A sunny 7F day - got my layers right so no issues except my glasses getting fogged due to my facemask. It's a balmy 30F now so should be a warm ride home ;)

Nice & crisp morning here in Oakland, low 40's when I left the house - not a cloud in the sky, you really can't ask for more than this in January. My lunchtime commute is looking good as well, winds are mild so far (knock wood). I have to say that I have an enormous amount of respect for all you winter commuters in the Midwest or the East Coast, my winter commute is probably like a spring commute to you all. You guys would laugh at my winter outfit, I probably have on more layers than someone commuting in Minnesota!

More of the same; 20sF, sunny, still.

Had to come in early for a meeting this morning (8am, gasp! :p) - other than different traffic behaviour/amount it was the same decent ride in, and enjoyable! Not too cool, but still a keen chill to the air.

Found out today my Rob Roy group buy frameset will be ready in the first week of March, so it looks like I should probably get my roadie overhauled (BB/drivetrain) sooner than later (was hoping to run it into the ground and then relax about the rebuild).

my hours got cut at work so I'm down to 2-3 days a week. For various reasons I can't/won't commute to school (I'm in nursing school) Went out for a fun/scavenge ride (garbage night) with my brother. About 8 miles we came across a little skating pond. Even with the warm snap we had recently I thought it would be a decent idea to ride across it. That proved to be a stupid idea because I ended up falling through the ice. It was deeper than I thought and lets just say it was a cold ride home and the bike needs some attention.

Falling through ice sounds like no fun at all.

Luckily it's an uncommon occurance in Sydney...!!!

Still very overcast today - where has summer gone? Dry for my ride this morning, but there's drizzle now. Could be a wet ride home.

Warm Commute
 

Commute was fine. Ot's been abnormally warm in my area of Connecticut.

At least it was good for a few laughs. ;) I'll file it under lessons learned next to "Ape hanger bars aren't good on a full suspension MTB for semi serious MTB trails" Sometimes I really wonder about myself...

30 mi RT commute today, very pleasant ride both directions. Here at 33.5 north latitude, the sun is staying up a bit later now and I get home by 5:30 pm before darkness sets in. Mornings are even better, it is getting pretty light by 6:30 am when I hit the road.

Yesterday's ride home was a lot of fun-for a while, at least; about an inch or two of granular accumulation which was grippy enough for near-normal speeds. I rode and chatted with a messenger for a while, was proud to be out there with the truly hard core. He was on a Surly fixie with slicks and was on a run from DC to Alexandria, impressive. The freezing rain that was initially falling turned to a hard, soaking rain about a mile from home. Luckily I ran into a friend with a truck just as I was starting to get soaked through. I threw the bike in the back and he gave me a lift home. It was nice to ride in the heated cab for the last 10 minutes or so.

This morning's ride in was nothing short of treacherous. The streets were largely ice-free but the MV Trail and especially the bridges, were covered with black ice. I road slowly and over-geared but still spun the back wheel when I pedaled. I had to unclip and outrigger a leg on many sections and had to walk over a bridge near the airport. I nearly dumped it at the rugby fields as I approached an icy section at about 8-10 mph I grabbed the back brake and got completely sideways. I thought for sure I was going down but managed to prop myself up with my left leg. I couldn't believe it, I just had to laugh after that one.

My ride time was just about doubled but I made it in safely and completed another "all ride week". Fortunately today's temps will be in the high 40's so any remaining ice will be gone by the afternoon ride home.

Snow! Bit of a minor storm system here in the Champlain Valley. Not much in the way of accumulation though. Temps just below freezing.

First bicycle tracks all the way in. :p I felt like I had dropped anchor, and when I got to work, I realized why. I got off the bike to walk it in, and the snow was pretty heavy. Even the inch or so was putting a lot of drag on the tires. I picked the bike up just to make sure it wasn't a disk grabbing or something. Nope. Wheels spun just fine.

