Ride in this morning was pretty lonely, only one cyclist that I saw on the entire lakeside run, and he soon disappeared from behind me. Wind wasn't so bad, but still a pain - the waves/chop on the lake was kinda nice to look at as I rode by. Legs felt incredibly weak when I got out of the saddle to go up a slight incline, that was surprising - goes to show me how quickly I got out of shape by having a couple months off and between Thursday and Friday clocking in about 30 miles surely did it.

Have some errands to do tonight, should be OK assuming the current flurries and stuff stay reasonable. I'm still on knobbies, so I'm not too worried about that. Desperately want to get a rack & pannier set once the wallet allows, saw a nice seat-post rack with side supports at Europe Bound on the weekend but there's lots of time for research on that front.

Today was my second morning commute and the first in the cold. I discovered 30F on a bike when it's dark is way colder than 30F at 4pm with the sun is shinning. My gloves, shoes, and socks were beyond their limit for comfort. I am looking forward to the ride home, it's supposed to be in the mid 60s this afternoon.

Beautiful morning.

I've come to realize that my 6 mile commute used to be a bit of a workout, but now I'm basically just warmed up when I get in (or home). So I tacked another 10 miles on this morning, and when I got in I felt like I'd had more of a ride. Not going to be able to do that too often, schedule-wise, but was fun today.

Posting right after Hardy again :) Steady rain on the return ride. Forgot rain jacket and soft shell didn't cut it even 10 minutes. It DID keep the heat in however.

sweet!
25.0 miles total, traffic sane, wind on my back (for the most part), sun behind me, dog did not bight, ate right, traffic lights change "green for me", my eBay order finally arrived, it was "far-fig-neugan" (sp)!
kinda scared about what tomorrow brings, hopefully more of the same!

Cold, forgot my toque

Today was my first commute to work since getting my bike (this past weekend). I hadn't ridden to work since my wife & I moved to our new house (and now we're about 1.5 mi. farther) almost 6 mo. ago It's good to be back.

It was a fast, fairly uneventful ride this morning. Nice & cool, 45F or so, foggy and the empty streets were still wet from the rain last night.

Much warmer this morning than yesterday morning, temps in the low 50s today but were in the upper 20s yesterday. Had the pretty usual commute, a little more wind than usual but not too bad. Looking forward to the 70 degree ride home.

In the 20s yesterday morning, then warmer but headwinds coming home.
This morning was 50 and no noticeable wind, and very fast.

c-c-c-coooold! Moderate headwind and temps of about 18-20. I am very thankful we have a place to buy hot chocolate at work. Brrrrr.

Another fargin' early day at work. Thankfully, I didn't have a server meltdown to contend with today. :p The frost on the road in front of my house was slippery, but the streets were shiny and wet. I didn't realize just how little light they reflect back when moist. Vehicles, signs and houses all showed up bright, but the road was surprisingly difficult to see at times.

Nice ride home last night, had a rough day in the office so it was nice to enjoy the ride, tried to catch a guy in front of me, but it looked like we were pretty much going the same speed - wind in our faces and I was just beat, and I just couldn't muster the strength up in that wind.

Didn't ride today, took a full rest day - not even a gym trip today - feeling pretty beat down, so need to be less aggressive training :)

Colder then I expected today, 28f, and a headwind. Nice day otherwise. The slightly wider tires I've switched too 700X32 are a noticably smoother ride on the broken pavement. Toes pretty cold by the time I got in.

It,ll be a fun ride home if the wind holds!

First commute in over 3 weeks! My wife and I had our first baby February 17th (a cute little girl, if I say so myself ;)). I took 2 weeks of paternity leave, then worked from home for another week after my wife (and both of our dogs!) had post-partum complications.

Uneventful ride today. I was sucking wind towards the end and thinking, "Man, did I really lose that much conditioning in 3 weeks?" When I arrived at work and called my wife she reminded me...I'm riding to work on only a few hours' of sleep and little food. Oh, yeah. I forgot.

