Way to go! :beer:

Sounds like you kept things mostly in hand. There will be more hiccups, but eventually the necessary habits will establish themselves, and you'll end up wondering why you'd go to work any other way.

Many of the drivers on my route apparently forgot how to drive over the Saturday-Sunday span. :(

Great Monday Morning
 

Great ride this Monday morning. Seems like traffic is always a little lighter on Mondays when school is out. Congratulations to the 1000 mile commuter and commuter returning after 25 years. Big news this morning seems to be that gas prices are now above $3/gal. Glad I've been practicing bicycle commuting for the past 30+ years.

I switched out my wheels on the weekend for a set that didn't have dents in the rims and were relatively straight. They had some 700x26C tires on them, which I haven't used for a year or so. Wow! FAST! I was just screamin' along today. I hope they can take the pounding...

Had a nice commute this morning. Temps in the low 70s was nice but the humidity was so bad it was foggy for part of the ride in. Had a car buzz me pretty close in a 45mph zone right before my turn off. The gf and I are looking for a new place to live so I might have a different commute later this year.

Welcome to the Happy Healthy Commuting Mother F***ers club! We laugh our finely sculpted asses off as we ride past gas stations w/ SUV drivers eager to drop $80 for a fill up of regular unleaded and delight in showing off our well tanned, incredibly muscled legs to admiring members of the opposite sex who are eager to give us their phone numbers. :)

Here I thought the weather on Thursday was nice to bike to. I was wrong. This morning was so beautiful Great ride in yet not too many people on the trails at all. I think I saw a dozen people while on the 13 mile ride. Even better...I trimmed a few minutes off on my commute in.

LMAO!

Today was the first near-casualty all year - a squirrel bounded out inches away from my wheel on a quiet neighborhood road. You never hear how the claws scrape the ground yanking its body across the pavement in a car...ahhh.

Overcast all week in Atlanta, which is GREAT because the temperatures are finally below 90+ and there's even a cool breeze out.

I found a NEW bike (well, it's used) at the LBS yesterday and put down a deposit to hold it for me while they finish tuning it up. $250.00 for a Jamis Coda (not sure the year). Do any of you have any feedback on my potential ride?

I doubled the value of the Bomber by my purchase of REI grocery bag panniers. They're just perfect for throwing my backpack and shoes into. The only problem is that my heels just nick the front edge of them. I think I can eke out a few more milimeters by adjusting the rack. It's either that or swap out the cranks, I guess.

Hi ALM,
The Jamis Coda is an excellent choice for commuting. Where did you find it?
We want pics when you finally get it home. :)

My commuting days are over :(...for a while at least (I hope).

Wifey is 7months along with our first and she's slowing down. She works two train stops away from me so I've decided to drive in to shorten her commute. I'll prolly start up again once my paternity leave is up, but that's nearly 3 months from now. More than likely I'll do 5:45 A.M. rides with a local group to stave off the atrophy. Cycling to work for sure has it's ups and down, but it's been mostly positive and I've saved a ton on gas :D.

My wife is expecting our first as well (first OB appt Thursday). I figure any "atrophy" during paternity leave will (eventually) be offset by biking to day care with my kid in the trailer. :D

I'm kind of eagerly awaiting Thing 1's ascension to kindergarten in September, so I can get a bit of a break from pulling both of them around at the same time. They total ~70# now, less and less room for luggage/groceries in the trailer.

Today's ride was good but hot. Complicated by additional construction on bike trail. I should just give up and go back to the roads until the trail is reassembled. Going home will be HOTTER.

Today was my first commute with the Forte City ST tires and the rack/trunk (in lieu of the backpack). Normally, my ride in takes 18:30+ minutes. This morning I did it in a hair over 16 minutes. The ride home usually takes around 21:00+ minutes (it's downhill going in, uphill coming home, not to mention hotter/more humid/end of the day) but today I set a PR of 15:43.

Was it the tires? Was it having the weight on the bike and not my back? A hella strong tailwind (no)? None of the above? All of the above? Who knows, who cares. All I care is that I made it in to work in on piece and home again. No thanks to the tool in the silver Pontiac Montana with the handicapped plate who apparently doesn't believe in 'share the lane.' <shrug>

The weatherman called for t-storms again today, but I decided to follow my own forecast (it wasn't raining when I left) and it worked. Weather was cool and breezy this morning, hot/humid and windy (always head or head-quartering) on the way home. I'm digging this commuting thing. :love:

Ride home was nice cuz it wasn't sweltering. Rode behind another cyclist around traffic snarls that left traffic behind us. Got home, moved the car, now I'm just resting before I take the roadie out for some laps.

Congrats to you both. I actually got superfit during the last months of my wife's pregnancy. I was riding like a maniac everyday trying to cram as much cycling into it as I could. Keep that mobile phone charged, though!

Heh, my commute today was multifaceted. First, on the way in, a roadie on training ride, passes me early on. Don't know how far he rode to encounter me, but he didn't recede that quickly into the scenery ahead. His bike was super light, he was wearing a minimum of clothing and gear. I commute on a very heavy dept store fs mtb wearing old tees or poloshirts and cargo pocket shorts.

Near to work, I calculate I have time to dive into the Target store and abscond with nearly all their 26in innertubes. I am benevolent and leave two on the rack.

At work I discover that my slacks have finally given up the wearability ghost. A portion of the seat has become so thin that the fabric is essentially not there. They were old dacron polyester slacks that were thin, cool wrinkle proof, pleated and actually looked good. Since my waistline doesn't challenge them, my behind finally did. Farewell fair slacks, you were good to me and commuting allowed me to wear you out properly.