Studs! ;)

Interesting commute this morning. I didn't ride Thursday due to cold rain all day with threat of snow/sleet, so I wanted to ride today to keep my driving to one day/week. The rain stopped last night but roads were still damp this morning with temperatures hovering just above the freezing mark (34F/1C). When I checked the weather at 5:30 am, the forecasters were warning about possible black ice on the roads, so I wasn't sure if I should risk it. Instead, I left a half-hour later than usual after it became apparent that the temperatures would stay above freezing. Fortunately I didn't encounter any ice and the traffic was lighter than usual due to the weather. Tried out some new bib knickers I got for Christmas, and they weren't really warm enough for low 30s, and I had red stripes around the bottom of my legs by the time I got to work. Forecasters are calling for another winter storm tomorrow with below freezing temperatures for several days, so it might not be safe to ride for a few days since I don't have the gear for riding on snow/ice.

slow ride this morning...just felt like I couldn't get enough oomph...very lethargic - I think I might be coming down with something - or the Extreme Bike Commuting gods are upset with me for not biking in the cold rain yesterday and have cursed me with lethargy. Anyway, not too bad this morning - thankfully no black ice encountered.

Repeating what tarwheel and jterribili reported, conditions were iffy but fortunately turned out fine. I was especially worried because it was in conditions like these that I had a fall 2 years ago, but today's ride was fine.

After the rain yesterday, which froze into black ice....I chickened out this am. Plus it was 14f with 15mph of wind. :-(

I am not as hardcore as I would like to be.

Though the conditions of this morning's commute may seem otherwise, I had the best commute ever this morning. It was the maiden voyage of my new Scattante XL Cross bike built up by one heck of a wrench at Performance Bike. My usual ride is a Novara Randonee or Fuji Team carbon. However, the Scattante's cross geometry, going 700 x 35s on tires, and having some tread (it was 38 degrees, windy, and pouring rain) was fantastic. The posture, the fit, the smoothness of the ride, and my overall impressions of this bike made the commute outstanding!

TXBiker

Good commutes yesterday. It was wonderful to have the studs stop their dry-pavement buzzing for the first time in over a month, and the scenery was wonderful. Alas, the stuff will all melt today.

Paul

I rode home through the snow on slicks last night, which proved interesting. There was even more snow this morning, so on went the studs. Sadly, just enough cars had been through to churn all the powder into crud, which is never fun to ride through. :(

Cloudy and warmer (above freezing, below 40F I think though), still not really windy. 1mph faster over 7 miles w/o 4 block diversion biking 6 yr old to school.

Lobster mitts $69.99, neck gator $10, ski goggles $39.99; Commute to work in 3 degrees with a -16 windchill...priceless. Nice sunny morning. Added some psi, which reduced some of the sluggishness experienced yesterday. Still, I'm quite sure I saw a tortoise wiz by, not sure, as it was just a blur.

They're predicting a low tonight of -15 with windchills of -26 to -37 this afternoon. Hmmm, note to self, might be wise to leave on time tonight

Almost went down hard this morning. Perfect morning mid 40's and sunny, cruising along nicely when a van that was parked to my right pulls out right in front of me and does a complete U-turn. I tried to bail to the right, just about where the van was parked; bad move, another van is parked in the space ahead. Now I'm coming at the parked van, braking and starting to skid, luckily I was able to unclip fast enough to put a foot down to prevent me from going down either into or under the parked van. It just shows that you can be doing everything right like riding in the middle of the lane, using lights (even in daylight), and still get nailed. A big f*** you to the jagoff in the 1980's p.o.s. black van this morning, you are the textbook example of a ******bag American happily putting away in their huge, ugly, gas guzzling, smog belching pile o' crap!
There, I feel much better now.

Only two things wrong with this morning's ride:

1) Its duration: too short.
2) Its destination: work.

