Glad you missed the kid diff_lock2 Scary stuff when that happens.

Today was extra protien day - I ate a bug. :eek: Honestly don't see why my cat likes them so much ...

Well as of today I'm officially settled into my new route. It's not great, but it has some real advantages with less traffic and passing a Chick-fil-a. I'm trying not to eat any fast food, but their chicken biscuits are good. Maybe once a week on Friday if I've done all my extracuricular running during the week. Two incidents today: one with an anxious teenager, probably listening to that dang rock-or-roll music; other with a suit-type in an Infinity, gave me a honk and a "what's up?" gesture. I took the lane and made my turn at the next light.

Typical ride: 55 degrees or so this morning, I actually had to wear a long sleeve shirt (better then wearing the full jacket, more visible in a white shirt/yellow pull over anyhow). Relaxing...got passed by two cop cars who gave me plenty of room and no guff.

I had one of those "I'm glad I biked today" experiences too. Someone was flying a hot air ballon over the city, nice ballon, bright colors, one of those real cool sites that you don't get to see often. I caught it out of the corner of my eye and was able to watch it for a good minute or two while biking. If I had driven, I most likely never would have seen it (going too fast) and if I had, I would have only been able to watch it for about 10 seconds.

Gotta start bringing my digital camera :D

I left early and did an extra 9km before my usual commute. I concentrated on staying in zones 1 & 2 below 72% of max hr. I averaged 33km/hr somehow, I usually average about 24.5.

My ride into work was uneventfull at around 1:30am. Coming home, in the span of 2 min. or less, first as I was peddling away down the MUP, some girl pops out of the trees from a hidden path/shortcut and runs across the path to catch a bus. Had to break really hard and skidded, but she never even looked at me, even though my skidding tires were loud.

Got going again and I was still a bit shaken from almost crashing into a girl, now I suddenly notice there is a large group of ducks clogging up the pathway. Again, had to brake hard and skidded. The ducks were sure taking there time moving out of the way, but at least they werent quaking at me, for interupting their nap, like they usually do.

Started off again and then a mini-van speeds in front of me, turning left. She floored it to get through a small break in traffic, and nearly ran me over. Yet again I had to brake hard and skidded to a stop. Of course the lady behind the wheel was on a cell phone, as usual. Never looked at me.

Had a late day yesterday and rode home in the dark around 9pm. The Trek headlight I took off my fiancee's bike isn't doing the trick. If I want to keep commuting after DST ends, I'm gonna have to invest in something better.

My rear tire locked up in the middle of a busy intersection. Turns out the rope I had used to secure a roll of drawings had wrapped around the axle. That was a bit tricky to unwind. Where were the drawings? I back tracked and found them a mile back on the sidewalk next to a street musician. Sure beats bumper to bumper.

I may have to be digging up the lights soon. It was a bit darker this morning. I hung the TL100 blinkie on the back just for kicks. My LED kits came in last night, so I'll build them into my bike box when I get some time. Also got White flahsing LED's. Think I'm going to figure out how to hang them on the front somewhere for the blinding strobe effect.

Ride in was nice, but it seems like there is a bunch more traffic with school started. High School kids are running at the same time as me in the morning. Weather was 58f and 76% humidity with fog and overcast most of the way in. Passed 3 riders going the other way, and was cranked off by a roadie in an Ironman kit headed up the hill. That boy shore did have some prudy legs.

I felt really good on the ride in today. The sky was all glowy - I think local forest fires caused the blood-red sunrise. I caught a roadie with relative ease [maybe because his bike is older than I am and he had no clipless]. Traffic was very light again. It's going to be painful after Labour Day, when everyone starts driving again.

Nice ride in today on mtn bike (blue road-y bike is resting its front derailer). No change in commute time or anything. Do I really need 2 bikes? (spare is nice).

The car started acting up last night when the wife and I went out to dinner so I drove it and my bike to the mechanic this morning and commuted in from there.

I was looking forward to my new route. I tried going home on the new route last night but ended up getting a little lost and having to backtrack a bit. The new route is great, though -- no Elementary school, that's the big thing, but also no chain-killer hill (broke my chain on it a couple weeks ago) and looks like an even quieter street. It's a couple more turns, but much nicer. Now I just need to learn it.

Last night my wife got stuck late at the office on a rush project. So I walked over to her building, got the keys to the minivan and picked up the kidlets from daycare. I should have thrown the bike in the back but I didn't have time to double back to my office. The upshot is that it stayed locked up in the bike cage overnight and this morning I had to ride the roadie instead. And without a helmet (shhhh!). And now I have two bikes here. Life could be worse.

