Today was my first ever commute. It's a shade over 9 miles with some decent rolling hills. Took me about 38 minutes plus stopping time. Nice route and traffic was surprisingly pretty lite, but then again I planned the route to stay off most major roads to work. Man was I a ball of sweat once I got to work though. I need to make sure I get a rack for the bike though as a big portion of my sweating had to do with wearing a back pack. My commuter bike is a 95ish GT Outpost mountain bike that I put some skinnier tires on (1.5 front 1.75 rear).

Rick

50 degrees, light wind...oh, and lots of rain. Rain rain rain. The rain didnt bother me, but it seeped through my backpack and made the red bag I had my clothes wrapped up in wet...which caused a little biit of dye to rub off on my pants :( They're fine for the day, but I'll have to toss them out, sigh. Grumble....
I need a water proof backpack

I convinced my boss to ride to work for bike to work week. I rode over to his house to ride in with him. The ride over to his house is rolling farmland with some pretty good hills. I told him I would be no later than 7:00am; and I had 35 minutes to get there. I got to his house 2 minutes early and thought that I was way too tired for 4.5 miles. I realized that I had calculated my mileage wrong, it was actually 7.55 miles. So I covered 7.55 very hilly miles in 35 minutes, way faster than I would normally expect to cover that amount of distance with hills. Overall, I lengthened my one way commute from 5.25 miles to 14.42 miles. I feel really good though. Excellent weather, but we didn't see too many bikers out this morning.

Nice going buckshot, welcome!

Ride in for me was nice, passed/had a lot of bikes en route - pretty quick as I managed to get across Lakeshore traffic to make the left into the Exhibition grounds, and kept a nice momentum all through (I made the turn at 19mph which is rare given the usual traffic I have to wait for).

This was my first commute of the season, and on my new Bianchi Brava to boot. My new bike is much quicker and lighter than my Trek mtb (duh), but man do the 23s make me nervous about flats. Every time I hit a bad bump, it felt as thought the rim was right on the road.

Other than that, a good ride. Eleven miles into a strong head wind. Hopefully that will be my tail wind on the return trip.

Traffic was actually pretty tight today, so I had to take an alley. No broken glass and no drug deals - yay! It rained last night, so it was pretty chilly on the way in. There's a slight chance of rain this afternoon, but I'm all fendered up, so I'm not worried.

A little on the cool side this morning, but nothing a long sleeve jersey and skull cap couldn't remedy. My legs, more accurately, my knees, were sore from mountain biking yesterday, but they felt better once I warmed up. It would have been a crime not to ride this weekend it was so beautiful (even though my knees needed the rest). I saw a lot more riders out there today, probably because I left later than usual and it's "bike to work" week. I reeled in a couple of guys and pulled a nice draft off of one. While getting ready to pass another rider on the 14th Street bridge our wheels locked when he suddenly hit his brakes. I wasn't tailgating, I had just caught him and was about to pass. Luckily I kept it together and didn't go down (a miracle at probably 18, 19 mph). He was pissed and I felt bad. He started screaming at me but when I caught up to apologize he settled down (I think he realized that I probably had 100 pounds on him) and was genuinely sorry for my mistake. I'm glad nothing happend to him (with the possible exception of rubbing a few miles off of his sidewall :-) ). The rest of the ride was uneventful as I breathed a sigh of relief that we didn't wipe out.

It was cold:) I actually started to wear helmet now and it was nice to have something on my shaved head. I drive to Purcellville and bike the WOD trail to VA 28.

My commute today was BRRRR!!! I really should have put the polarfleece tights on. (I even had them with me... idiot!). Saw a lot more cyclists than usual :)

I needed the extra 10 miles this am (and more at lunchtime) after all the ice cream and cake this weekend. Sheesh. In the 40s(F) this am, mid 70s predicted today, which means 80s are likely. More ice cream to follow, I imagine.

Also, today and Friday likely my only bike days this week, on the road other days.

Welcome to Buckshot!

Today's weather was perfect. Absolutely perfect. I left the house at a decent time and took a longer, mellower, less car-filled route in. Today I wore my standard office kit (shirt, tie, and dress pants) with bibs and jersey in the briefcase for the warmer ride home. Except that when I got to work: no bibs and jersey! D'oh!

On my short little 6 mile ride in, I counted 4 wrong way riders (including one idiot who nearly collided with me in a traffic circle!) and 3 sidewalk riders. Must be Bike To Work Week.

