The weather is just UFB! Cool and dry.

I just wanted to skip work and ride all day.

Nice ride in today. I decided to see how fast I could go down Elbow Drive as the traffic was pretty light. I discovered that you absolutely HAVE to take the lane on that road as the rightmost 5 feet of the road are horrendously cratered and bumpy. Also, people passed me in the other lane instead of buzzing me when I moved 2 feet over onto the smooth part. Beat my usual time by 15 minutes! (traffic was VERY light and I hit almost all the lights on green).

on yesterday's ride home, passing through Lexington center on the Minuteman bikeway, a roadie caught up to me at a stop sign, and followed me across the intersection to the continuation of the bikeway, where the grade goes from level and ever so slightly uphill to ever so slightly downhill. I picked up speed and got up to 24/25 mph and pulled this guy for about two miles, then he took his turn and passed me and yelled, 'you're a freaking monster! how the hell do you ride so fast with those two panniers?'

'who needs training when you've got a commute?'

I stayed on his wheel for another mile or so, then had to peel off to get groceries. Roadie shook his head over the fact that I was gladly adding more weight to my bike.

Commute in today was slow as I was riding with a co-worker who's newly initiated to bike commuting and she was getting used to riding with a backpack (her bike doesn't have racks). Kept on getting passed by roadies (even one guy who was hauling on a hybrid) and I so badly wanted to get on their wheels, but figured I'd be the nice guy and hang back.

Much too short today. I'd hoped to do a longer loop but was caught by my clingy 3-year old daughter. I sat with her for awhile until she decided she'd sleep for another hour. By this time it was getting on towards 7 and I just had time for a quick out and back down to Freeport. Saw a few other commuters and fitness riders and tried to share the bike love with a wave to all of my two-wheeled brothers and sisters.

I commuted for the first time today (2 days after getting my bike). It felt a little longer than I expected, but once I reached the office, I noticed that I made pretty good time.. roughly equivalent to the time it took me to take the subway to work. I rode 2nd ave all the way down to Houston, then down Broadway and finished at the bottom of Wall. This first ride was great.. I found a few spots where I could speed up (I accidently ended up in the turning lanes like 4 times, which I now know to avoid). And Broadway was the worst of them all, until ALL the traffic stopped moving except me!!

Took about 45 minutes or so. Once I build up some more endurance, hopefully I can do it ~30.

My 5 seconds is worth more than the rest of your life!
 

I tried picking up my average today. I made it to work in 45min instead of 50min. : ). I did encounter a punk trash truck driver at a red. I pulled up to his right side, when the light turned green he gunned it and beat me to the other side where he had a trash can to pick up. He totally block the bike lane, cut me off and pretty much ran me off the road I had to turn into the curve. I looked over and saw him smiling. I kept going and turned the next two trash can upside down. : ).

^ I like your style!

I rode 22.5 miles to work this morning at an average speed of 19.3mph in average to hilly territory. I have a lwb recumbent bike (picture is in the commuter bike pictures thread) with an electric power-assist installed. It only cost me 122Wh of electricity for this mornings commute! Nearly 60 miles of range off of a single charge isn't bad!!

Robbie

Had a nice commute today until I started cycling on the road instead of the dedicated bike path on the same road. Grr the bike path is on a really broken up sidewalk, going up and down, and the road besides it is on smooth new pavement and fast. Besides I almost had an accident a couple of weeks ago because of how the path is setup (its going in/out of the main road at every intersection and it cuts the traffic turning right). Well a woman in a huge SUV started pushing behind me and ended honking twice showing me the bike path. It's three freaking lanes wide and in low traffic conditions! Damn it. My cocky impulse was to give her the finger and let her start *****ing. Of course it was way too long for her to wait the 10 seconds needed to arrive at the light she needed to turn so she stepped on the gas. I passed her while she was turning. Oh well, I hate when people think we *MUST* use bike paths and nothing else. F* them. A broken bike path is a nuisance IMO.

