Took Park Ave. home. Then I remembered that it's two-way and the lights aren't synched so it was mostly sprint, stop, sprint, stop. Humid out too. blech.

Nice ride home. Still trying to settle into those ergon grips. I like'em for one hand, my other hand is not so thrilled though. Either they are not symmetrically set up, my eyeball is deceving me, or, more likely, my wrists are not symmetrically set up.

edit: I wish I hadn't sprung for the Mg bar ends, now I totally have the fear of torque god in me, I have been toting a torque wrench around for my readjustments, I worry that due to the awkward location of the bolt, I have been way misreading the wrench, destroyed the bar-ends, on and on...

Nice ride home, took the roadie out for a spin found I have been over correcting for something on my commuter

Great ride today, weather was cooler and traffic was lighter. I got awy from work earlier than usual and was able to add 20k to my ride home.

Wet. Very wet. But I actually had a great time.:)

Excellent this morning. Got up early to meet my sister for breakfast so I missed the heat. Then I bumped into some business contacts and got to do some networking. And now I'm at work and all my fellow employees and bosses are at meetings, so the music is turned up and my shirt is untucked. This is promising to be a great day....

A sunny Friday
Waiting for the Fedex guy
and working from home.

Didn't commute :( I had to get a ride to bring my doggy to the vet on my break I might walk home though I wonder if the counts?

Had a Dr. Appt at 8:00, so had to drive in to work. Doing a 60 mile ride tomorrow anyhow, so will be glad to have the fresh legs.

This morning was the first day this week I didn't ride my bike to work. Gotta bring one of the Hounds of Hell into the vet over lunch.

The ride home yesterday was strange. From the moment I left work, the traffic was completely stalled on every road in the area. At first, I was passing stalled cars on the right, but the drivers started to get angry and a couple of them actually MOVED THEIR CARS to the far right so that I couldn't pass. So I hopped up onto the sidewalk and continued home. About 1/4 mile from my house, I came to the scene of a collision of a motorcycle and a pick-up truck. Tons of cops and I knew it was serious because they completely shut down one of the largest, busiest streets in the area with police tape (hence, the crazy traffic snarl). The cop at the intersection told me I could go ahead and ride my bike through, as long as I stayed on the sidewalk. Nastiest accident scene I've ever seen. The ambulance had already gone, but there was lots of blood. And you could barely even recognize the thing on the ground as a motorcycle, based on what was left of it.

I told my husband about it and he said, "See, THAT'S why I don't want you riding on the street." That's a disagreement we'll probably never resolve.

Nice ride this morning, weather looks like it's going to rain soon but was nice for now. Couple of interesting points today....

First I had to stop and wait while a herd of deer meandered across the road. There were 8 of them and they seemed like they were in no hurry. Neither was I, so I just waited and enjoyed the scene.

Second interesting thing was when I over shifted onto the big ring and threw the chain... it was hanging on my pedal dragging on the road. Too lazy to stop and touch that greasy thing, I pondered if I could get it back on without stopping. So I backpedaled until the pedal was at 12:00 and the chain flopped back off of the pedal down the crank arm toward the big ring. I then shifted the lever to get it on the ring... cranking slowly forward, it rolled right back onto the ring and I just kept on riding. Anybody else ever pull this off, or am I just special in my own special way ?

Bad ride in. See my post on the main Commuting page for details. :(

Wow. Too scary for me. Glad you're ok.


My ride was great. We had heavy rains last night and it really cooled things off. I wear sandals during the summer and my toes could tell the difference in the temperature. :o
Supposed to be more heavy rains this afternoon and evening.
Will I get home dry??? :)

Nice Ride
 

A little cool out but nice. First time riding my refurbished Sekine (see the Classic forum) from home to my new job but I figured it's seen longer rides in the past week, and it's Friday - might as well go for it! It took the same time, or faster than the bus and given the coolness of the morning I barely broke a sweat. I didn't really push it, because I wanted an average time so I can plan arrival on regular days.

