Welcome to Buckshot!

Today's weather was perfect. Absolutely perfect. I left the house at a decent time and took a longer, mellower, less car-filled route in. Today I wore my standard office kit (shirt, tie, and dress pants) with bibs and jersey in the briefcase for the warmer ride home. Except that when I got to work: no bibs and jersey! D'oh!

On my short little 6 mile ride in, I counted 4 wrong way riders (including one idiot who nearly collided with me in a traffic circle!) and 3 sidewalk riders. Must be Bike To Work Week.

BtWW here too. I saw my first live possum today, crossing the road in front of me. Fortunately for him the truck in front of me saw him too and braked, letting him live.

Man those critters (possums, not trucks) are slow. No wonder I see them as road kill all the time. Really depressing. :(

My first commute was today, here are the stats:

.3 miles
2:01

I guess I should have brought the HRM to see what kind of effort I was putting myslef through.

MiRider and Buckshot77, Welcome to the HHCMF Club (Happy, Healthy Commuting Mutha F'ers). We take pride in showing off our well muscled legs and tight butts to friends and co-workers, using the money we save on gas and transit to buy cool stuff for our bikes like raccoon tails and grips w/ tassles, and only slightly embellishing our exciting tales of heroism and derring-do as we ride our trusty steeds to and from work surrounded by maniacal impotent death squads in SUVs. (With thanks to jyossarian for the explanation)

Sunblock
 

I wonder if most people use sun block for work commute that is mainly morning and afternoon? I can feel a minor burn. But is it ok for now? I have not been biking recently. I know the safest anwer is to use it all the time. But it is inconvinient especially going to work.

I carry a small container in my pack with me. I've been using it both directions since the sun is now up both ways. The afternoon ride has been over 85 degrees, and I've been noticing some color. I use extra on the left side of my face since it gets the brunt of the rays.

I keep a bottle of sunblock at work (5:30 is the hottest part of the day during a Sac'to summer). Thanks for reminding me to swing by the drugstore to pick some up.

The sun was out but it wasn't too hot. Other than almost getting run over by a car, it was great. I was about to ride my bike across the street (we're allowed to ride on sidewalks here) because trying to make a left turn across that street is usually pretty hard because you get about 50ft to merge from the right lane to the left turn lane and all 4 lanes are usually packed with cars.

I stopped at the corner and waited for the light to turn green so I could ride across. It turned green and the lady to my left slowed down, so I thought she saw me. I started going forward on the bike. Then I noticed that she wasn't even looking at me. She was looking to her left, trying to find an opening to make her right turn. Well, she made her right turn and completely cut me off. Luckily I braked in time to avoid hitting her car, but I almost fell off my bike because of it. I don't think she even noticed and just kept on going. Grrr.

I'm usually wary of riding on sidewalks for that reason, but there's no safer alternative getting across that street in the morning.

A helpful diagram:
http://www.runawaysquirrels.com/images/badcar.jpg

Oh heck yeah. I'm paranoid about sun and wind-burn on my face (I don't need to age ten years this summer, thanks), and I'm in a higher altitude, drier, and sunnier climate than I grew up with. So I've always got a layer of SPF 15 at the very least, and when I'm heading home I add a layer of 30 (UV index is higher).

I use a moisturising lotion on my face and neck that has SPF added in - I know there are unisex or men's formulas out there too.

You can see the affects of the sun if you don't use a good SPF here and here. (You didn't know Melanie Griffith rode a bike, did you? I'm sure smoking had NOTHING to do with this! :D

What a great morning it was today. Temps around 50, fog lifting and the sun shining full! Had a great ride, but didn't see a single cyclist :( I will probably see some this afternoon on my way home, at least I hope I do. My co-worker said he might try biking one day this week, but we will see. I'm gonna ask him if he wants me to ride along with him as a little incentive.

Today was my first commute from a new location. Work is in downtown Boston, and I'm now commuting in from Brighton. I'm a pretty inexperienced commuter, so was initially tempted to either take the bike path along the river, or look for alternative, parallel side streets. I decided not to do a) because the bike path is nutty with people and I do feel safer in the street, and skipped b) because there really weren't any good parallel routes...so it was Brighton Ave and Comm Ave all the way to downtown. Man, what fun! Biking to work takes me back to when I was a kid, before the days of soccer moms, when kids used their bikes as a means of transportation. It was great seeing all the other bike commuters -- the more of us there are out there, the safer we are! But the coolest part of all? The very coolest part of all?