Going home, another roadie passed me and slowly gained distance, very slowly. This guy was also unloaded. He did have something strapped to his right upper arm which might have been a heart monitor.

I was taking a right ona road another commuter looks at me and smiles then I make the right turn and then the left to go the other way ( stupid right to go lefts I should ride a MTB and just go over the dividers ) then I see him dead a head and I pass him he smiles then notices its me then gets a bewildered look on his face as I ride off he was on the sidewalk dodging people jogging I was on the road. Cruised through campus today had like gigawatts of energy in the legs I think I was going double the speed limits sometimes (the speed limit is 15 mph) saw another fitness rider out felt sorry for her she was letting the cagers get the best of her and she was going over into the gravel to let people pass by her. I half yelled at this stupid family the mom was going the wrong way the kids where flying all over the road driving the occasional cager crazy (country roads) and she was reading some ad not paying attention stupidity kills. My new route is quite eventfull and funn

Nice commute today. Passed a few cyclists. Saw something neon behind me but apparently I outran it. I caught up to a female on a mountain bike with a pannier. She wore lycra shorts and she was built to wear them. :p She'd get up out of the saddle every once in a while and I went: :eek: :o

There's a 20 to 25 knot headwind coming off the lake and I was still moving right along. Toe clips good!

Great ride in this morning, a lil cloudly, about 70ish. No heavy winds (That'll be this evening of course). Couldn't have asked for a better ride.

Of course, after I showered and changed at the locker room, I got soaked by rain riding across campus to my office. :D

Wet. The doppler image below is from an hour after I arrived. All that green and yellow was sitting on my route while I was riding in. :mad:

Yes, wet, me too. However that was the ride home last night. Man, it was a downpour. So much so that my cell phone got submerged in my pocket. Gotta get a new one, and my grips when loosey on me too. Had to take them off and dry them out. Soaked through and through.

Ride in was muggy and hot, and I felt sluggish.

It rained overnight, which made everything nice and fresh this morning. Everything except my legs. After yesterday's uber-fast ride in, today I felt clunky and slow. I actually spun my wheels to see if something was rubbing, but alas, it's just my fat ass.

Only if he was the kinda guy who wears his heart on his sleeve. [rimshot]

I was one of those lycra-encased guys this morning. I am still trying to dial in the fit of the tri-bike. I swapped out the regular seatpost and comfy Selle Italia Flite for a Profile forward seat post and a minimal (okay, "asshatchet") saddle. Not particularly comfortable for the ride around town, but once I got on the open road and down into the aerobars it became a lot more comfortable at speed.

I got up early and did a 15km commute instead of my usual 5km. The wife is on nights, so I may get her to pack 2 suppers so I can go meet her after work.

Brrr, 60F!!! What happened to the triple digits?

Enjoyed a bit of cager irony today:

Part of the bike route I follow to work is on a street that ends in a cul-de-sac, installed to keep traffic on the main road instead that runs parallel, instead of on these little residential side streets. Anyway, I pull off the bike path, into the cul-de-sac, and there's a minor traffic jam of maybe 6 cars, hemmed in by a delivery van that appears stuck in the middle of a three-point turn. At first I thought the van driver was just slow to turn around, and I wondered about the wisdom of 'running the gauntlet' and trying to decide whether to stop, or go around the van and risk getting backed into.

As I approached however, I heard the van driver fruitlessly cranking the engine, and I realised that a couple of drivers had been waiting long enough to have abandoned their cages, and stood watching in futility. I glided past them on my bike and deeked around the crippled van, then I stopped, dismounted and helped the driver push the van out of the way, to let the traffic pass.

I wonder about the karmic +/- on this one: yes, I did a good deed by helping the stranded van driver, but I also freed a bunch of cars to belch pollution and wreak havoc on city streets - like poking an arterial cholesterol deposit. I wonder how many of those dirvers realized that (today at least) they owe their freedom of mobility to a cyclist, and will it make them more congenial as drivers?

Rode with buddy Nate last night after I got home. We got sprinkled on. We got rained on. We got poured on.... Then we got hailed on. Needless to say, we ducked into a covered bus stop to wait it out. Start to finish was like 20 minutes for the whole deal. Gotta love the Colorado storms. :)

This morning, I forgot my helmet so I went back after just rolling out. Next departure the back tire seemed wonky... sure nuff it was way low. I went back again and pumped it up. No hissing so I just rode off again.

The ensuing ride was ultra slow. Not sure if it was a bonk from the get go, lack of sleep, or I'm catching that plague that is flying around the office. But I did eventually make it. Now I'm here, but uninspired. I guess at least that's normal. :)

Tiring as hell. I was at work until almost midnight last night (having gotten there at 7am). Fortunately I took the car to work yesterday due to some errands that badly needed doing at lunchtime. Cannot wait to get home and veg out tonight. Passed 250 miles on my month-old bike this morning, about 75% of which is from commuting.

Nice ride in this morning, except the spot on the road I ride (wide, fairly new rural road, not many houses, a few farms) where they sprayed oil and pea-sized gravel yesterday. Why do they do this? It smelled bad and I had oily gravel all over my tires and my panniers when I arrived at school. Saw a fox and a deer on the same little stretch of bike path by my house.

There was a looming black cloud to my north (I ride south to north on my return commute) this afternoon so I pedaled fast and made it home in 58 minutes - a new personal best! made it home before the rain, too!