One thing i don't understand is why are drivers yelling at us to get off the road and on to the sidewalk, and then completely forget to expect bikes coming from the sidewalk?

26.51 miles round trip. I'm on training this week and decided to bike to the training facility, which is north of Colorado Springs (across the USAFA).

Riding heavy + hills + headwinds = >:|

Took it easy this morning since I wouldn't be showering... I managed to remain "odorless" for the day but it's not my preference. Voyager Pkwy, Rt. 83 and Academy are CRAZY during rush hour traffic...

Ah, yesterday was my first 20mph avg speed ride! :) So I was a little trashed today, but I'm happy with the way I'm feeling on the bike considering I have been doing this (commuting) for less than a year.

GreenAnvil

I was crossing a road on a WELL MARKED crosswalk (signs, flashing lights and marked pavement) that is a part of a bike trail through the city when a van that was coming at me didn't want to slow down. I pointed to the pavement to show him that I had the right-of-way, and once across I turned left into the bike lane that is on the right side of the road. The van then roared past me and honked at me. I saw that it was a business van from a company called Aarcee, but I was too rattled to think about getting the license (or pulling out my camera and taking pictures of it - d'oh!). I drafted an email to the company about it, but after the bridge collapse downtown I just lost all of my anger. It doesn't seem important anymore...
:(

Some folks around here (Colorado Springs) still see you and they seem to care less... For example, I don't ride on Academy Blvd... NO WAY! I take the sidewalk.

This is exactly what I do; I forget about personal speed records and just get on the sidewalk, spin, and enjoy the ride.

GreenAnvil

One thing I realized from reading from reading other posts is that drivers in Japan are quite tolerant and mindful of cyclists, generally giving me lots of space when passing and no abuse at all yet. The problem is other cyclists and pedestrians. Most cyclists generally don't obey any rules of the road and will weave on and off the pavement, sometimes right in front of me (when I'm on the road). This morning there was a house wife riding one handed and carrying a parasol, on the wrong side of the street with a 2 kids in child seats (front and back). You quite often see sights like this. Pedestrians seem to wander around like zombies and stumble in any direction without warning, which is especially a problem as the distinction between some roads and sidewalks seems a bit gray.

The rain stopped just in time for my commute through Tokyo this morning, but the humidity was awful (RH 86%) and around 84F and I was soaking wet when I arrived. I had to towel off in the car park in the basement and sit at my desk in front of the fan for ten minutes before I felt normal again.

Had a good fast ride in today. No problems excepting the Fowler construction panel truck that nearly sideswiped me. He did a rolling stop before taking a right turn, right into my path. Luckily there was no traffic in the oncoming lane so I veered left while yelling at him. Thats the 3rd time in about a month I've had a construction truck do that to me. It's getting a bit annoying.

Another hot one today. It's humid and the sun is out. I'm stuck inside all day :( but am considering knocking off early to ride in the glorious sunshine. Gotta enjoy it while we can, as the white stuff will be here before we know it.

:eek: SSSSshhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!111!1 :mad:

;)

Yep, pretty warm this morning in Vermont. I decided I wasn't going to exert myself at all. I got to work relatively dry and not feeling like I was going to wilt. The weird thing was, I was poking along most of the way, no cyclists caught me, but I reeled in 3. One was a woman on a hybrid in riding gear (lycra shorts, tight top) and the fastest of the three at around 15MPH. A fine-lookin woman from the back, I must say.

I also darted off onto some dirt paths twice. Kind of a fun commute.

It was a good commute in this morning. The traffic signals were all kind to me, so I was able to sprint for extended stretches. The traffic was pretty hefty on Boulevard and even Woodward, but moved along nicely. It was a bit hot this morning, but that's just August in Georgia.

The commute was fine...its the rest of the morning that's sucked so far. 45 minutes waiting for the showers at the office, and 30 minutes waiting for breakfast at the cafeteria. I hope the rest of the day gets better.

What's there to understand? Morons will be morons? You think they actually give the matter any thought beyond the knee-jerk Pavlovian reaction that causes them to yell? Don't give them that much credit, dude...