Wow :D Congratulations! I hope you're all doing great. :beer:

Congratulations! Now you can start counting down the days to the first birthday when you can take the baby along in the bike trailer. I only have six weeks to go until 'lil Chuck can get strapped into the Chariot. I bought a helmet for him this weekend for his first birthday.

The warm weather brought out lots of commuters on the Mount Vernon Trail this morning at 7am. Yesterday was 28F, today was a balmy 55F. Tomorrow it will be back down to freezing again. You have to really watch the weather forecast this time of year.

I think I saw about 20 other commuters this morning. I guess springtime really is here. There is a chance of rain tomorrow and Friday. I know I'm crazy but I'm looking forward to some inclimate weather. After months of cold and snow it is hard to go cold turkey into nice weather!

Not really a commute today. I had to take my car to the mechanic so I put my bike on the rack, drove over, dropped off the car and rode my bike back to my apt. to work from home. Saw more people on bikes on the QBoro bridge than I was expecting which was cool. They all looked like commuters.

The 7 mile commute this morning was very blustery with a nasty wind chill, so I had my wind-proof
jacket, gloves and a woolly hat under my helmet on today. It's been snowing since, so I don't know what
kind of conditions to expect later tonight, as I'm meeting a friend in town before cycling home.

Going home last night was definitely cold and wet. I am just toting that extra pannier around jammed w/ weather stuff, so I had a rainjacket, which was good. As the year progresses, I think 1st I will drop the extra pannier then, eventually, the headlight. Then my bike will probably drop to like 40# loaded...

Beautiful again this morning though, so again I did a 10 mile detour past work. Is it 'hill repeats' if you repeat the hill on consecutive days?

Came in before dawn this am, very brisk and windy,:) but it was behind me. Rarely do I get that priveledge in the am! The dim light made it hard to see black ice so I was quite careful on the shiny MUP spots. I stayed upright and made good time. I got a good cadence going--boy the bike just feels smoother in the cold, quiet mornings. No one was on the MUP. Could see a hint of the sun on my last leg of my ride, peakin' through the horizon. Quite nice.:)

I had an excellent commute this morning, got a boatload of skin care tips from a homeless guy in the Village. I was stopped at a red light waiting for the intersection to clear, down by NYU. This guy launched into an extremely elaborate routine, complete with a magical flipping cardboard sign which looked like the indicator board from a train station. Somehow the subject disintegrated into the fact that he was turning 46 this week and his wonderful beauty secrets for keeping a youthful appearance, black soap and shea nut butter from head to toe, yes, even in your hair, which he gets from a street vendor in Brooklyn (Don't get the processed crap from a store!) He even shared testimonials from the old ladies at his church who have tried his method and not only "had the youthful vigor returned to their step" but "had their arthritis cured" as well. I was on the verge of skipping out of work for the morning and heading over to the Fulton St mall to pick some up! If Juan Ponce de León had gone to Brooklyn instead of Florida, he just might have found the Fountain of Youth.

Couple of interesting things on the way home today. First, I must have picked up a shard of glass in my front tire. It flashed at me several times, perfectly positioned to reflect the setting sun into my eyes. I was so mesmerized by it I didn't stop at first to pull it out. Thanks to Mr. Tuffy, it was just an interesting diversion, not a show stopper. Then I had another biker pass me while I was waiting for a light. I didn't want to re-pass, only to get re-re-passed at the next light. So I hung back for a while. At one light, I saw an opportunity to draft a station wagon (square=turbulence=good drafting) which took me past the other cyclist and, of course, I got stopped at the next light and re-passed (I wasn't trying to show you up, honest, I didn't even give you "the look"). Finally, when I got home, I found that my windpants had bid a fond farewell and ejected themselves from the bungee cords on my rack trunk somewhere along the route.

First my chain broke, then my chain-tool broke. The bike gods have been frowning on me since this weekend when I got a flat tire near the end of the single most hellish ride I've ever been on and my frame pump broke. After this latest debacle I decided it's time to upgrade the bike and slap on some new components, which means commuting on my mtb for the next few weeks...ugh...

Unexpected rain, hail, sleet and snow on AM commute. Rain gear held well but I needed face protection from the hail.