lol no I am a 40 year old guy.

Haven't posted here in awhile but I've been commuting quite regularly again. The humidity has really kicked in last week and I came in soaked a couple times (wearing jeans over bike shorts and a jersey on a 9 mile ride). Today I got a pair of Endura Zyme shorts and they're quite the improvement (they're nylon, but look and feel like cotton). I have no problem wearing bike shorts in general, but I don't need a bunch of trader types giving me "the look" in the morning, although it is amusing sometimes.

The ride itself was nice and pleasant as usual. I love riding at night. It's cool, fewer cars out, and they're much easier to detect with lights and such. None of the day-time traffic and crazyness. Legs are sore from a long Sunday ride (solo 130 miles, 12,000 feet of climbing) but in a good way. Off to enjoy a tuna wrap.

Fantastic ride home yesterday.

The record breaking rain has ceased, to be replaced by warm sunshine and a gentle breeze.
I drafted an agricultural tractor and trailer travelling at about 25mph for half of my commute, giving me my best ever time of 1:05 for the 18 miles. Sweet.

Low 60s. Comfortable. I saw hundreds (if not a thousand or more) cormorants (black waterfowl) launching out of Lake Champlain and forming a tight ribbon of bird, flying in a graceful arc along the shoreline. Never seen anything like it. It was quite a commotion.

Reeled in 4 womenz. Two riding together, turned off right before I passed. One I passed. One I stayed behind because the view wasn't bad and I was turning off myself soon. :o Saw some folks headed the other way, including a full-kit roadie maintaining a brisk cadence. I'm kinda glad he was going the other way and not behind me. :D

Warm and sticky this morning. Felt good to be back on the bike though, I took Friday off to do errands and yesterday due to storms. My legs were ready to go and I was cruising to work, made pretty good time but my cyclocomputer is on the fritz, saying my usual less than 8 mile journey was 14.4 :rolleyes: I have to figure out why it's reading so much higher than it should be.

I can confirm luckysnafu's report--warm and sticky. You know it's gonna be bad when it's already 70 degrees and 95% humidity at 7 am. :(

Uneventful ride this morning.

Nice sunny fast ride.

One JAM (it took all 6 cylinders to lug her across lanes) cut me off to get from left straight lane to right straight lane just in time for a red light, then didn't go when the light turned green. I passed her on the right to get to bike lane (which began the next block), other cars passed her on the left to get to wherever they were going.

To my dismay, I watched a biker cruise along the sidewalk, and then incessantly ring his bell at a throng of people waiting to catch the bus. They jumped out of the way just in time. The worst part was that there is a path directly behind the bustop that he could have taken that is actually faster than riding on the sidewalk. If it was me waiting for the bus, I'd push that ****** into traffic.

Great, just what we need, some dingbat making people mad at all cyclists.
Where was this?

Had a pucker-inducing moment at the very end of my commute this morning: as I was turning into the parking garage my rear wheel slid out. It's just at a red light and I must have hit some oil on the asphalt. It was only a few inches and I caught traction almost immediately but for an instant I thought the bike was going to skid out from under me. Thank goodness it wasn't the front wheel that skidded like that because I probably would have gone down.

Otherwise, an uneventful ride in.

Haven't posted in a million years. My commute this morning was especially nice. The birds were chirping in the trees. Overhead the sky was a bright clear blue behind the foliage of the huge trees that make an archway along the park path. I felt lucky to be there, and I didn't want my ride to end. Alas, here I sit in front of my computer. Oh, well, there's always the ride home....

Had a great ride last night, was back & forthing with a fast guy on a mountain bike/hybrid between lights, etc. - once I got onto the Bloor viaduct I dialed it up past him to scoot along at ~30mph for a bit. I was *cooked* when I stopped at the lights at Broadview, he caught and stopped behind me and I said "man, that damn near killed me!" and he smiled and replied "yeah, you don't want to be doing that kind of thing in this heat" heh - felt cool to have that friendliness there, and glad I got chance to chat to him as we'd shared a good number of blocks riding. Having him to pace myself, I made it to the east end in near record time.

Good ride in, went up Strachan alongside a dumptruck (without those lovely and safe guardrails) and was very conscious of the 'wheel sweep' issue that's killed a lot of people in this city.

Uneventful ride in otherwise.

Edit: on the way home last night had some nimrod riding along the Bloor viaduct bikelane, no lights (OK, so there is sufficient street lighting, barely) going the wrong way. I had a guy in front of me with no lights going along with me, and I honestly almost didn't see this other dink - I did my customary "wrong way" yell and shook my head, but this is twice in two days I've had this happen. I can hazard why people do it (eastbound far right lane, next to the bikelane, feeds into the highway, so cyclists have to cross this lane to get into the regular street continuation), but it doesn't make it any more right or safe.