Pounded the ride home last night. Don't know why I do that sometimes, but just reefed it in the big ring the whole way. I still felt it in my legs this morning :)

Lazy ride in this morning. Weather was cool, clear, and representative of the reasons that I live in Colorado. Can't wait to get out of here today... I may just hammer it again on the home lol

Have a safe holiday ...and don't burn down the neighborhood !

Great Attitude!!
I too wave at everyone (using all my fingers)
Sometimes I dont get a friendly exchange, I understand that sometimes it is hard to wave when you are
on a rough surface or negotiating a dificult area, but mostly I think it is nice when cyclist can think of each other as part of the SAME TEAM.

well, back from vacation. Commute was cool today. The last day before vacation I got hit by a car on Centre Street. Really bizarre, he hit my right pedal, I put a whole in the side of his vehicle but he didn't knock me over or do any damage. He pulled over and kept honking at me to stop, I kept riding as I was OK. Not my fault he didn't check before changing lanes. I almost felt bad, but to heck with him, he's the one who wasn't paying attention.

Isn't that a hit a run? You might not have any damage but he does. Even if it is his fault, you should still stop anyway.

back to commuting again but in a whole new city. Instead of the Boston commute I'm back in the New York City commute mode. Living mid-town and working downtown so had a nice west side bike path commute and crossed over on 10th to the east side. Great weather today. Nice temp. I :love:NY- on days like this especially.

My ride was the most lonesome ride ever... saw a couple of joggers and ZERO other commuters. Must have been the rain.

I decided to sleep in this morning, looked out the window when the alarm clock beeped and it was looking like it would rain. Sure enough, by the time I get on the bike, it's raining. Wet ride from start to finish. My white socks turned gray - road dirt.... didn't know about this phenomenon.

Some rain pants would have been nice to have... will be next on list.

Back from my long weekend break. Went out for a ride last night just to get the cobwebs from the legs (note to self: need to stretch even when on days off).
Ride to work was wet this morning.. debated the MTB with all it's nice 'weather' gear. I thought 'screw it' and took the roadie anyway - was cold starting out so I even double backed to get my goretex + hi-vis I'd forgotten anyway.
Yay for being back on the bike.

The touristas are starting to accumulate in town, and I'm worried about riding next week when everyone's half cut by 9:00 a.m. and staggering from one party to the next. Today was nice and warm, but not hot. The ride home will be hot and sweaty, but I guess I shouldn't complain.

I have a liter of Gatorade chilling in the fridge for the ride home... wish I'd brought an extra bandanna, they make good neck coolers. Oh well. Looks like the forecast has come down a bit though, only 27C predicted for this afternoon, and 31C tomorrow.

As for Stampeders... I'm planning to take the long way around!

Edited to add commuting content - nice ride home yesterday, a bit on the warm side but I took it easy and stopped in the shade a couple of times. Despite the heat, managed to get all the way up my one steep hill without stopping or walking the bike! REALLY nice ride in this morning, perfect temperature and traffic was pretty reasonable (was late starting out so took Elbow Drive again; ended up forming an impromptu peloton with a few other commuters, which was nice in terms of making all of us more visible to drivers, so we got more room than if we'd each been solo).

by far the most interesting commute yet. I was about 2 miles from home when I spotted an American flag on the side of the road. I couldn't stop in time to pick it up so I ended up backtracking. As I was walking back a motorist did a u-turn. The motorist came up beside me and said he had turned around to pick it up as well because he didn't like seeing the flag just lying there (same reason I was picking it up). Now it seemed obvious to me that the motorist was an immigrant (ESL, etc). I don't know how many Americans would stop to pick up the flag.

The flag now adorns the wall in my cube.

Traffic was lite and it made for a very peaceful ride. The only downside to commuting on a holiday is that the lights are on the holiday schedule which causes me to hit nearly every red on my 13 mile ride.

