Got the horn "Get the f.. off the road" for the first time from a passenger who was delayed 5 seconds. Even three feet left of the shoulder I was much easier to pass than a car. I found out that I have thin skin and aired out my airsoundz.

Chilly, uneventful ride. Rain was predicted for the ride in but never appeared. Ride home was 50 degrees, so I rode home in a shortsleeve jersey and shorts and packed the rest in my rack bag.

beautiful weather and day. had to replace my rear tire before I left the house because the sidewall was ripping. got that done and was on my way.

met up with my wife on the ride home and did a great ride along the river to home.

today was an illustration of what i was just talking about. started out in slashing 45-degree rain and the kind of headwind that keeps you pedalling just to progress downhill, but i was heading towards blue sky and by the time i'd got to the top of the bridge i was underneath it. the second half of the ride, i cast an actual shadow and all the roads in front of me were one shining, just-rained-on path. two kinds of extreme, experience-in-their-own-right weather, all before starting work.

more than any kind of distance, this is the kind of thing that makes this way of doing things so rewarding and neat. to start out in one weather system and ride so far that you get yourself into a completely different one, all with your own legs . . . how just plain old cool is that? coincidentally the lead on this project is back from vacation today and happened to ask if i was still riding to work 'in this weather'. i find these conversations so frustrating sometimes. i got the impression that he wasn't so much interested in hearing my take as in telling me his, so i gave up pretty fast and just said 'well, i find it cool because every day by the time i get here that something interesting has already happened to me.' he kind of laughed and did what spike milligan called 'moving in the general direction of away.' sigh.

cool and almost clear on the way home, with mild headwind - same like it's been for a few days now. i overdressed, so when i stopped for groceries and peeled off all the excess to put in my bag, including the gloves and the taiga booties. then i put the groceries on top of all of it, and found it was raining again when i got outside. wasn't worth it to try and find anything, so i just rode home with bare hands. not too bad for a short distance, but i'm glad my kid got the door today.

No commute today. Beautiful 22F sunny, but we don't get too many days like this and my wife not having work today I grabbed my camera gear (35mm body, lenses, tripod, etc) and took my wife's car. The lake always offers great photo opportunities in days like today.

GreenAnvil

A Tale of Two Commutes. It was the best of times, it was the better of times. :p

Last night it was almost dark and suddenly there was a headlight behind me on the MUP. I don't know whether the rider turned it on, or came out behind me. In any event, I'm ashamed to say that my testosterone pump activated and I surged ahead. The person was moving along well too, but never caught me and eventually started losing ground. It was a fun ride but later I felt guilty for some reason.

This morning it was 20F. Shortly into my ride I saw something behind me and gaining fast. I crossed the Winooski River at my usual slow pace, expecting the thing to catch me and pass. The person had matched my speed and was keeping his distance about 50 yards behind me. He wanted to chase, but not pass. Okay, I've done that before. So I bolted again. :o Dropped him but I had to work at it.

I saw another cyclist ahead of me but it turned off into a campground (headed for high school probably) before I caught it.

So much energy this week! Good for burning off too much food tomorrow... I'll be doing some trail riding before I eat, too.

No commute today. I have a business lunch to go to and its 20 miles from my office and a fairly nice restaurant. I don't think they would appreciate a sweaty, spandex clad biker coming in during the prime lunch time :)

It's a shame I didn't ride in today. No schools and a lot of people taking the day off made the streets quite hospitable to a cyclist. It would have been a great ride.

Nice, hard ride but no big whoop. VERY windy. It felt like I was riding uphill, especially when I was riding uphill. I'm going to miss the commute for the next 4 days. I'll still take rides, but there's something very satisfying about getting three benefits from a ride: 1) functional (getting to work), 2) health (exercise), 3) fun (fun).

There was a car wreck adjacent to me as I was approaching the work entrance gate. The cars were stopped waiting to get in, and this guy must have been talking on a cell or watching my blinking tail light. Just slammed into the back of a truck as I was passing. I saw it coming.

OK... Rain, I can handle. Cold rain, I can tolerate -
But I draw the line at cold rain and gale-force winds.

No commute today.:(

Last night I worked through a gridlock that was blocking an intersection. When the green light hit, no one could move (cars blocking the way). I hopped up on the curb and filtered that way (no sidewalk, just rode in the grass) then went right on through the green light, weaving between a few cars that were maybe 3 feet apart.

I could hear cager blood boiling in contempt.