BtWW here too. I saw my first live possum today, crossing the road in front of me. Fortunately for him the truck in front of me saw him too and braked, letting him live.

Man those critters (possums, not trucks) are slow. No wonder I see them as road kill all the time. Really depressing. :(

My first commute was today, here are the stats:

.3 miles
2:01

I guess I should have brought the HRM to see what kind of effort I was putting myslef through.

MiRider and Buckshot77, Welcome to the HHCMF Club (Happy, Healthy Commuting Mutha F'ers). We take pride in showing off our well muscled legs and tight butts to friends and co-workers, using the money we save on gas and transit to buy cool stuff for our bikes like raccoon tails and grips w/ tassles, and only slightly embellishing our exciting tales of heroism and derring-do as we ride our trusty steeds to and from work surrounded by maniacal impotent death squads in SUVs. (With thanks to jyossarian for the explanation)

Sunblock
 

I wonder if most people use sun block for work commute that is mainly morning and afternoon? I can feel a minor burn. But is it ok for now? I have not been biking recently. I know the safest anwer is to use it all the time. But it is inconvinient especially going to work.

I carry a small container in my pack with me. I've been using it both directions since the sun is now up both ways. The afternoon ride has been over 85 degrees, and I've been noticing some color. I use extra on the left side of my face since it gets the brunt of the rays.

I keep a bottle of sunblock at work (5:30 is the hottest part of the day during a Sac'to summer). Thanks for reminding me to swing by the drugstore to pick some up.

The sun was out but it wasn't too hot. Other than almost getting run over by a car, it was great. I was about to ride my bike across the street (we're allowed to ride on sidewalks here) because trying to make a left turn across that street is usually pretty hard because you get about 50ft to merge from the right lane to the left turn lane and all 4 lanes are usually packed with cars.

I stopped at the corner and waited for the light to turn green so I could ride across. It turned green and the lady to my left slowed down, so I thought she saw me. I started going forward on the bike. Then I noticed that she wasn't even looking at me. She was looking to her left, trying to find an opening to make her right turn. Well, she made her right turn and completely cut me off. Luckily I braked in time to avoid hitting her car, but I almost fell off my bike because of it. I don't think she even noticed and just kept on going. Grrr.

I'm usually wary of riding on sidewalks for that reason, but there's no safer alternative getting across that street in the morning.

A helpful diagram:
http://www.runawaysquirrels.com/images/badcar.jpg

Oh heck yeah. I'm paranoid about sun and wind-burn on my face (I don't need to age ten years this summer, thanks), and I'm in a higher altitude, drier, and sunnier climate than I grew up with. So I've always got a layer of SPF 15 at the very least, and when I'm heading home I add a layer of 30 (UV index is higher).

I use a moisturising lotion on my face and neck that has SPF added in - I know there are unisex or men's formulas out there too.

You can see the affects of the sun if you don't use a good SPF here and here. (You didn't know Melanie Griffith rode a bike, did you? I'm sure smoking had NOTHING to do with this! :D

What a great morning it was today. Temps around 50, fog lifting and the sun shining full! Had a great ride, but didn't see a single cyclist :( I will probably see some this afternoon on my way home, at least I hope I do. My co-worker said he might try biking one day this week, but we will see. I'm gonna ask him if he wants me to ride along with him as a little incentive.

Today was my first commute from a new location. Work is in downtown Boston, and I'm now commuting in from Brighton. I'm a pretty inexperienced commuter, so was initially tempted to either take the bike path along the river, or look for alternative, parallel side streets. I decided not to do a) because the bike path is nutty with people and I do feel safer in the street, and skipped b) because there really weren't any good parallel routes...so it was Brighton Ave and Comm Ave all the way to downtown. Man, what fun! Biking to work takes me back to when I was a kid, before the days of soccer moms, when kids used their bikes as a means of transportation. It was great seeing all the other bike commuters -- the more of us there are out there, the safer we are! But the coolest part of all? The very coolest part of all?

Passing the Green Line trolley. Yeah!

Those knees have never been near a bike...! Gah, poor woman. Smoking and no proper sun protection = looking ten years older than one actually is, and twenty years older than one has to.

I'm 33 and still get carded on a fairly regular basis (and the drinking age is 18 here :D). I'd like to keep that going for a while.

Off to change my Avon order from the 30 SPF to 60....!

LOL!

Hmm, I did not think about the look of my skin at all. My concern was cancer. Great point. LOL.