I did the same thing this past weekend, for a Canadian flag though :)

Your traffic lights are on holidays? Which colours get the day off? ;)

Apparently green only makes limited appearances on holidays :) Sux to be red though, it has to work overtime.

had to work today but loved my commute. I had been doing a good amount of road riding up until 2 weeks ago when I found out I'd be out of town and in NYC for the next 2 months and scrambled like crazy to get 2 rooms in my house painted. I did virtually no riding during that time and the slacking off definitely cut down on my conditioning so it sure felt good to get on the bike today.

The commute is so short and fast and I am so enjoying that West side bike path that I keep way overshooting my cross streets on the way to work and the way home. Tonight I rode way uptown to about 125th St. just for the fun of it and rode back in a light rain but it felt great.

Finally after a few days of miserable rain, it was nice enough to ride. Here is a kind of hazy Tokyo morning. Taken from the Yebisu Garden Place Tower.
(full size)
http://www.bfw734.com/wp-content/upl...tokyoam_sm.jpg

Got rained on a little bit and splashed on a lot. I need fenders for my new bike (I knew that, of course, but didn't get around to buying some yet... really should...)

Another nice relatively cool ride in today...will be the last one for a while though. The high today is supposed to get up to ~ 92F (33C) with ~60-70% humidity. Oh well, the cooler weather was a nice break for a few days. Had a light tailwind so managed to hold a 17.5 average despite all the stoplights on my route. Sadly, sometime this month, two more stoplights and an interstate exit will be opened up my route, making it that much less cycling friendly.

Nice ride in - rather foggy out as it rained/misted all day yesterday (still rode) - and expect to get wet on the way home. Just wish the city didn't go hog wild and decide to chip seal the whole area around me - every side street is a mess - and while I expect the new mtb to get some dings on it (especially out on the trails) - this "tinking" of stones hitting the frame is kinda irritating.

Misty ride back last night, fairly cool too. Ride in today was much warmer, felt nice - though a little damp still, it beats 30C+ heat.

Got totally humbled by a roadie on a Giant something or other. He flew by me up a hill I usually keep a good pace on (and usually pass everyone myself) - I was doing about 18/19mph and he just whipped by me out of the saddle.
Felt good though, gave me a reason to work harder too, never caught him. Caught a guy on an MTB - he was moving at a good clip too.

what a great ride this am -
my city does not allow fireworks (boo!) but that means no piles of garbage on the streets on July 5 (yay!).
The weatehr is awesome, the roads were scantily populated, it was a great ride.
Cheers

Spectacular commute today (East Atlanta neighborhood to downtown Atlanta). Because of the light post-holiday traffic I was able to sprint on legs of my commute which would normally have proceeded at a crawl.

Traffic was slightly down today, which was nice.

Ran into a black bear this morning on Santa Fe trail just a bit south of the I-25 bridge construction. Entered the trailhead by Criterium Bike Shop and was heading south, went under the I-25 underpass and over that patch of loose gravel (for those familiar with the area). A bit ahead rounded a turn and there it was, about 50 yds in front of me in the middle of the trail.

I jammed on my disc brakes, skidded some and came to a halt but the bear didn't seem to care. Contrary to all "expert" advice, I turned my bike around and clipped to start heading back, and the "clicking" sound made the bear's ears go up, raised his head and looked at me. I thought, "Oh, this isn't good", but the bear hesitated while I started my way back on the trail and then it took off in the opposite direction.

I now have second thoughts about riding that trail (or any other trail here in Colorado Springs) alone and that early in the morning (it was about 6a). I moved here from NY about 3 months ago, and I've been talking to people and reading up on the topic, and most people assured me that I wouldn't see a bear that deep into Colorado Springs. Now I know that they can be just about anywhere and I worry that I run into another one. At 20mph on a trail... rounding a curve and coming face to face with a bear... that's not my idea of a nice commute.

GreenAnvil