+1

I'm going to start riding further in the mornings, the quick ride in is starting to become too mundane.

this week's ride in and out was wet and windy, not cold at all. Wet slippery pavement and too much reflections on the wet asphalt in the city, feels a bit unsafe , I fear cars ( their drivers) wont see me very clearly when it gets dark.Sometimes I ride back home at 18:00, feels great to avoid all this jammed traffic, I'll be on my way 40 minutes before the most of them.But Hell, they can take their bike as well !!
It's been two months now on my new folding bike ( Dahon Speed D7) and it still makes me smile !It is really holding up well!
I wish you all a great weekend, enjoy !

It warmed up a tad. Still no commute.
Going to try for my January century tomorrow and I need everything my legs have in them.
The starting temp should be around 10 with a balmy 34F fore casted as the high. I won't commute below 15F but I will start a century below that mark? My logic makes no sense.

My first commute of the year today! The medical specialist I'm seeing about my knee injury said I should give it a try because, if done in a certain way, it can act as physiotherapy of sort. I had to go to a meeting with a student only about three-four miles away, where I could bike on back streets and over relatively flat terrain. I figured that would be the perfect opportunity to ease back into cycling.

What can I say. The weather was beautiful, I wasn't feeling too bad either (not surprising - I was crawling along at about 10 mph most of the way :) ). The biggest problem turned out to be the bike. It was okay on the way to the meeting, but I guess parking it in the cold did something bad to it. On the way back, if I stopped pedalling even for a split second, the cassette would not reengage without a lot of fiddling. So on the way back I was not so much trying to guard my knees (though that too), as attempting to keep pedalling at all cost. I mostly succeded, though I had to stop at one stop sign. The annoying part is that after I stopped, the woman who drove to the interesection first started waving me through... and I could not go! :D However, I am particularly proud about perfectly timing the only traffic light on that short ride.

Chephy,

I have to disagree with you. Although it was mostly clear outside, the weather was not beautiful. Winds gusts in T.O were up to 60km/h that's crazy

Yuo know that dusting of snow that greases every bit of ice like Teflon? Found some and ate icy asphalt again today! Three times so far this year! Going too fast on a MUP that has a tunnel and then an incline out of it. Of course, at the end of the tunnel on the uphill side was a THICK ice patch that was chunky with footprints, some tire marks and repeatedly frozen runoff. Had time to pucker and WHAM-O! Down for the count...Covered in muddy slush, sore from taking the hit on my elbows and knees and still laughing. It all happens too fast to worry about sometimes...might have to re-mount the studs for the rest of the week...more snow expected.
Good thing I was dressed for riding home in 5 degree weather! Saved me from rashing myself!

Other than that lovely ride in..
Got a nod and wave from another commuter a couple of miles out from work. That was nice! Not the only one on this side of town...

Yesterday was crazy. About halfway home I was headed south and I noticed a couple cop cars headed north. No big deal. I passed through a stop sign and hit a red light. As I was waiting for the light to change, I heard more cops going north through the stop sign. I looked back and saw a van stopped towards the right side of the road with a cop stuck behind it. The cop was obviously trying to get through, not pull the van over, but the van just kept sitting there. The funny thing is that the cop had plenty of room to get through. I'm not sure who was being dumber in that situation. Finally the van moved a little and the cop went through. I got a good laugh out of that and then the light changed. Rubberneckers slowed things down just enough that I just missed my turn arrow.

I heard more sirens as I was waiting for the next green light. All of the sudden the cops were headed south, not north. Just as my light turned green a good 5+ cars came from behind to pass. A white car was in front, and I wasn't sure if it was being chased or if it was an unmarked police car. If it was being chased the driver must have had some pretty big balls to drive on the wrong side of the road like that. By the time everyone had passed I was left with just enough time to sprint through the intersection and hit the Monon Trail. As I was on the trail I heard tons and tons of sirens.

I didn't know what to make of the whole situation. I was thinking I had witnessed a chase, but I wasn't sure. It turns out that I was right: http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dl...=2008801180416