Good news, the MRI showed no Miniscus tears..."just" bad bone bruises...still off the bike

Let's form a posse! Heh

Had someone try and overtake me on a road that was so narrow that i was able to kick out behind me and hit their headlight. I think he was trying to ride right over me... I would have got out of the way if there had been any space..

Other than that, not bad. At least it wasnt raining...

I'll bring the tar, you can do the feathers!

Ride was quite fun today. Took a route back that I haven't taken for ages - an MUP, for a change. Surprisingly few people on it - where is everybody? Maybe they felt it was too hot today; if so, the joke's on them - it was indeed too hot, but the MUPs I took had glorious shade (which was a big reason I chose them over roads...).

Great ride today. The skinny tired 'performance hybrid' IS faster than the mtn bike by about 10 minutes. Made it to work in about 27 minutes today. Lots of joggers, all going the other way :( - but only one was worth another look :D

Had an older couple (in their 70's easily) riding side by side on the pathway - because of the age I waited patiently until the lady saw me and then I scooted by. Hope to be out riding when (and if) I make it up there.

It's going to be a hot one today. Going to be one of those "feels like 39/102" days with high humidity. Should be a great ride back home :D love the summer.

Fine ride, though it was very humid this AM-the dew point is "only" 67F, but the RH must have been 98%. Got my headlight back on the bike, so I can resume my usual 5:45 departure time. I'm back on my
61CM Fuji commuter which seems tiny after exclusively riding my 62CM Raleigh for the last ~ 8 weeks. When I got to work, I raised the saddle and handlebars a bit. Probably won't help too much as the bike is just plain too small for me.

Little longer as I'm watching a friend's house, going to be a steamy one today - but it wasn't bad on the way in.

Last night i again had 2 different cagers yell things at me on my way home.... its hard to tell exactly what someone is saying as they pass you doing 50= in a 35mph zone, but i'm pretty sure they called me an idiot....

What the heck did I do?

Billy

Left my house and at the intersection down the street I see a line of cars. I couldn't imagine what was going on, as the school buses wouldn't cause a backup here. Get to the corner and see that there's a police checkpoint (3 cops) right at the bottom of the hill. I've never seen them do such a thing in a residential neighborhood before, although this is a favorite area for them to camp for speeders.

I just cruised down beside the line of cars and through the checkpoint - half expecting to be stopped.

Still can't imagine what they were trying to accomplish - unless they're trying to fill their quotas early this month.

Kind of a dull ride in. Oh well...

Great ride in, found what I think is the final tweak I need to make a good route to trailer the 2.5 yr old to her daycare and escape from town w/ minimal exposure to rush hour, such as it is, traffic.

I saw a coworker on his motorcycle near the office and tried to catch him but the light was against me. I rode the race bike today hoping to get out for a long detour home tonight but that already looks unlikely. Going to be a long day....

Another hot and humid week in the Bull City.
I changed bikes (from road fix to SS MTB) to ride down the tree-covered gravel alleys in West Durham lately, and it sure is fun.
No more radiant asphalt inferno - baking at stoplights, no more tagging behind exhaust spewing vehicles.
Good to change up the commute a bit when the weather starts beating me down.

I almost got plasterd by a cager on the way home from school this afternoon. I ride on the sidewalk (I know not the right way to do it, but other wise its too dangerous... this story proves why) and had an idiot cut me off trying to get into Dunkin Donuts... if I had been in the street, I would have been toast. So he cuts me off, I slamm on my brakes and start yelling.... He stops, blocking traffic and my path and looks at me... He gave me this "why are you angry with me" look... Then I told him to go on and get out of my way.... Knuckle head! :eek:

Then I had another idiot (who was at the D&D incident, trying to cross traffic to get in to the parking lot also) who caught up with me at a major intersection (Indianpolis & 45th - Highland, IN) He had a red, i was waiting for my walking man. He wouldnt make a right on red.... Just kept looking at me... The crazies are out today!

Billy
:D

I took the morning off for a dental appointment, so my commute was convoluted and longer (East Atlanta to Buckhead, then back to Downtown). During lunch I wrote the route from East Atlanta to Piedmont Hospital (where my dentist is) into a bikely.com map at

http://www.bikely.com/maps/bike-path...dmont-Hospital

Good ride, just started listening to audiobooks again while coming in, made it a little more interesting. I know the whole argument (headphones dangerous) and frankly love listening to music or books while riding. Plus, I have an hour and a half a day that I can fill with reading! A little warm and humid, but not bad for SC summer.

Joey French

Actually, this illustrates very well why sidewalks are dangerous. A classic sidewalk (near-)collision. Had you been in the street, he probably would've noticed you there. But nobody expects fast-moving traffic on the sidewalk. If you do ride there, you basically have to give up the ROW at any intersection, including driveways.