Figures, the day it's overcast and cool I don't get to ride to work and have to go to an important meeting and wear a suit.

Crazy wet out there. There's not many people left on the MUP, hell they're aren't many people on the sidewalks. My coworkers keep saying how hardcore I am but I deny it everytime. Driving is slow and costs too much and the bus is even slower and crammed full of high school kids. Meanwhile I've got a couple of great new albums on my iPod and a near-empty path, there's nothing hardcore about it, unless you call mildly damp, hardcore. It will be an interesting morning tomorrow, forecast is for 1cm of the wet-heavy snow overnight. I guess I'll really have to deal with the confused coworkers then.

I finally got a chance to break away from work long enough to report on this morning's commute.
Lovely weather, just a bit cool for me. I'm a warm and sunny kind of person.
Too cool for my sandals and brought my arm warmers just in case.
Saw most of the commuters I see each day.

The ride home should be awesome.The afternoon high is supposed to be ~82F (27C) with plenty of sunshine. Now where are my sandals?

Weather so damp I could bottle it.

It's great to have fall come back to the PNW.

Brisk morning, even leaving after 9am. Starting to think about long sleeves. Still not completely conceding the season, the kiddy pool stays in the backyard.

Great morning for a ride into work. Took a shorter route for about 15 miles into work today. Kept is SLOW (for me) and ended up with a 14mph average.

It was cool, dry, and sunny (I got in a bit late so I wasn't starting off in the dark today).

Can't wait for the ride home.

I just need some rain to test out the fenders I just put on the bike. Planet bike fenders look pretty nice on my Marin Lucas Valley. I'll have to snap a picture one of these days.

As for smells on the commute... I bike within 50 feet of a KFC twice a day. That always gets the stomach going if I'm hungry.

Early this summer they drained the lake (man made lake) near my house to do some dredging. They drained it into the canal that my commute trail follows for around 8 miles. I got to smell rotting dead fish for about 2 months strait. Yummy!

have had a bad cold all week but managed to ride in every day and usually at a pretty good pace. The ride home in the dark and spitting rain was pleasant but met up with a cyclist on the BP that turned and said, "tough night for riding tonight, huh?" Actually I couldn't agree but then noticed he had no fenders and his whole back side was soaked- not too pleasant for him I guess. Fenders are a nice addition to a commuter bike and a rain jacket's not too bad to have either.

smells- even with a cold I could smell burgers on the grill as I took the tunnel under Storrow Drive towards Brighton. Wondering why, since there are no restaurants or homes along there, I was smelling a barbecue and when I came out of the tunnel was greeted by the sounds of a live band from across the river where they were having a party at a boathouse. Those burgers sure smelled good.

great minds forget alike. i learned the phrase as 'going gorilla' though.

still can't find the rain pants. there is trouble coming. didn't get wet yesterday, didn't get wet today . . . i have this bad feeling tomorrow's the day.

i'm really unprepared for this winter's worth of wetness. somehow all last year's stuff has wandered, and i let it happen. i need shoes, gloves, some kind of warmth layer just in case, new rain pants, scads more reflective tape for the new bike . . . i think i want extra mec-turtle blinkies festooned all over it just for the weird sideshow look. and i'm going back to the knitting needles and the white buffalo yarn. gonna knit me some socks.

today was cool and cloudy, and it rained off and on all day. under the overpass there was a puddle so deep and wide a whole lane was hedged off with small traffic cones - and some of the cones were floating. i skirted round the edge of it along the cones since all the traffic was slowing down anyway. was feeling like a wimp compared with last year, until it occurred to me that maybe the cones were a mark of some more critical hazard than mere wetness. now keep picturing myself barrelling through it and falling through to australia.

only four bikes in the bike cage so far this week. amazing what a change in the weather will do.

On the MUP going home tonight an oncoming cyclist with no lighting came towards me. I (lit up like a Christmas tree with blinky ankle straps, blinky reflective vest, moderately strong frontlight, reflective tape on helmet) am quite visible.

I went to the right margin and it looked like he was on the left. As we approached, he swerved sharply towards me forcing me off the path (thank goodness I had slowed down a bit), almost hitting me, and did a 'whoa' as he continued past.

He had to have done this on purpose, or was seriously disoriented because this wasn't a short distance he swerved. Grrrr. My first really close call, thank goodness. It certainly seemed to have a nefarious purpose but maybe I am just paranoid.

Well hello all, new to this forum and all that, my morning comute was rubish today. After cycling in for a bout 6 months you forget how slow public transport is. Instead of taking be 45 min - 60 min on bike (which involves getting a ferry or carrying my bike under a foot tunnel to cross the river) my 13 mile comute took me 1 hr 35 min. That is a massive 8.2 mph. Britsh trains rock! Back on the bike on monday thank God!

Foggy.
Very, Very foggy.
I left the house 30 minute early because I needed to get into the office to run a very important program for a project we're doing.
I make my way through the foggy weather (1/4th mile visibility), wiping my glasses off every block. Finally make it in, shower, and get over to the office.
Find a email stating that the project has been put on hold and I didnt have to come in early. Grr
It was foggy.

BTW, has anyone else noticed that in extreme fog, sometimes you have more lights turned On on your bike, then some cars have on?

I had an almost identical sequence the other day too: yummy donuts, then a half mile later, horrible diesel.

This morning, one of the cars I passed had a license plate holder that said "Sometimes I go topless". So of course I discretely peeked in as I passed on the right (another traffic jam, good shoulder), but no luck!