'Twas a lovely crisp ride in! I met up with my boss in the lobby of our building. He said he rode his bike in as well - a Valkyrie [motorcycle with 100+ HP from a 1.6L engine]. He makes more noise than me on the way in.

Decent ride. I am on my TT bike, the road bike is in the shop. When I arrived at work though I noticed my rear brake isn't releasing completely unless I push out on the handle so it's either the cable or the handle itself, the caliper is fine. So...... I rode the 14 hilly miles with the rear brake dragging, and I thought I was just a bit tired today!

Not bad.....did have a close call with some dumbass cager who wasn't paying attention. She was looking right to make a left turn and started out (about 1/3 way) when she suddenly saw me. I wouldn't have had time to stop, so I was hoping like hell she'd see me or hear me yelling.

Other than that, it was fine. :)

Wonderful! Usually I go to work directly and get home directly. The round trip is around 16-20kms. Today I decided to check one new place for blueberries. The forest were we used to pick up those were cut down last year so it was time to find new place. I ended up middle of the forest. I rode up to the hill on small rocky forest roa...umh...rather large path than road. So at the end from work to home took 3 hours, I ended up to eat lot of berries (and I'll go back at Saturday) and rode 32km. Finnish forests are beatiful. And those forests are everywhere. I was less than 30km from central of Helsinki and practically middle of nowhere.

I love this country.

Teme

It actually felt "cool" when I left my apartment this morning. Boy did that feeling end fast, I was drenched in sweat within the first few miles. I have given up on my cyclocomputer, every morning it reads all over the place and says my commute is many more miles than it really is and my average speed is well over 20mph where I am usually averaging around 16. Strange thing is though is that it reads pretty accurate on the way home, I don't understand. Oh well, I know exactly how far my morning commute is so I just need the time, which it can keep accurately.

Caught up to another commuter and tailed him for about half a mile before turning. Passed him and said good morning, he mentioned something to me as I got in the turn lane but didn't hear exactly what he said.

[QUOTE I have given up on my cyclocomputer, every morning it reads all over the place and says my commute is many more miles than it really is and my average speed is well over 20mph where I am usually averaging around 16. Strange thing is though is that it reads pretty accurate on the way home, I don't understand. Oh well, I know exactly how far my morning commute is so I just need the time, which it can keep accurately. [/QUOTE]

Do you store your bike inside in the A/C? If yes, it could be that the bike is cold enough that you have moisture condensing inside the computer (and everywhere else for that matter)...just a thought.

Maybe it's not a morning computer? ;)

No commute yesterday as the baby (picture at left) had a couple of puking episodes Tuesday night. Thank God, no more yesterday. :) Today's commute was uneventful.

Rode the tri bike today. I felt bad that I'd been neglecting it. Most of my riding lately has been on the commute and it really isn't the best commute bike in the stable. Still, I eventually want to do a tri this season and I need to get the aero position dialed in.

A bit of a head wind going out, but then a sweet, sweet tailwind once I got on the River Road so I made up good time and fell into a good rhythm at 25.5 mph (40 kph). My top end power felt thin but I was happy with the tempo riding. (Now if I can only find some time for the pool....)

Bitten by dog TWICE!!! Let me set this up. I commute 17 miles one way and on my route there are a pair of dogs from one house that chase me everytime I come by when they are out. This is out in the county where there are no leash laws. I usually just calmly say "No puppies go home." or something else
non-threatening and sprint past them. I was always more concerned that they would get hit by a car. It is a very lightly travelled rural road. This morning I saw their owner out in front yard mowing and thought to myself. "I will stop and introduce myself to the owner, meet the dogs, learn their names and let them smell me so maybe they won't chase me when I come by". I have done this before and has worked. Mistake. I started to slow down, when I got about 50 feet from the property the dogs started barking and heading towards me. The owner was yelling at them. Since I was going so slow they were on me in no time. I tried to pick up my pace to get away. The larger dog grabbed my foot and unclipped me. Here I am pedalling with one foot trying to outrun two dogs. I tried to get clipped back in when big boy came in for a second strike. It's amazing how unbalanced a bike feels with a dog pulling on the side of your foot. This sent me rolling into the grass with a dog on each side of my bike. I somehow got clipped back in and back on the road, then sprinted away ...finally. I can't recall anything about what I was saying/screaming during the entire time. Scared at first, now furious(Hello pepper spray). The good thing is the "bites" did not break the skin but put about 4 puncture holes in my shoes.