Passing the Green Line trolley. Yeah!

Those knees have never been near a bike...! Gah, poor woman. Smoking and no proper sun protection = looking ten years older than one actually is, and twenty years older than one has to.

I'm 33 and still get carded on a fairly regular basis (and the drinking age is 18 here :D). I'd like to keep that going for a while.

Off to change my Avon order from the 30 SPF to 60....!

LOL!

Hmm, I did not think about the look of my skin at all. My concern was cancer. Great point. LOL.

Meh, I freely admit vanity is my primary motivator :D

Reasonable ride home, was in the duldrums for a good 5-10 mins due to some frustrations at work, but I knew in my head the ride was going to help clear that :)

Had a guy riding in my bikelane, against flow, so I called out "Wrong way, dude!" when he veered onto the sidewalk to avoid me.

Docs follow-up tonight means I won't be riding to the East end tonight, perhaps I'll go ride by the lake for a bit, but I'm probably going to stay in and rest my legs.

Except for a music gig, I just had my first 7 days in a row without the car. I don't know why I didn't do this sooner, feeling great!

Congrats!!! :beer: Keep it up!!!

My morning commute was great, got to see many other bikers and other than a minor doubleback (ARGH, construction) it was an uneventful and fun ride.

Fierce tailwind coming home, loved it! (first time in months, it's been a headwind for the longest time)

It was a nice ride both ways. I got a lot of honks and waves on the way in, which confused me until I got to work. Big picture of me on the front page with an article on Bike To Work Week. My employer printed out a press release about my winning Bike Commuter of The Year for my county and posted it on the bulletin board. My twenty minutes of fame. ;) The ride home was nice and quiet.

Still loving the road bike and the nice weather. Lots of jackass riders on the MUP though.

Hit a new personal best for top speed...as I was leaving work I pulled in behind a tractor/trailer and followed him onto the 55mph 2-lane road section of my commute...drafted him for a while and got up to 25.5 mph :) I know...not that impressive, but my commute is flat and I've never ridden this bike on anything I would consider a hill. The rest of the ride home I was so happy with my new land speed record I maintained 16mph+ except the one red light I had to stop at (4.5 mile or so commute). Just started commuting in late March and I can feel my legs getting stronger and my gut getting smaller every week.

Completely chickened out on the commute today furst time since before xmas.

Not sure what it was but I just couldnt face it....

What a wimp

Now I feel fat, lazy and have no energy.....

Excellent ride!! I made a small tweak to the cleat position on my riding shoes and that seems to have reduced knee pain and increased my speed a bit. Perfect weather-clear and ~55F this AM. My first day of not using the headlight, though it is still attached to the bike. I think I can probably strip it off next week and leave it off until Late July. Tonight for "Bike to Work Week" in RTP, there will be a gathering at a local restaurant from 5-7, which I'll stop in at. Hope to meet a few other commuters there. Today marks my 300th documented commute to work (I used to ride in 5-10 times per year, but didn't start documenting each occurrence until ~7 years ago). Not particularly impressive to ride 300 times in ~7 years, but still that's 7800 miles less driving I've done, and about 1 years worth of gasoline saved....I'll take it.

Raining & 50F. Headwind blowing off the lake. Some runners out and about. There's a marathon in 2 weeks and I think they're training.

I rode home it this
http://www.9news.com/news/article.aspx?storyid=70045

My wife now thinks I need profesional help.

Yesterday was GREAT! I had to ride to school to drop off my tuition check for the summer semester.... Had a great tail wind on the way out there.... Conversly there was a NASTY head wind on the way to work.... I had to gear down and had my speed cut to about 1/3 of what it usualy is. Got my new headlight and blinky in the mail yesterday... Hey I could see last night!

On the way to work, one of the bank sign themometers said 87, and the other said 94.... I think it was just about in the middle... YEAH SUMMER!

Today was a good ride. With my toe clips on the commuter I was able to get under 20 minutes for my 5.25 mile ride in. Good weather this morning.

my first work commute of the year is this morning...coming up. im excited.

11 miles, 8 of which are on niiiice crushed limestone paths. Last summer i rode every day on my hardtail mtn bike with slicks. This will be my first commute with a new, real road bike. I cant wait.