Smokey ! We have some huge forest fires here and the smoke is covering a huge area.
Here's the view from my office today.

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g5...r/HPIM0059.jpg

Damn! Should have brought my camera to work today!

It's pretty bad here, but I hear that in Beijing yesterday they had their highest pollution rating EVER. Where a bad day back in Toronto would be about the equivalent of a 65 using Chinese air pollution indices, the AVERAGE in Beijing is 100. Yesterday, it went over 500, which is as high as the index goes. Scary.

Ride in was roaring rain. Yes, roaring. Ride home was nice enough to just wear shorts and a shortsleeve jersey. Nice.

into Boston via the urban streets route today. Had to drop something off at BU on the way in. Joined my wife for her BU holiday party on the way home tonight. home via Comm Ave and through Brighton. streets, streets, streets no bike path for me today.

by our standards, it's been an unusual winter so far. instead of our typical three months of 18/7 rain, it's been bunching up and releasing itself on us in clumps since november. wind warning, rain warning, snow warning, wind warning, rain warning, wind warning . . . i think i prefer it, actually.

today, again with the wind. it wasn't strong enough to bother me much, but apparently tomorrow will be another big day. i feel vindicated in the decision to keep my studded tires on, since the next thing in the lineup is (apparently) below-freezing temps. i figure that if they save me three times before spring, they're worth the extra effort involved.

christmas traffic seems like it's been fairly mild, so far.

The city is repaving most of the streets near where I work so last night and this morning it was like riding thru a war zone - lots of land mines, boulders, backhoes running all over the place and not watching for bike traffic. I doubt if anything other than a mtn bike or cyclocross could survive. :eek:

Other than that it was overcast (rained last night). The temps were the same as yesterday so I dressed the same. What a mistake. I was way overdressed. Had to stop and remove the arm warmers and gloves after 4 miles.

Supposed to be sunny and warm for the ride home. :)

Strained my back this morning so standing and walking hurts. Especially when I was climbing the stairs out of my apt. bldg. w/ my bike and backpack. Ride to work was fine except for the truck that did an unsignaled half U-turn to back up into a driveway. He swung left, then swung right as I was passing. I aimed for the shrinking gap and rode through. I don't think he cared that he almost took out a couple of cars while doing this maneuver let alone even seen me.

Excellent ride in. I managed to avoid the rain, which should hopefully clear out long before I need to ride home...the front will usher in a nice tail wind for me too, so that will be enjoyable. Might be my last commute of the year as I am off from 12/19-Jan 2nd.

Merry Christmas and Happy New year to all of you. Hoping that Santa brings you some nice titanium upgrades for your bikes.

Mmm. Titanium. :)

30+ MPH headwind (gusts) this morning, low 40Fs. I had to remove my gloves as my hands were overheating. Nice ride, otherwise.

Last nights ride home was terrible. About 47 F (that wasn't bad), a steady moderate rain (not bad), and wind in my face at about 20 mph (that was bad), with gusts upwards of 30mph (that was painful). Whew.....

Couldn't bike today since I need to run a bunch of errands to get ready for our vacation. Two weeks without biking (unless I rent one at Disney for like, 20 bucks a day). :(

Poor at best, darn cars and pedestrians kept on cutting me off, couldn't get into a rythem due to them for the first 3 miles.

I was pretty fast on the way in, due to the fact I was back on skinny tires today. It was supposed to snow, but didn't, so I cruised at a high rate of speed. I may have to bump up my gearing, as I spun out a little too often...

Overdressed for the ride home last night and was sweating my butt off by the time I got home (didn't feel like stopping to take a layer off). This morning I had a very nice ride to work. Temps in the mid 40s with a breeze and very overcast. Rain is forecast for today but I made it in without seeing a single drop. It should roll through by early afternoon and be long gone by the time I head home.

The rain made everyone all screwy, so I felt like I was avoiding death every 10 feet on the ride in. It got me really rattled, and I usually don't feel stress about traffic. I stupidly wore all black, and it's so grey out, that noone could see me and I narrowly missed 3-4 collisions at the last minute, with several more close calls. Probably the first commute ride where I was physically relieved to be getting off the bike.

one rain/headwind squall, very short, and then a fantastic tailwind my last mile or so. Blinding sun right now.

My commute passes through 3 counties and a few cities. Imagine my surprise when an Adams County Sheriff deputy intercepted me on the Platte Trail in Commerce City. Apparently, it is illegal to ride on a trail in my crappy assed county. Yet another reason why I want to move to Denver. Interrogating the officer did no good and I left the trail. Cycled for 1 mile into Denver county and rejoined it. Being that I enter the trail up north next to a Thornton Police station and say hello to officers from time to time..... you draw your own conclusions. Moronic rules. Anyhow, I have been planning to find a street route due to bad weather and horrible paths. I guess tomorrow I try route 1. What an idiotic rule. Maybe I will object to it if I can ever find the time.

Strong, gusty winds in Seattle this AM. Headwind all the way into downtown where everything swirled at twice the speed. 3x the work than a normal ride in so I hope to have the tailwind tonight.

The Platte Trail goes from 120th to somewhere near downtown Denver right? Isn't one of it's primary purposes for bike use? How much of is in the Adams country jurisdiction?

This seem ridiculous to me. I can't imagine being stopped on one of the trails up here and told it is illegal.

It is the major north south trail in the metro area. It starts from 104th and goes to bear lake (i think) in the SW metro area. At least Denver does not have their heads shoved up their proverbial rear ends. Maybe I will PM cyccommute for ideas on what I can do.

From 104th ave to around 50 something avenue is adams county.
What a load of crap.

Well no commuting today. My wife is sick so I'm staying home to help with the 3 little kids. Had to miss Thur, Fri, and Mon to help my wife because she had surgery foir carpal tunnel recently and is limited to the use of one hand right now. If I don't miss any commutes the rest of the year then I'll just barely hit my goal of riding 1000 miles between mid Aug and the end of the year. Might have to go on a couple 20 mile rec rides just for good measure.

Very sick of not being on my bike as much as I would like. Also sick of all the infectious crap my kids bring home from preschool!

Welcome to my world :eek:

50º + sunny in Cleveland???

Muchos gracias El Nino!

Had a weird and unpleasant one last night / today. The way in was pretty quick actually although I overdressed a bit for the 50 degree weather.

The way home this morning was just weird. Was trying to leave early to make it home before the rain started and ended up leaving an hour late (indeed JUST as the rain started). For some reason, the pedestrians just kept stepping off the curbs right into my path the whole ride. Then, in Brooklyn, I ran into some accident that had happened earlier to find the street I usually take from the bridge (Henry) blocked off by cop cars and fire engines, one garbage truck and what looked to be someone's covered up corpse in 2 pieces across the street from each other. Didn't have my camera on me, and didn't take long to not mind that factoid.

Then some lady almost hit me as she was pulling out rather briskly out of a gas station in a minivan on Coney Island Ave. It was raining and I have slicks on my bike. Happened in slow motion when I noticed her. Somehow, my back wheel locking up and slipping all over the place as I hit the brakes, I managed to stay on the bike and she managed to stop the car with her bumper 4 inches from me with a scared, startled look on her face. I managed to scream out something like "#@$%#$%ing" as I prepared for impact that never happened. Grumpily made a "watch where you're going" gesture and went on my merry way, glad that the ride was almost over.

[edit] Found out what had happened earlier.

So pedestrians and bicyclists can be killed w/o the driver facing charges. Amazing. And by amazing, I mean stupid.

Trip home was slow cuz traffic was slow. That's about it.