Nice ride in, again on alternate route that worked so well trailering Thing 2 to her daycare yesterday am. Bringing her home along that alternate route was crazy last night. In the morning, there was so little traffic that every red light was a temptation to run it. In the pm, during rush hour, all the cars yielded to all those impulses! Running lights, long drives at me in the oncoming lane (no-passing zone), and peaked w/ the road ending on a long climb, and this lady in a beat up old car following me the whole way up on her horn (that actually was a passing zone and she had room but she preferred that plus the hand gesture when she finally did move around). Will try that one more time tonight, but it may just be a crazy am/pm behavioral split. The more congested downtown spots w/ more traffic and cagers content to stay bumper-to-bumper their whole trip might be safer after all.

Blah on the dog run-in, that sucks.

I took my daughter in for an ear check-up this morning, so I rode over to the east end with the trailer ready last night and stayed over that side. Ferried her back and forth and then rode into work - the trailer on the roadie is weird, riding clipped in with the trailer is also a bit weird at times (but handy too :))

Good rides over the past couple days, nothing to report really - lots of horrible road surfaces here and there to stress over and try and avoid.

Very Nice this morning. I road the Schwinn P-15 Paramount today as I finally got a rear rack installed. Man that bike is so smoooooth! It being a chrome bike, it gets a lot of attention. I had group of road riders, who looked to be on a traing ride (all wearing the same kits) staring and pointing. Now if I could only keep up with them!

Hmm, never thought of that. Yes, my bike is stored in A/C from the time I get home to when I leave for work in the morning. However, it is also stored in A/C all day at work, so I'm not sure if that's it, but it's a good guess. I never had this problem with my old cyclocomputer though (Cateye cordless) but this new one just seems on the fritz all the time now, it's made by Ascent (bought on clearance at performance).

Next week I will leave my bike on the deck one night to see if it makes a difference in the morning.

WOW !!

THIS IS AMAZING !

Nothing like this happens around here... everybody seems to have their dogs fenced in (in this town).

What do you plan to do about it ?

Holy smokes? Where TF was the owner in all this? I'd SURE to talk to him after this. Beat the dogs off if necessary and give him a darn hard time.

Even if you don't talk to the owner, call animal control - especially if this incident taught the owner nothing and he continues to let his dogs run around. No leash laws doesn't mean you can let your dog run on public roads and bite passersby!

I was reading up on pepper spray. There is a shop here in Winston. I think I am going to pick some up.
If I get a chance to talk to the owner, he looks about 70 years old, without getting attacked again, I am going to tell him he owes me a new pair of Sidi Carbon shoes.:) It doesn't matter mine were 4 year old Diadoro's (On sale):D

Once they started in on me, I never looked back. I have no recollection of anything he might of said. As I mentioned in my post I can't remember what utterances I was making -Screaming, cussing, or whimpering. I have heard of this condition when you hit a certain level of fear/stress where time slows down and you don't hear of feel anything. Surreal. I'm hoping to train them myself with some pepper spray.

Nice, uneventful, sweaty ride in. No dog bites :-) or run ins with construction vehicles. Even saw 2 other bike commuters at ~ 6:15-6:30AM, a fairly unusual occurrence for me.

A little warmer than yesterday morning. Not too bad though. A thunderstorm passed to our north and gave me a few hits of really big rain drops, but not enough to get me wet (or cool me off.) Saw a few people riding the other way, passed a couple of others going my way. I was full of energy today.

Yesterday's ride home saw 95F on the bike computer. :eek: I took it easy. Did a little woods riding. Got home feeling warm but not as bad as one might expect.