun to the trip :) really nice day.

101º with a dew point of 61º, which gives a heat index of 107ºF or 41.6ºC. http://homepage.mac.com/awcg/.Pictures/flame5.gif Anyway you look at it, it's hot. I was only able to plod along to the store and back today, average speed of 11.7 mph, total distance of 12.8 miles. Longest hour of my life (that was not spent at the D.M.V.).

I had the bike in the shop so I walked to work Thursday and bummed a ride home. :( On Monday I'm buying a $50 beater so this won't happen again. Friday I unexpectedly got off work early so I took the long way home--like 3 hours longer! :) It was a perfect evening for a ride.

Another day, another trip in.

Didnt eat well this morning prior to riding in so just didnt have the strength to push it as hard as I did yesterday :( Time: 54mins. :( And felt knackered just had no strength or stamina. Pedals felt like lead, but I was determined not to change down for the hills (stayed in 21st gear [no idea what ratio as not counted the teeth yet :D] for the 11miles in) just got out of my seat and pumped up there, but by the time I crested the last hill my legs were wobbly and couldnt support my weight when standing up anymore :| So just cruised on in then still in 21st but slowed it down to recover a bit.

Gonna get some food down me during work now and hopefully get into a state that I can deal with the 1.5 mile stretches of climbs on the way home as at the moment I just feel drained.

Weather is nice but not blazing hot, its no longer a dry heat but a wet muggy heat so I feel constantly sticky and ming. Hopefully will improve for the trip back home :)

I taught an Effective Cycling (Bike Ed) class yesterday. Had trouble shifting in the rear all the way there. Stopped 3 times to adjust the barrel adjuster at the rear derailleur -- 1/4 turn CW, then 1/4 CCW, :eek:.
While demonstrating how the derailleurs work and explaining gearing and when to shift, the cable snapped at the shifter. Holy crap!! Naturally I didn't have a derailleur cable in my panniers (who does??) so got to do the road riding part of the class riding my beloved commuter as a single speed. Actually I had 3 speeds but found that the 52x12 and 42x12 made pulling away from a stop sign somewhat difficult -- and forget climbing. So did the entire ride in the 30x12 gear. Talk about some serious cross-chaining! :eek:
After the class I headed over to the bike shop. All Mike had was a Dura-Ace cable. I guess the new cable is now the best component on my commuter. ;)
That's two tough lessons I've learned this week. 1. Check for tire wear every few months or 500 miles. 2. When the shifting gets weird it's time to replace the cables.

Seems life keeps me too busy to do the things I know I should do to the bike. :o

It is perfect outside right now. I almost kept riding past work. *sigh*

Got my errands done before it became too hot. Hollered at a dumb......as he passed me with an inch and a half to spare while laying on his horn. He came to a stop and slurred something about kicking my a$$ for riding a bike on the road, then squealed his tires in an act of redneck bravado. I've got to work on my temper when I have to deal with such idiots, although I did not really cuss at him, just yelled out "HEY, What the HELL?"
Other than that fool, I had a fine ride, and am glad I run across early hominids driving cars only once in a great while.
Damn, I'm still angry at him (really just at myself for being upset by such), time to get something to drink and enjoy the A.C.
--A

What a great ride in this morning! Very few cagers to deal with, it being a holiday (sort of). Made up for the fact that I have to be at work today.

Anybody else have to/get to commute in today?

I made my first workday commute by bike today.

I started out at 7am and the 18 miles took me 90 minutes. It is seriously hot, but it's much nicer on a bike that in my knackered old car with no air conditioning.

I saw quite a few fellow commuters, all of who said hello. I can't wait for the ride home.

Hazy, hot and humid ride in this morning. Left late and took it easy since it is Monday and I was tired. Saw a couple of other cyclists out and a guy who was walking gave me a wave. Not much traffic out which was nice since lots of people took off for the holiday tomorrow (not me, I will be here). I am determined to ride at least 200-250 miles this month since I didn't even hit 150 last month. Gonna be a nasty ride home, temps in the mid 90s will feel like the low 100s

Perfect again... still wanted to just keep riding... *sigh*

Me too, had to work. Hot & humid little bit of head wind but otherwise groovy ride today!
Off tomorrow, gonna ride the road rig for some 30 or so miles...

Excellent! :)

aww man - I rode thru a wad of hot, melted chewing gum... it's all over my tires, under the fork, brake bridge... :mad: