The commute yesterday was wonderful. I took a route I have not taken for several years and saw my favorite commuter...an old guy who is always riding the opposite way I am going. He waves every time he sees me. We have become "friends" the eight years I have been commuting!

This year is different than others. My van has needed brakes for over a month and I haven't bothered to fix it. On top of that, I have taken to getting up before the sun to get an hour in on my road bike, then jumping on my commuter for the ride to work. When I get home my three year old son greets me at the front door and begs for a ride "around the block", a 5 mile route he likes. I had a day off of work today and stayed off the bike except for a slow 5 mile ride with my son. Even so, it's Thursday and I am over 225 miles for the week. Not bad.

Good thing I like the bike.

Wow. 225 miles on a Thursday !! How long is your commute? Are these all commute miles?

I do 20 each way most of the time, about 3 times a week on average. I think that puts me in the top 5% or so of commuters (total wildball guess). If these are all commute miles, you have to be in the top 1%.

Man, look at this thread! Over 3,000 views and counting!

This morning was just about perfect, I took the long way in to work this morning, A back country road that wanders through the hilly countryside in mass. The air was a cool 58 degrees with no noticable wind. The wildlife was busy doing their thing and did a great job of entertaining me. Traffic was light, My total distance this morning was 37.6 miles and my average speed was a lazy 17 mph. I left my panniers in the garage and traveled light. have a great day everyone, I can't wait for the ride home.

Morning was wonderful - around 8C, a beautiful sunrise around 7:15 and wind not too strong. This afternoon a surface trough interacted with a mid-level trough, and the result was unexpected rain - starting off light and getting gradually heavier. A hour before sunset it was really dark. So a dark, wet ride home. But who cares? I don't mind getting wet since I'm on the way to a nice warm house. It was our coldest day since August last year - didn't even make it to 16C!

We never seem to run out of experiences to describe, do we? That's part of what makes commuting fun.

My commute is 11-12 miles one way (depending on which route I take). I had 225 miles in by Thursday because I am also a roadie and have been riding road in addition to my commute. It's been great!

I finished the week over 300 miles. Not bad. I have not had a week like that in years.

TT

They were talking afternoon thunderstorms on the morning weather report so I took the rain bike. It's been a while since I rode the steel Novara, and I'd sort of forgotten how much I like it. It's heavy and not real fast, sure, but it's stable and plush and goes exactly where you point it.

We're having hot-n-muggy this week, which is fine with me. Means I can wear my lightest stuff, only put the SPD sandals on, and not care at all about whether it rains. (The best thing about hot summr days is how little it takes to get dressed for a ride.)

So it was kind of disappointing that coming home, despite the iron-gray skies, the lightning on the horizon, and the distant rumble of thunder, I never got hit by a drop.

Maybe tomorrow.

RichC

Mornin, Yesterdays commute was a slow easy spin, I rode A very hilly century Sunday, had a great time with a great group. Yesterday was warm and sunny on the way in and hot and sunny on the way home, The way weather shoud be every day.
This morning I stepped out of the house to 50 degree damp air, had to put a light jacket on and gloves, I guess winter is back. I really need to think about relocating to a warmer climate more suited to cycling. Any suggestions? The DPW here, is suppose to pave all of the roads they dug up starting the 6th of July, That sure should make my ride better, they didn't miss any of them, Ive been riding my mountain bike now for a couple of weeks, I'm really looking forward to getting back on my normal commuter.

Finally managed Boughton Hill without getting off and pushing :)

Faversham to Canterbury in less than 40 mins, door to door 55 mins.

Richard

Today was a different route. My wife's car was due for scheduled maintenance, so I put the bike in the back and drove to Falls Church, VA. This time, I decided to try the bike trail (WO&D and Martha Custis) to work (Arlington courthouse area).

It was quite a change from my usual commute. It was quite a change, even, from my usual road route from auto shop to office. There was about a six mile ride without a single stop sign or stoplight. The trail had the usual hazards endemic to bike trails (dog walkers, people walking two abreast, but the major annoyance was the bid signage. "Washington" or "Rosslyn" would be a much more helpful arrow than "Custis Trail".

I'm not sure whether I prefer the bike path to the road for this route, but it was a good change of pace. It was more of a workout, because I was not pausing at stoplights! What do the rest of you think of bike paths versus roads?

Paul

(Sorry, Paul, can't give an opinion--bike paths aren't an option on my route.)

This certainly is a windy year! Today, going in, I had a powerful crosswind, slightly against me. I was grateful, since it was an extremely hot and muggy day. I was melded with the car all morning (had to get new tires, then maintain part of my paper route, then went to a movie too far away to bike--Spirit, Stallion of the Cimarron, it was good) so it felt great to be on the bike! I had energy to spare today...either from the movie popcorn and diet iced tea, or because of the day off pedalling I had yesterday or something. Anyway, good trip. :)
The way home I could go faster (trying to generate my own wind as heat relief!) I had a bug or two stuck under my helmet, inhaled two permanently, spit two out, and am still wiping them off with the sweat and picking them out of my socks and shorts. Oh, and I got one up my nose, and I believe he is still in there, making his way up the Jeffries tube in search of a control room where he can perform a manual override...

By the way, my Sunday morning commute home had its point of interest--there was a family get-together in the afternoon, and I ran into my mother and niece just as I was leaving town. They were running some errands, and we all expected that they'd pass me on the way home. I beat them by 15 minutes. :D

There are no path options anywhere near my route, either. I've ridden some of the local multi-use paths after work, and frankly you couldn't pay me to ride them again, at least not when they're busy with joggers and skaters and boarders and walkers and dogs and children.

