Good ride until I rear-ended another cyclist. :( Approaching an intersection w/ the light turning from green to yellow, the cyclist ahead of me slowed (I could hear her upshift and spin faster), and dipped to the right. I was wondering if she was stopping at the light even though it wasn't red or if she was turning right. I stayed behind and to her left about 20 feet back and closing so I could make the light. She then arced left in front of me. I hit the brake and started to swerve w/ her, but in the end, my front wheel hit her rear spokes and I heard her say, "Oh!". Neither of us went down although I did unclip and put both feet down to stop myself from falling. When I looked up, I didn't see her anymore. A passing ped asked if I was ok and I replied in the affirmative.

nice ride in this am. rode to Dorchester through the city streets in good time. then to downtown Beantown later and then home on the bike path. meeting up with my wife for a gorgeous ride along the river back home. Sweet weather- warm and calm.

much nice, though cut short (from extention).
excaped from work 2:30pm, before rush hr, got home and worked on gathering rest of info for bicycle club meeting tonight. friend stated he could ride earlier too, would be "right over" but t/c back while i was in garage prepping road bike. by the time i checked message, sun was too low = no post-commute ride.
i did get voted to "Bicycle Advocate" position in the club meeting. it's now official !!

Great commute to work and home tonight. Didn't do any extra miles tonight, just wanted to get home. It's great to have it stop raining for a while. I've got almost 2600 miles this year riding and most of it is commuting. I hope we have a mild winter, at least light on the snow, but I do have my winter bike ready. Have a good night.

On the ride in had a knucklehead in a truck try to squeeze me to the curb while yelling at me to get out of the way. I leaned in his window(I'm not a little guy), and he decided he had to be elsewhere. Had to laugh. Then a coworker tried to spook me with his SUV and was surprised to hear me bust out laughing. Don't people realize that each car sounds different? I knew it was him. New PI legwarmers worked great for warmth, but the hem came out on one leg. Back to the store they go. Only lasted one day. I'll try a new pair Friday.

This morning was my first no-joke below freezing commute. 26F, felt like 24F. I know that's not cold for some of you real northerners, but it's cold for us out here near Seattle! I had two near-mishaps on the way to work. The first was at the stop sign at the end of my road, I tried to go but just spun the rear tire, the second was on a shortcut through the Safeway parking lot, actually turning in. The backend tried to go around while I was slowing & turning (whoops!), but I saved it, barely. Needless to say I spent this afternoon getting my MTB ready to go, fitting it with a new rack (yay!) and toe clips. I also picked up a couple more pairs of wool socks this evening, and an exercise equipment mat, so I can park my bike in the house and my wife won't get as grouchy about it being on the carpet... ;). This afternoon's commute was pretty good, mainly because I got the rack for the MTB, and because it was pretty quick. Good day today.. :)

http://www.hjsstudio.com/redbala.html

:D :D :D :D entertains the heck out of me, especially option c).

not a typical commute this morning. as someone noticed already today, lbses all open at 10 am. so 10-something am i'm there with my wounded bike. it turned out that the pads were worn all the way down (big surprise) and the additional intermittent rub thing was something to do with alignment. i left it with him and went up the road for coffee.

meanwhile, the second unusual thing. coming down the main road to the lbs in the lane beside the parked cars, i passed by someone's cell phone lying on the blacktop. so i stopped, went back and picked it up on the basic theory that it wouldn't do it much good to stay where it was in a rush-hour road. then of course i didn't have clue what to do next. when you have a phone that's not yours and would like to give it back, you keep wanting to phone the owner and tell them to come and get it. i considered just leaving it on the hood of this giant ***wit truck that it was lying beside, but in the end i took it with me and promised myself i'd think it through later. forgot about it until it rang in the coffee shop.

turned out it belonged to mr ***wit truck himself, and he came down and got it from me at the bike shop. dunno if i could justify why, but i took a kind of satisfaction in getting to say 'sorry, i'm waiting on my bike repairs so you'll have to come and get it from me.' so mr truck came down (in his truck; sheesh) and got his phone from ms bike, and thanked her garrulously. and i hope it caused him to reflect on the important role we bike people play in the smooth operations of this great world. or something. it was early. i don't usually have to talk to people before 1pm.

one more odd thing about this encounter, that's just dawning on me. he asked where i'd found it; i told him; he said, and i quote: 'yeah, see - usually i put it between my legs when i drive, and i guess when i got out . . . ' this late in the day and my mind's going 'say what? you do what??' if i'd known that's where it had been i'd never have picked it up. all in all, none of it raised my opinion of the iq of people who drive those kinds of trucks.

the rest of the day was pretty uneventful, by comparison.

Nice ride, 3rd day in a row. I purposely overdressed this AM. The low was ~55, but with a cold front coming through the PM temps may actually go down instead of up. I missed the rain this AM too, which was a good thing. Might be the last warm weather ride of the year for me. Looking foward to a sweet tailwind on the way home

:D :rolleyes: We found a cell phone once while out drinking heavily. One of the more outgoing people in our group started calling numbers, starting with "Mom." Good times...

Mid 30Fs this morning. Still wearing shorts, and no gloves, but I did wear my headband for the ears.

34F this morning. Contrary to vtjim, I'm layering up pretty good right now. :D Works for me; I'm staying warm while only sweating a little.

Last night I was tired and decided to relax... ended up doing better time than when I'm huffin' and puffin'. Some clown @ work may have decided to pull a joke on me and released air from my back tire. When I went to the parking lot last night the back tire was almost completely flat. I put some air in it and it hasn't leaked any air since so I'm ruling against a puncture of air leakage of any type. Rode in this morning and the tire's still good. So I asked building security to scan their surveillance tapes.

