Nice ride. Could get used to leaving at 9am. Esp. if daytime highs hit the 70s for a while longer...

First commute in over a month. I could have used a long sleeved shirt. I was glad to had found my light. Almost wiped out on a slippery piece of rubber road surrounding a set of train tracks. I'll have to watch out for that spot in the future. I guess it was still a bit wet from the rain overnight.

This is the type of day that restores one's faith in God, if it needs restoring. Piercing blue sky like a vast crystal orb. Every breath like mint. Skin cooled by the crisp white air with just a whisper of chill. Skin lightly toasted by the dry autumn sun, casting tall skyscrapers sharply drawn on the black pavement. Light as Chablis with a hint of oak in St Louis today. It's good to be alive and on the bicycle.

Perfect day today. Sunny, cool, fall in Colorado with leaves just turning. No wind. Rode the converted mb-3 single-speed and it was soooo smooth and silent. Doesn't get better than this.

Time to rip all the gears off the rb-1 and maybe the surly too.

This is actually for yesterday. My lycra short finally came with rear rack and rack trunk. Installed rack and the trunk so that I do not need to carry my stuff in my back pack that make me sweaty. With lycra short and ajusted seat I rode much more comfortable.

So today I was riding home on a MUP when I see this guy rollerblading. He's not an ordinary blader though, he's flailing about with 2 ski poles. Okay, maybe he's not flailing just pushing with them. The problem is that he's taking up the entire path, all 6 feet of it. I had a disturbing vision of getting impaled on one of his poles so I cautiously approached and called out "on your left" to signal my intention to pass. No response, just more flailing about with the poles. So I call out louder, and then louder, almost shouting before he realized he wasn't the only person on the path and allowed me to pass. Has anybody else encountered these ski pole wielding rollerbladers? Is it a new trend that I need to watch out for? It could definitely make for some great headlines: "25 year old man gutted with ski pole while trying to pass a rollerblader" or "Man impaled on rollerblader's ski pole in stable condition." Crazy stuff.

Second day straight commuting after a 10 month layoff. Thought I might have to get off and walk up Napolean St, it is a short (of course) but very sharp hill. I wont finish until after dark tonight, so will have a windy, dark, and maybe wet ride home. I have been missing those

Will have to have tomorrow off, because of commitments, but will be back at it on Friday.

a

on a really busy schedule these days so I booked out of the house early (no food in the house so I figured I'd grab breakfast someplace on the way in) got 1 1/2 miles down the road and my chain broke. Whipped out my tools and pulled out the chain tool and it just would not pop the rivet. So I had to walk back home.

Grabbed my folder, which I haven't tuned up since I returned from Europe, and headed out the door. The front brake rubbed the whole ride in, the derailleur was out of adjustment, batteries dead in the front light. Got to work but no breakfast.

Moved on to the next location and got out about 9:30p. Got some batteries for the light (size N??!- had to go to two places before I got them) and rode home. Actually, even with the rubbing brake the folder moves along.

I survived.

Had two cars follow along behind me,not passing, on the way in. Guess they expected me to move into the gutter. Guess the open left lane was invisible. Idiots. I waved them into the left lane and went on. Wasn't buzzed at all today. Guess my letters to the editors of the 2 local papers, reminded people I am a person, and easily killed, so they were careful.(Let me dream.) Ride home was fast. We have been having problems with groups of young thugs hanging out in the local park, so I went through on the way home to check...nope, not there. Local PD is back on my Christmas list.

ridiculously beautiful weather so far this week. ridiculously enjoyable rides.

local papers are full of alarming, depressing details about climate change. if any of it's true, it may be almost time for me to start feeling actively hostile towards habitual drivers. why should they get to squander more than their share of the ecosystem?

The only people who who are saying it isnt are those employed by the oil / coal companies.

a

Rainy, and fairly windy on the way home, and a very slow ride. Glad to be back

a

Another nice morning commute. I went at a leisure pace; just happy to be out there on my bike. (My LBS informed me that the rack for my new bike arrives tomorrow! Can't wait to start commuting on my new bike with 29" wheels and slicks.) Saw a runner with a headset light strolling along in the dark. Also, the rider that passed me yesterday also passed me today, but he got hung up at an intersection with oncoming traffic so I caught up with him and we introduced ourselves and chatted briefly. After traffic passed he took off on his road bike; I mean he really took off! Wow if I could someday ride like that! It was great to meet another bike commuter on the road; it validates my feeling that what I'm doing now is a great activity and shared by all those who have been willing to discover it.

GreenAnvil

Just the way I like it. 50F, little wind, and courteous drivers, could I ask for anything more?