It takes much less evasive maneuvering to just ride in a straight line as part of normal road traffic.

RichC

Yesterday, my commute sucked. ( I still can't beleive I would say such a thing.)

It felt like I was riding in sand. I had no speed and was pushing the whole way. There wasn't even any wind. I was behind the whole route. Towards the end, it felt like I couldn't even coast to a stop light.

Got to work and gave my back wheel a spin. It stopped within a quarter turn. Seems the back break was catching on the rim. I just had the wheel trued and the LBS must not have tighted down the axel enough.

Commuted to my girl's basketball game today from work. 15 miles, so a short one. Relatively uneventful, though I felt more sluggish than usual.

Will commute into work the full 20 tomorrow. Got to get to bed so I'll be fresh in the morning!!

Great day,, great ride, no stories today, what else can I say.

Zooming, baby !!

Surprising tailwind this morning (had another "surprising" tailwind the other day ... maybe I shouldn't be so surprised). Cooler than usual.

Zoomed along at 20+ MPH practically the whole 20 miles and hit 27 MPH on one slight downward incline. Had pretty good luck with the lights, too.

Made it in 1h7m, which is about 10 mins faster than normal !!

I'm slowly building up speed now as I commute. I get less and less tired too!

It's hot outside. Very high ozone levels. Very high humidity. I'm praying for rain.

RichC

Raced a thunderstorm this morning. I could smell the rain all the way to work, then got a weak rain the last mile. By then I was so warm the only indication I had that it was raining was the wet street and the raindrops on my glasses! I love riding in those kind of rainstorms.

Crummy day. It was 87 degrees and humid, and I think I must have been having some dehydration problems. I kept drinking all day, but was still thirsty when it was time to leave. I usually reserve my Camelback for my long weekend rides, but I filled it today, and by the time I got to work I had sucked out everything but the ice cubes. Drank another liter of water at work, and drank most of the contents of the refilled Camelback on the way home.
On the way home, it was cool and breezy, and pleasant, but I just felt like a sponge with no energy at all... :(

I'm reposting this tip just in case it's useful to anyone.

I have a thermos that fits in a bottle cage. I fill it with my morning coffee, since the other cage's bottle holds enough water for the morning ride.

Coming home in the PM on a day like today requires a lot more water.

First, I don't for get to pre-hydrate. Very, very important! Then I drink the water from the plastic bottle during the first part of the ride. About 15 minutes before I get home, I stop and open my thermos which now, instead of coffee, contains ice-cold water from the cooler at work.

Ice-cold spring water available near the end of a 95-degree, 75% humidity ride will, I promise, get you drunk.

RichC

I was sluggish on the ride home. I've been doing mucho miles recently and had a barn burner ride this a.m. It all caught up to me.

Still, I took a longer course home and managed a good hill climb.

Total: 25 miles.

Fully recovered today! The weather was cool and partly cloudy, no wind, and I went up hills in gears I couldn't touch yesterday on the flats. :) To make it all the sweeter, the UPS dude delivered my new E-Bay saddle 20 minutes before I planned to leave, so I was able to test it today. (Selle Italia women's Octavia, felt pretty good.)

On the way home, someone in a little parasail engine flew toward the highway I was on. I couldn't help thinking how, if I were in the car, it would have been a dot in the rear-view mirror a moment later. As it was, it crossed the road directly in front of me, couldn't have been more than 30 feet up, and looped around to go back the way I came over the field next to me. Fun to watch!:beer:

Inkwolf, sounds like a super ride.

Today was a down day for me. No bike-commuting. Still a little sore from all the miles and hills I've done of late.

I instead sat in traffic for a while. It was nice, however, to jam to CDs on the way in. I missed the afternoon giddiness of knowing I'd have an awesome ride home.

Looking forward to zooming in tomorrow though !!!

Some days you just don't have it. I was extremely tired.
1. I got distracted and ran up over the curb into someone's lawn. This has never happened before.
2. I dropped my water bottle in the street after taking a drink.
3. I stopped at a stop sign but when I did, tried to maintain balance and spun the handlebars around, causing a very awkward dismount.
All this in under 10 miles!
This was worse than the time someone gave me a dilaudid for a headache before one of my rides. Now there's a story.

Took the day off yesterday, from work and the bike. Today I had a great ride in to work, the air was a little heavy but I was able to maintain an average speed of 16 mph without breaking into a sweat. Took me a little over an hour to get here. We had hard rain last night so the roadside was full of junk. It's going to get hot this afternoon, I'm looking forward to the ride home.

Yesterday it was threatening rain all afternoon but it didn't actiually let go until after dark. So it was extraordinarily difficult riding home, air hard to breathe, hot, muggy, dangerous ozone. I may have to re-think this.

Funny thing. I rode the rain bike all week because of these constant threats of afternoon thunderstorms. Never actually got wet.

This morning I rode the Airborne and got wet twice going through huge puddles from last night's storm.

Cooler today, better air. It was still cloudy and humid this morning, though.

But it was a hell of a week to have done all five days.

(My ribs feel fine. The healing power of exercise.)

RichC

WOW! A real bad day at the coal mines! Next ride will be better, from here you can only go up!

Yesterday morning,I commuted home from work... Day was nice... Nicest part of it.... Three times in one day, motorists gave me a friendly honk and thumbs up... One was a truck driver, even.. More used to getting thumbs down.. Made me happy to know we have friends in the motoring world..