Pouring rain when I got up today, but by the time I left it was pretty light. refreshing.

Took the old Schwinn today. The bracket for my crappy old handlebar bag broke; it was already half broke and held with a twist tie. I strapped it on with a couple of too-small bungees. The metal bottom piece hung down and vibrated against my chrome fender. It was actually kind of a nice rythm.

Good ride this morning. There's a big chance of rain so I took the old World Tourist with fenders today. Riding upright and slow is kind of annoying, but the ride was uneventful.

4th time in 5 days and I'm feeling it. Still did the 15 miles in about an hour, but I wasn't enjoying it. Got passed by a roadie chick. At that moment I decided I'm going to buy a cheap roadie. I dont' care how old and how primative. It's gotta be better than what I'm doing now.

Uneventful except for one thing. While I was stopped at a light waiting to make a left towards my building another cyclist came up on my right, going straight. I never see commuters going this direction, so I yelled over, "Hey! Good morning!". At first he didn't look over, then after a few seconds he did and gave me the nod.

I got an arrow before he got a light, so as I passed him I said, "Have a safe ride." I got no response at all. Hmmmm....did I have a piece of breakfast stuck to my face or something? :rolleyes:

Warm and slightly humid on the way in today. Otherwise, just dandy!

Surprisingly smooth for trailering both kids (they go in opposite directions). Started sprinkling (fortunately after I dropped my son off, the one more apt to point out discomforts (I edited that from 'whinier', my original choice, in case this does make NYT front page and then comes back to haunt his future supreme court nomination...)), so hopefully the 'humidity' will break (for local conditions, it felt about the way it did to me in Georgia last weekend when inside w/ the a/c on...)

Nice ride in this morning...Weather was cool and nice enough but I seem to have a case of "Lazy Legs" today. So it was a leisurely slog on the way to work. Probably a remmant from yesterday's ride.

This weekend we went camping and since I was needing the training miles I racked the road bike and took it along. I was planning to ride it home from the campground. [48 miles, 2400 feet climbing, 4200 feet decending]. Weather was edgy but I sent the GF and friends on their way and started riding. I got 20 miles in and it started raining. Ducked into the quickie mart a mile up the road and drank coffee for an hour while the storm passed. Got back on the bike and it was really cold, and wet. I got 7 miles into the next town and called in for a bail out when I saw the killer black clouds over the pass I needed to descend. When the GF came up, there was 6" of hail around. Glad I called it off. :)
The part that sucks is that I got all 2000+ feet of climbing in, but got ripped off for the 20 mile glory ride into town. Oh well.

Lovely ride in today - I was back on the Norco for comparison purposes and was really noticing the difference between it and the Raleigh. I definitely need my gel-pad gloves and padded bike shorts on the Norco, front suspension or no. However, the low gearing is nice for hills and the different frame angle was a nice change for my knees.

First short-sleeve jersey & shorts morning commute! (I usually find I need a windproof shell for the morning). I was not at all out of breath on arrival, which is new too. Yay me!

Something a bit weird happened on the way home from work Yesterday.

It's been a while since it's rained here in NY. Well, it started raining finally with very swirly, gusty wind Yesterday Evening. I was cruising along at a good clip when the wind caught my front wheel and it started skating sideways. :o Because of the lack of rain the streets in certain places have built up a nice slick coat of, hydrocarbons from all the traffic. The rain was just heavy enough to make everything sketchy but not heavy enough to wash away the oil on the road surface. The aero spokes on the front wheel acted as a sail.

Nearly a nasty spill.

It's back to the OP's for me. None of those aero spokes to catch the wind.

It was a pretty bad week for air quality all round. Made for some longer commute times.

Hopefully, today's heavier rain is helping to clean up the streets a little.

I really don't feel like being here today. I already know it's going to be a long day and I'm going to miss the Wonder Twins' bath and bed routine, so I hung around the house to have breakfast with them.

I hate this time of year.

A bit on the cool side, this morning. Rained minutes before heading out. Helped push a broken Jeep to the side of the road. Other than that, pretty uneventful; which is good in my book. :)

LOL! And, who are the Wonder Twins?

My three-year old kids.

It's rainy here in New York. I got cut off by a van on Central Park West and had to jam on the brakes and swerve, leading to me going over the handlebars. The van was turning, but then seemed to decide not to turn and pulled back into the lane. Got a bloody elbow, a bruise on the hip, and a sore neck, but I feel lucky for nothing worse.

I think I might bike in the park from now on, but I'm not sure if that's any better. Central Park West going south is often really bad.

I also feel stupid for not getting the driver's information. But oh well. I'll be really sore tomorrow morning.

Damn, dude. Sorry to hear that. I guess it could've been worse.

Mine was primarily uneventful. It's definitely summer here, high 80's with equal parts humidity. Sweating it out. Gotta love it.

I said "primarily uneventful" largely due to the lady in a brand spankin' new Acura RL (or whatever) who tried to jump in front of me a few feet before a busy four-way stop. Needless to say, she ends up stopped in the middle of the road, clogging the intersection. Her windows were down and I found the situation rather amusing, so I asked her if she knew what she was doing was completely illegal. She ignored me and I gave her the "Aww, c'mon, I know you can hear me," with a goofy smile.

Without looking, she rolled up the windows and took a long drag off her ciggarette. She then zig-zagged through a rather annoyed assortment of cages at the four-way stop. I really wanted to ask her how she was going to drive with her car all fogged up. Never caught her, though. Shame, cus we certainly had some chemistry together.