GreenAnvil

This morning was the slowest commute of my life. winds sustained at 20mph, gusting over 35mph. In my face, the whole way. a 22 minute commute took about 32 minutes. I was late...

Don't feel too bad. I just got my first cell phone about 2-3 months ago. :o

[rant]Two of my co-workers insist on coming to work when they're sick.[/rant]

No commute again today. I'm resting and doing a little work from home and fighting hard to avoid getting "their" cold. :crash:

My boss came to work with a really bad cold (flu??) about 2 weeks ago. I fought hard and didn't get it. Then last week the other person came to work with a really bad one. I've been fighting hard but I guess my defenses are down. I'm taking vitamin C, juice, echinacea, zinc, etc. to keep it minimized. I hope I'm back on the bike tomorrow.

Nice ride this morning.

Only thing of much interest is that I saw a cager space out and not notice a red light that had been red for at least 45 seconds. He slid dramactically but safely to a stop in the middle of the intersection.

2nd day in a row with out commuting. I am not happy about this.
Yesterday was my weekly lunch 20 miles down the road in Tucker this time. Had Thai food...I love drunken noodles....mm.mm..good eating :D
This morning had to run too many errands and couldn't afford to be late to work for a meeting.

Interesting event yesterday though. I was driving south bound on GA 400 (aka: the Alpharetta Autoband) and doing about 60 mph. This huge SUV on my right side, I think it was a Ford Excursion but not exactly sure, just locked up all 4 wheels and shot to to the left. Due to the fact that I had not slowed down, this thing ends up going right behind me and takes out the Acura that was riding my bumper. I have no clue what exactly happened, but it didn't look like any one was hurt. But scared the living hell out of me. I could feel the adrenaline rush for about the next 30 minutes.:eek:

Riding has been terrific recently, in fact, I've ridden every day for the 3rd consecutive week since returning from vacation. Knees, legs, and cardio all feel good and I'm pacing myself better and have been good about taking a recovery drink as soon as I get home (these last two factors are better allowing me to ride comfortably every day as opposed to running out of gas by Thurs/Fri). The weather's been nice for the most part and I'm seeing more cycle commuters out there whick always gets me pumped.

The only bad thing to report was that I ran over a small snake near the airport a week ago. After hitting it and discovering that I only paralyzed it, I decided to put it out of it's misery (the little guy could only move his tail and stare at me with unblinking eyes). With nothing to use but my visor, I cut it's head off along the side of the trail (passersby must have thought I was a looney). I then buried it and said a little prayer. Now I nod in respect every time I pass this location. This officially is the third animal I've hit on my commute (the other two were rats), with many near misses of; rats, mice, voles, squirrels, snakes, ducks, etc.

25F this morning, no wind, and light traffic! Real nice ride. The fleece tights are superb for this kind of weather. Wore a new helmet cover, with the light weight hood and ear flaps -- nice and warm. Did get horned by a passing, beat up, pick up. He passed way to the left so don't know what that was about. Maybe the Whelan TIR III that I just wired up to the 12vSLA blinded him.

Last night was first trip in the dark, dark, with my DIY light system. It's worked well, but I think I'll be upgrading the battery. Can't run all 40 watts for mor then 20 min of the 1 hr trip. I was surprised to find that for most of the trip the flood is more useful then the spot. Not what I expected.

Nothing big. Typical am mixed mode commute and full commute home in the afternoon.
I think I may need to actually eat something while riding during my morning 14 miler. Riding in cold sure makes me hungry. At least yesterday I remembered to pack a PB&J for the ride home. No bonking for me!
Now all I have to do is manage not to eat it until the ride.

Grrrr...got passed by a delivery truck on a small residential street with on coming car and bicycle traffic. The guy just got tired of going someone else's pace and decided that he was the biggest thing on the road so he could push his way through. I got his phone number off the back and side of his van and I'll give him a call when I cool down and become a bit more rational.

Just tired this morning. Not getting enough sleep, and by the end of the week I'm pretty dead. Got a flat about 1/4 mile from work today :(. Just pumped it up a few times before and after taking a shower. I'm fixing it now at my desk :).

I get about 3 flats a week, which is extremely aggravating. I'm thinking of carrying spare wheels on my back.

Haven't read/posted here for a few weeks--busy at work and I took a week off to rest my legs before playing at the Ultimate Frisbee National Championships last week in Sarasota. Can't stand reading these posts when I'm not riding--I feel guilty for not being on the bike.

Started commuting again on Tuesday. 3 days of good weather and no one trying to kill me. Life is good, and it's great to be back on the bike.

Reading 2 weeks of posts makes me think...is it weird that I feel like I know some of you, yet I've never met you? There are some names in this thread I automatically recognize--RonH, tokolosh, scottmorrison99, jyossarian, to name just a few.

Guess I'm waxing philosophical today. :)

After a couple of unseasonally warm days, nice and cool(40F) this morning. There's been some strange things happening the last few days. Yesterday, an armored car refused to pass me and just rolled behind me revving his very loud engine; quite unnerving. And this morning I got blasted with windshield wiper fluid by a guy sitting at a red light. I guess that's what I get for cutting between cars.

I'm starting to get used to winter. It was -13 this morning, and felt substantially warmer. It was an easy ride in, and fast. I must be getting used to the studs as well.

-13°C = 8.6°F

Cold in any country

Noob report
 

This is my first week commuting. I caught the bug and bought an Uptown 8 last week. I switched to layers after trying to wear work clothes the first two times. So, I'm gradually learning how to get comfortable. My best learning is to pace myself and not push the hills. It took the same 35 minutes today without standing and I arrived fresh as can be. It's 32 degrees in St. Louis and I think I can remove a layer and still be comfortable.

Tom