Today was my first commute by bike ever! :) It was great, until it started raining for about the last mile. :( There was no rain in the forecast or anything, either. Oh well, it wasn't so bad. Although I can already see that I need fenders. When I rode into work, my friend/coworker was standing just inside a bay door talking to a customer. He saw me riding up in the rain and gave me an "Oh man!" look. :D The customer said, "What's wrong with your truck?" First, he assumes I have a truck for some reason. *shrug* Second, why does something have to be wrong with it for me to ride? :p All in all, I enjoyed it and I plan to do it again tomorrow.

Riding down the street and a moron crosses the street directly in front of me with all of 20 feet for me to decide what to do. Said fool was quite suprised when I avoided him by going behind him at 25 mph. If I rode in front of him he would have walked into me. Still, I bumped his backpack. Freaking scared the crap out of me.

Apparently we should require peds to get a license to walk down the dang street.

Welcome to the Happy Healthy Commuting Mother F*ckers (HHCMF) club! You'll be happy to know that HHCMF members are 10x happier and 5x more likely to retire earlier using all the money we've saved by not buying gas and instead investing in a balanced portfolio that allows us to live longer, giving us more time to ride our bikes!

First day to the new winery job, 12.4 miles each way. Saw 9 cyclists going and 13 on the return. Passed an old cycling friend who was going the other way. "Hey Ken, I haven't seen you in quite a while. What happened" "The Crush (wine grape harvest) is on." "What? Oh. Alright!" I dragged going so when I got home I added 20 PSI front and rear.

Winery job? Can you adopt me?

Great ride today. Had at least three other bikes in the bike rack at work today. For once, the motorcyclists didn't block the bike rack. The good thing about Ohio's weather is that the motorcyclists only come out about a month every year. Still trying to find a better small headlight for my bike. Hopefully Nashbar or Performance will have a sale. Have a good night.

i want some of whatever jyossarian's drinking.

two firsts in a row for me today. first #1: two-thirds of the way over the bridge, i got a large chunk of spiky something into one eye. talkin' large. i slowed down enough to finish the bridge with the depth-perception you get with one eye screwed up like a popeye poster, and then kept going. luckily tears washed whateveritwas out without me needing to do more than pull up at the light and swab my face clean with the t-shirt hem. i had time to wonder wtf you do in situations like this, but didn't have to find out the hard way.

first #2: thanks to asteroid-in-eye incident, i finished my ride in such a leisurely way that i actually only pretended to take a shower. never done that before, but i was running impressively late and i couldn't point to the Wounded Eye as an excuse. the cat's avoiding me now, but i'm sure that has nothing to do with anything.


i'm liking my bike something fierce again suddenly :D

I've been consistently commuting by bicycle for 2 1/2 months now and today was the 1st day it has rained on me. Wasn't raining when I left the house, started hailing. Found out it is hard to ride through 4 inches of standing water at the curb when covering up one ear to keep hail out. It did drop the temp from 101 to 85 though.

Get some googles. And ain't it fun riding? :)

This is my first post with exception to the intro thread. I have been biking to work for the last two weeks, (it's only a couple of miles for me) and I'm new to bike riding as an adult. I work kind of a weird shift (Fri. through Mon.) and on Mondays the regular weekday shift works with us. This Monday I found out that one of the supervisors on the weekday shift rides to work so I decided to ride the long way home and go his way for a little bit. Well, the road he goes down to get out of the gate is long and there is no shoulder. In fact there is about 2-3 inches of pavement on the right of the white line and then there is a 3-4 inch drop off to dirt/rocks. We were riding in tandem on the white line to make it easier for cars to pass and I guess I got nervous or something because I went off the pavement and lost control of my bike. The next thing I know, I'm hitting the ground and my bike is on top of me. We looked at my my bike and I had to bend one of the brake handles back into its proper position. It pretty much looked ok so I rode it home from there. When I got home I looked at it closer and spun the wheels with the bike upside down and it looks like the rear axle might be whobbling a little. I suppose I should have it checked out by a pro. before I ride it too much?

Anyway, that was my first bike wreck since I was a kid, and yes, I was wearing a helmet. I skinned up my knees and hand a bit but I'm not badly injured. It is quite embarrassing though, and I don't think I'll be going that way much in the future.

Fine ride in this AM. It is still warm and sticky (75F, 90% rH), but its getting to the point now where I don't even notice it any more. Got sprinkled on a bit as I was riding. Felt nice and since I was already sweat soaked, made no difference to me at all....other than cooling me off. I did happen to look down and notice the QR on my front rim was released. Not sure when, how, or why that happened, but I am really glad I didn't try bunny hopping anything!! Probably would have lost a few teeth and some blood had the rim come loose on me.

Had some joker blow his horn at me for no apparent reason other than to be uh, well a joker. (that is the nice version of what I called him when he did it) For some reason or other it seems like people are getting less tolerant of having to go around me. Oh well, they had better get used to it since I don’t plan on giving it up until we have a blizzard this winter. Even then I might still venture out on the bike…

I think I have to find a longer route. I am getting to work too early. (Maybe I should leave later?)