Mid 40Fs. Crisp, blue sky. Annoying headwind. My legs didn't feel very strong this morning. Felt like I was dragging an anchor.

Second day of a cold.
Second day of no biking.
Stupid cold and no biking make Mr_H something something.

It must owl season already. I was totally jolted by the creepy wail of a screech owl, formerly known as a wtf-is-that-a-friggin-ghost, along an inky black country road around 6am. Thanks to visits to the local nature center with my son, this animal has been recently demoted from the supernatural.

Otherwise, perfect weather! 56F, no fog, clear skies. Almost no sweat. Made record time. Maybe the last perfect ride of the year?

Fun ride this morning. No incidents of any sort. lots of curbing hopping on the hardtial too. WHEEEE!!

Picked up the perfromance bike version of the nitehawk emitter headlight on clearance at my local store. light output is about the same as my Princeton Tec EOS which seem to break off the clip everytime I drop one. I think I'll keep it around for a backup light but I was a little disappointed that it was not brighter. Hopefully my jet lite phatom will arrive today ...

Took the short route in today like last wed. OMG!
I remember last year when this was a long route. 15 miles is much shorter than 28. duh

About 40*F this morning. Brrr. Plenty warm under my wind jacket once the fires light up. Zero other bikers this morning, but I don't usually see many. Supposed to be near 70 this afternoon. Bright and sunny. Perfect days.

What a great week for commuting it has been so far. Nice and cool mornings in the low to mid 50s. Yesterady on my way to work I caught up to another commuter at a red light and we said good morning and talked for a little bit about where we were going. Then last night on my way home I caught up to another commuter (woman this time) at a red light and said hello to her as well. I normally don't see many commuters on my route so this was a nice surprise. This morning on my way through the golf course the fog was rising off the grass and lakes and with the sun coming up it was a great sight to see. Looks like today will be my last day riding this week though since my gf's parents are flying in tomorrow and I will be picking them up from the airport. Friday I will probably have to drive to pick up my gf at work since her parents will have her car and she can't drive my car since it's stick I will reach my upper goal of 200 miles this month this afternoon though so at least that's a good thing for the month

51F (11C) when I left the house. Felt cool so I donned the arm warmers, knee warmers, vest, and full finger gloves. Felt good for the first 5 miles. Then I had to unzip. By the time I got to work I was warm. Still cooling down with my small fan. I'll go take my sink bath shortly.

I was at an intersection and some yahoo behind me driving a lunch wagon kept revving the truck's engine. Once the light changed he started doing it again because I couldn't pull away from the intersection as fast as a car. A bus was stopped to pick up passengers about 1/2 block ahead. This idiot tried to pass me, but when he saw that I was moving left to pass the bus, he changed his mind and slowed down. I don't know if it was because I had been taking the lane or because there were pedestrians crossing the street. Anyway, I pulled away and never saw him again and I hope our paths don't cross in the future.

I don't know if this ride counts as a commute: I do it once a week to the local Humane Society to volunteer there. It's sorta like a job, right?..

So the ride in was pretty slow due to construction and the fact that my route passed through two university campuses just as the majority of students were getting out of their classes for the day... Traffic was pretty backed up; I was glad I was using bike-laned streets to whip right by half-mile long traffic jams. The ride back, however, was fantastic! Little traffic, cool but not yet freezing temps... Even though it was mostly uphill, it was just so damn fast and smooth! I stopped by a liquor store to get some beer and they even let me roll the bike right in.

I also stopped by an electronics store to pick up a mouse - and it's the second bloody time I get called "sir" in that store (doesn't correspond to my gender...). I guess short hair, bike garb (no lycra though) and especially the alpha dog expression that takes a few minutes to get erased from my face after I leave traffic make it easy for people to mistake me for a man, and a macho one at that.

Looked up commute in the dictionary, and it essentially said a commute was travel performed by a commuter. Looked that one up, and it said "Individual who frequently travels between two places.". Once per week sounds like "frequent" to me.

Interesting ride today. I thought I was over the embarrasing stuff, but i forgot to unclip at an intersection in Chinatown this morning, and down i went, got some weird looks from the locals. More seriously, I was threading my way through traffic on 3rd Ave in midtown (NY) and I got sideswiped by a van, he just kissed me, and I saw it happening too late, but I got a hand out and pushed off, kept going, spoke to him at the light, he asked if I was ok. Thing is, I consider it my fault, since it's up to me not to get myself killed if I'm gonna ride in traffic. I got a lot to learn. I was soaked with sweat when i got to work, fear, not exhaustion. At 55, maybe I'm too old for this ****.