Damp pavement from some rain overnight, but low 60Fs, so it was a pretty nice ride this morning. I got about a mile from home and realized I wasn't wearing my helmet. Somehow I managed to put on my riding glasses that were hanging from a helmet strap, but I left the helmet hanging on the rack.

Later, I realized I had neglected to fill my water bottle so I was without H2O for my ride. Good thing it's only 6.5 miles. Oh well.

Wow smells - hmmm I think I may have to re-work my route to take in Dreamland Barbeque every now and then... I loved driving by there in convertible.

New googles arrived and worked great. Not sure they will be dark enough for full sunny summer days but I know me and I'll have lost them and two other pairs before those days reappear!

Here's to quitting time and the next ride.

Good ride in this morning. for some reason, the cagers were not giving me as much room today as yesterday, but still nothing too close.

Smells...hmmm...diesel fumes, gas from the gas station, fresh mowed grass from the subdivision maintenance crew.

I was 3rd in line at a red light on the way home. About 5 or 10 seconds after I'm stopped, the car behind me honks, not just a beep, but probably a full second or two. I slowly crane my head around to give the, "where-do-you-expect-me-to-go? look". Then the driver shouted out her window, "oops, I slipped!". I waved to say, no big whoop. Then I started thinking, what was she doing in her cage behind me at a red light that caused her to slilp into her horn for a full second? It was pouring rain and couldn't see that much detail through my mirror.

Today was my first ever commute by bike. It was a beautiful morning for a ride, and even though practically all 8.5 miles are uphill, it went well. Lucky for me, that means the ride home is all downhill!

I'm a big guy, trying to lose a few pounds, so I needed a couple little breaks to catch my breath. But overall I felt really good. Now I'm at work with a nice clear head and a great start on the day.

I'm riding a Specialized Sirrus to which I have added new pedals, rack, trunk bag, fenders, bar ends, headlight and blinker. The tires are 700x28, and are just right for commuting: thin enough to be fast and wide enough to be stable. The bar ends helped to give me more hand positions, and allowed me to get into more of a "down" position when I wanted to.

I'm not up for every-day riding just yet, but once a week will be fun.

A bit chilly, damp, and foggy outside...a very English morning. I was so motivated and happy to get on the bike after a couple days of really rainy weather in my locale. Had a really nice ride...felt so good. Today was the first time I did a commute with a helmet on too. I have to say...I thought my head would be boiling hot...but, I must have bought an adequately vented lid...cause my head was damn cold! I have to think this is due to the wind going through the vents and hitting the sweat on my head.

It was also the first commute with my new 26 x 1.5 Nimbus Armidillos...all I can is...what a fool I was for not running skinnier, higher pressure tires when I first started riding. They took a couple minutes off of the ride and reduced overall effort as well. I thank this site for making me aware of them.

Plus...I did you guys proud (I think). I stayed in the street on one of the 2 hills along my route...this particular one goes over an expressway in my area. Instead of riding on glass laiden sidewalks...I timed my entry up the hill ...I waited for traffic to clear based on the stoplight cycle 4 blocks before the hill...I reached the top, crossed the next stoplight and went to the curb (I'm sorry...but this road is REALLY tight) and repeated the process. Traffic passed me safely then WEE! a nice descent pushed me to 27mph. I don't know if I could do any better...there is really basically no room, there is heavy semi traffic and "taking the lane" on this street during rush hour is just NOT an option. Chime in to tell me if I'm a wuss or if I'm doing the right thing, or if there is no right or wrong answer...I could take the criticism. PM me if this will tarnish the topic of the thread...perhaps it should be a separate one.

Congrats to you. What matters most is that you're riding. You'll be up for riding everyday in no time...and the pounds will melt off...and you'll feel great.

Perfect temps--low 60s so the knees were bare & happy. First commute this week after last weekend's half-century, so the legs were kinda slow. Little traffic, altough one cager couldn't wait to turn at a soplight so the moron jumped in the left lane to go around me, then turned right-on-red from a non-turn lane. The sun was not up yet so it was still quite dark, but the moron didn't have the headlights on, just parking lights. There's never a cop around when you need one. (Unless it was a bicycle cop they probably wouldn't do anything anyway. grumble.)

On the up side, I will set another personal (annual milage) best for the year on the ride home: 1500 miles! (That's up 3x from last year.)

Awesome ride. Temp was ~59F (15C) but I toughed it out and wore my sandals. I'm just not ready to put them away for the year and wear shoes and socks.

I don't understand the cagers. At every stoplight all I heard was the click-click of their AC turning on and off. I wanted to yell, "Hey stupids, it's 59 degrees out here. Turn off the AC and open your windows."

Didn't see many other commuters.

The ride home should be great. Sunny and 85F (29C).

This is my favorite thread in this forum and I read it each morning first thing. I usually ride in 2 or three times a week and run in on Weds. It is a 9.5 miles one way with plenty of Pittsburgh hills. With the exception of a half mile streach, it is all secondary roads with very light traffic. Reading the challenges faced by many of you gives me the motivatation to start out on increasingly darker and colder mornings. Also, since I've only seen one other cyclist on my many rides, I sometimes start to question my sanity. It is good to know that there are others out there with a mind set like mine.

Great ride this morning. Pulled out the silk-weight long sleeve shirt, very comfortably cool. And I've got to go uptown for a meeting today, so I'm carrying the bike with me and riding home. It'll be a nice long afternoon ride home.

Utterly dragged a$$ this morning, I don't know what my deal was, but it was kind of embarassing. A semi-nasty crosswind didnt help, either. luckily, i had no problems with cagers for the first time since i started biking to work, so that was a def. silver lining.

here's to hoping for a better ride home.