I've not used them, but we have showers here at my work so if I do get kinda sweaty, I'm covered. Must remember to bring a towel to work. Next purchase will be fenders and a rack so I can carry my laptop - way too heavy and bulky to do on my back.

edit: Forgot to mention - it was about 20km. Most of it was smooth riding, but a few patches of bad Ottawa pavement along the way, which I'll know about ahead of time next week. Also, the cage for my water bottle has been making a slow downward slide! Need to tighten that before the ride home.

Today is my day off from trailering the kids to daycare, so all bike trail until the last mile or so, nice to take a break from downtown traffic.

My 2nd to last block on the road before work, kinda weird, somebody's honking at me, it's a 90 yr old guy passing on the right (bike lane is between 2 car-go-straight lanes and car-turn-right lane) at like 50 mph (in a 35), honking away. I think he was just letting me know he was there. Weird part was that he was dressed like Snoopy's commanding officer, foreign correspondent shirt, cravat/scarf, beret...

ohh god, I set off for the first time ever on a bike ride to work.. 25km and boy did it rain on the way home... dohh doubt i wil do that again...

That was the style back in WW I.

Harry70: Stick w/ it. It gets better.

Cripes. I ride my fendered bad-weather beater for two cloudy days and nary a drop of rain.

No commuting next week... I'm off to NYC! Have fun playing in traffic everybody...

I commuted 100% this week, which averages out with last week to give me 50%. I was unhappy about not riding last week, so figured I'd just be stubborn and ride very day this week. No big deals this week on the road. Except yesterday and today I had massive headwinds coming home...what a PITA.

On the up side, my cow-orker that had stopped commuting due to (assumed) peer pressure has started commuting again...he was at 80% last week and 60% this week, so he still has me beat. We're going to start keeping track. Nothing like a DSW to keep one motivated. ;)

I've noticed that I tend to stay on the middle ring, in either 4th, 5th or 6th gear on the back (starting, spinning, cruising). I'm going to have to look in to that whole single-speed thing. Maybe I could convert to the SS equivalent of middle ring/5th gear until I build up massive quads and then replace the cog with a 6th gear equiv. Or, not. Wonder if there's any weight savings (like I care..heh).

Oh, don't give up so easily! Did it seem too long? It will get easier, and don't feel you have to do it every day, or even do the whole thing. You could drive part way and bike the rest. As for the rain - did you stay warm enough, or do you need to get rain gear? Or just pay closer attention to the forecast if you don't want to ride in the rain. But if you do, definitely get fenders.

Needless to say, lots of other good tips are all over this forum, or start your own thread if you have specific questions or just need encouragement. We'd like to see you succeed.

Don't give up yet. It'll take a while for your mind to get into it and believe me when I say, no weather will keep you from commuting

hot humid and sweaty. but this bike just flies. :) I found out a loaded pseudo messenger bag will stay in place better than a light one will. somebody dropped a huge mirror on the sidewalk along my route last week and it is still there in shards and pieces. next time I'll bring a brush to brush it out of the way.

beautiful 76 degrees in New York City, my ride to work (6mile O/W) was a real pleasure this morning. Sunny clear skies... let's hope it lasts... also
there were more cops on the 59th street bridge... I guess is the whole terror alert thing...

Had a fun ride home on Friday: a few hundred metres of wide and moderately busy street, ~3.5 km of lightly travelled paved bike path, ~1.5 km on a road with heavy and fast traffic but a decent paved shoulder and no intersections, ~2 km of a lightly travelled unpaved bike path (all uphill, pretty tiring), ~ 1.5 km through a cemetary, and then through some quiet streets and a private high school campus. Takes me twice as long as my usual on-street long (partly due to greater distance, partly to terrain and path surface) - but is a nice break from the traffic craziness. I tried to do this route before, but took a wrong turn and ended up staying on the "road with heavy and fast traffic but a decent paved shoulder and no intersections" for an extra couple of km, going uphill. This actually turned out to be a shortcut, but breathing exhaust is no fun when you're climbing...

I was actually chilly today. This evening, when I ran into town for take-out I was even uncomfortably cold on the decents. Ye-ha! The heat broke for the first time this summer. I'm waring a jacket. Going back up to 90º day after tomorrow, but that beats the hell out of 99º and super saturated humidity.

--A