This morning, nothing major. I actually got to the bus stop a lot earlier than I'd anticipated, so I just kicked back, cracked open Cryptonomicon, bit into an apple, and waited for the bus. Completely uneventful ride in.

After riding from the down town bus stop to the parking garage, I ran into a co-worker from my floor who also came in on two wheels... a Yamaha. I called him a wuss. Okay, I didn't. He's a cool guy, and getting props from him for going HPV was plenty enough.

Good ride in, wasn't really keen on going out this morning despite weather reports of a warm sunny day (warm being 7C) - it was -2C when I left, headed over to my physio appointment and later on into work. Met a few cyclocommuters on the way, said Hi to those I could, nothing more (don't really have much to say at that time/part of the day :p)

Took Church south again, hit a few more lights, but considering the physio detour, I made it in in 33 mins with a 15.1 avg. - pretty decent by my standards.

Beautiful morning, 38 degrees F, smooth ride.. and then there was that goose in the road; downhill picking up speed at about 20mph and I saw him at the last minute. Luckily, he turned around. ;)

Tom

Nice ride. No traffic due to the impending holiday. I need to get better gloves though since these are not working all that well even in this weather..

Nice ride this morning, light traffic, temps around freezing, and no wind. Was passed very close by a Jag, felt the breeze from the mirror.

Mon night on ride home was blinded on the bike path by another cyclist. Must of been one of those new super bright LED lights with flasher. Come on folks, have a little consideration for your fellow cyclists.

Yesterday, it was +8C, today it's -13C, -24C for the high this weekend. I'll be taking the snowboards in for a grind on Thursday. There was about 2cm of snow on the ground when we left the house this morning, but it was just enough to cover up any little ice patches. I managed to find one with my front tire during a turn, but managed to recover effectively. My new winter cycling shoes aren't bad, altough my little toe on my right foot was starting to get cold near the end of the ride. I'm just glad to be using decent pedals again.

Great...it was over 10 degrees warmer than it was the last couple of days, and with the holidays approaching there was noticably less traffic!

Hard (for me) today - 38 and very windy. My rolling average was down at least a full 1MPH for the trip. Started out 20 minutes late, too, so I ended up at work at about 10 till 9. Surprised to see several other commuters/riders out this morning - My new road bike shows up on Monday, so I may be using the hybrid less and less.....(although I won't miss the weight).

Beautiful sunny day in Austin, TX and the roads definately seemed less congested than usual. Maybe people are making it a long weekend or something, but it didn't seem like there were as many people out and about, and I didn't have to deal with a single honker the whole ride in. I took a different route in today and really liked it, I think I'm going to take the new way from now own. It's slightly longer (.5mi) but much less crazy traffic. Plus, it takes me through several different parts of Austin so the views are nice (Hyde Park, Campus, Capital, Downtown, Caesar Chavez, East Side, etc.) I'm back on the fixed gear bike after swapping the bottom bracket (the other one somehow got water in it and was corroding) which was fun. As nice as it is to coast and be able to drop to a lower gear, I still get around faster and have more fun on my fixed gear bike. My average speed was 16.8mph and I got into work in about 51 minutes.

I had my stuff all ready to go so I could slip out at 6 and get some real miles in, but life got in the way. I did manage to get out on the road by 7:10. Weather was cool (48F/9C) and I was pretty comfortable in a silk undershirt, l/s jersey, bibs, kneewarmers, and rag gloves. And I thought I looked pretty sharp because for once my jersey and bibs matched. But when I walked into the office, the receptionist was talking to one of typists and they giggled and one of them said, "Nice outfit!" And the other one said, "Shh! He's a cyclist, duh!"

Woohoo, just beat the rain! But now I have to walk through it to get my coffee.

I beat it going in, but no such luck going home. It was pretty brutal, and by the end (22 miles) , I could feel the water in my shoes sloshing around. It's 40-45 degrees, so I'm still trying to warm back up.....

Good AM commute. A slight breeze combined with being tired due to it being day #3 of the commute week made it a bit tiresome.

The way home was a tad annoying. Is everyone insane?! Does the impending holiday turn 3/4 of every motorist into a raging lunatic?
Motorists rarely buzz me in my suburb. In the space of 1 minute I was buzzed by no less than 4 motorists and the street was a wide 6 lane street with minimal traffic. This irritated the heck out of me and I took the lane. A few minutes later I decided I was not in the mood to deal with this crap and took a residential street.