Ah Mondays...had a guy in a small suv try to pass me in a 25mph zone while I was going 27-28. I almost went in the other lane but there were cars coming. When the road changed to 2 lanes he took off. I caught up to him at the next red light and told him not to pass me while I was doing the speed limit. He promptly flipped the bird, I returned it and took off, what a JAM. Other than that it was a nice commute, sunny and very warm.

New PB Today http://cycleblog.info/index.php?opti...id=30&Itemid=2 to read all about it

Yay! First rainy day commute home...it was only 8.75 miles, and only from my carpool meeting place...but I got wet. I can't believe how much of a big deal I made about riding in the rain. It was actually alot of fun and took only a couple minutes longer than it usually does.

Here are links to some bike grime if you need proof LOL:

http://home.comcast.net/~mnkwrobes/RaleighDRGrime.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~mnkwrobes/RaleighBag.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~mnkwrobes/R...tTubeGrime.JPG

I think I'm going to go all the way tomorrow. It totally annoyed me today that IN THE CAR we had to wait 35 minutes for 2 trains. I kept saying to myself, "If I rode all the way...I could have been home by now!"

Also...I realized another phenomina...either that or the cycling gods were looking down upon me...every person I encountered in a car while on the bike in the rain gave me preference, whether at a stop sign, crossing a busy street or what have you. Are they all really saying to themselves, "Look at that crazy smuck on a bike, I think I'll give him break/cut him some slack" ?

One thing I do realize now...I need a helmet cover, fenders (man...the road grime on the legs is intense!) and something to keep the feet a little drier.

Busy ride from work back to daycare downtown, reattach trailer, retrieve Thing 2, than toward home to retrieve Thing 1 from K. Made it, time to spare, whole thing, leaving work to getting home, took ~80 min, 9 miles of biking. 15-20 min tapping toes in hall of K, not sure I'd want to cut it much closer than that though.

Drive wife to work, and left her with the car. Rode back to home town and biked around taking care of errands. In Pm took bike on bus part way back to her job area and biked the rest of the way. Then drove her home.

Pleasant ride in. The "big heat" is forecasted to arrive by Thurs or Friday, so I will really relish these last few days of comfortable morning temps....It was ~65F this AM with humidity of perhaps 75-80%. Humid yes, but nothing like its going to be for the next ~3 months.

I did have a comical/interesting/scary sighting, though I'm sure the driver of the truck didn't find it too amusing; A PET milk truck passed me on Miami Blvd and I lost sight of him. About 2-3 minutes later I caught up to him after he had made a left turn onto Cornwallis Rd. His cargo door had flown open and a stack of 5-6 milk crates had spilled out onto the road. There was 20 or 30 plastic gallon bottles of milk scattered about-most of them broken open. He was out there hurriedly trying to pick up the milk crates and jugs before traffic stacked up behind the mess. I said "Sorry man" as I weaved my way through the carnage, but he did not reply or even look at me. I'm sure he was just a bit ticked off.

The scary reality of what had happened hit me after I had passed him.....if his door had flown open as he was passing me, I could have been killed or seriously injured....Something very similar happened to a husband and wife here, 6-8-10- years ago as they were walking down the side of the road. I think one of them died and the other was seriously injured. Thankfully that didn't happen, instead it was just a good chuckle for me and a bad start to the day for him.

itty01 - glad it's no worse.

I came here to vent.

Three cars in a row this morning. 1) An aborted left cross from a woman in a full size van. She apparently noticed the nose wheelie I was doing and decided she should not go. 2) About 300 yards further up the road, a big black pickup truck like an 4-door extended cab contraption. BUZZZZZ with inches to spare. I saw him in my mirror so I was able to avoid the jerky reaction that usually accompanies a buzzing. The most annoying thing was that he drifted closer to me as got along side despite the fact that we were the only two vehicles heading east in the TWO eastbound lanes. 3) Not to be outdone was the lady in the burgundy SUV who right hooked me about 400 yards further up. She started past me and before her taillights were visible, I saw the vehicle's nose dipping down and I knew what was coming. Another nose wheelie for me. I had to turn right inside her path to avoid her rear quarter panel before I scrubbed enough speed to cross behind her without further drama. Thankfully the car behind her was also turning right but was paying enough attention to leave me room.

I decided it was time for a break at that point.

Headwind. Low 60Fs. Overcast, but dry.

I saw a raccoon! Never seen one on a commute, much less in daylight. Hopefully it wasn't rabid. :eek: I saw it in some ferns next to the MUP, and a runner was coming the other way. I thought it was the runner's dog at first. It wasn't until I got next to it that it turned and I saw the tail. I scared the bejesus out of it. It tried to get away from me as fast as it could.

I left this morning about an hour after a pretty heavy downpour. Much cooler too, mid-50's and humid. At about the 5 mile mark there was a little bit of drizzle. I should get a slight tailwind on the way home. :)

Cooler than normal this morning. I was late, so I pushed it. New personal best time! (4.50miles in 15:21).

Uneventful except for the guy who buzzed me and honked right as he was next to me. Fortunately my finger is on Auto-fire. ;)

Ron, I try not to think about that kind of scenario, or I'd never get back on the bike. :( btw, the guy who buzzed me pulled into your campus after he passed me. I was tempted to track him down but decided he wasn't worth it.