Fantastic weather here in the greater Seattle area. Warm enough for short sleeves, and almost no wind! (The lack of wind was relief after yesterday --headwind both ways, with strong winds on the ride home) Left home early enough to put in a longer ride. Tonight may be the night to avoid the trail on the way home, for those extra miles and to avoid those who crowd and abuse the trail on nice evenings.

Just started a 19 mile round trip commute from the train station to work. Very HOT yesterday, with no water. :( But very cool today, with lots of headwind :mad: and lots of water. :confused:

Weather ... go figure.

Cool ride home via hilly, 20-mile route. Nice tailwind, but that's expected this time of year. The tailwind this a.m. was unusual, however. Chi, I missed the hot ride yesterday ... I love the heat. Oh well, there's plenty more to come.

Sounds like I'm going to be the only one annoyed that it didn't rain on my commute this morning.

Andy Monday should be pretty hot, so you won't miss out on anything. :D

My commute was foiled this morning by thick fog. I don't have lights on my commuter yet and I don't feel like getting killed this morning. Oh well I have been wanting to get lights maybe this will be a good excuse.

Hi Folks,

Great ride in this morning. I'm now really getting into the new commute - it is so much improved over the old route. There is very little interruption to the ride and also a bit more gradient, so it feels much more like a proper bike ride!

Have a good weekend,

Ed

This morning was the first in a while without the threat of rain-it was nice to see the sunrise for a change. I was kind of looking forward to some rain as I put a new front fender on my commuter yesterday, I also installed an inexpensive headlight (mainly to be more visible to others) but I didn't need that either. As I was up since about 4 this morning, I got an earlier than usual start and took my time riding in averaging about 12 mph. There was a slight headwind as I approached DC but it was a beautiful ride. The gosslings are all over the place on the Mount Vernon trail so be careful.

A bad start to the day, (spilled my oatmeal, and then was late leaving - had to put out the garbage), but once I got on the bike everything fell into place.
A day of firsts:
First short sleeved ride into work (it's about time!)
First ingested bug of the season (not sure of species)
First trip in with no waiting - no red lights (sorta cheated on a couple), no trains, no ships.

The hard part now is waiting for the trip home!

First really nice day of the year, left the house at 5:15, took a couple of detours on the way in that turned my 18.5 mile ride into a 29 mile ride, 64 degrees F, clear sky, no wind and no potholes on the back roads. Made for a great ride, now all I have to do is work all day then do it again this evening.

Overcast skies, with some crosswind. First ride of this week since there had been a lot of rain forecast every day. As there were ships going through the St Lambert Locks, I too the Jacques Cartier bridge over the St Lawrence. Not an exciting ride but very satisfying.

A first! I convinced my wife to bike commute with me. We work in the same building and I'd been trying to convince her for awhile that she might enjoy riding in, at least on Fridays when she can dress more casually.

I put her curling iron in my backpack (to overcome the helmet hair-based objection) and took the calmest, most car-free route into downtown. She surprised me by sprinting for the light at Broadway. I told her she probably topped out at 19mph there and she said, "Well, I didn't want to miss the light!"

I was very proud of her. :love:

Nice ride in today, blue sky's low wind fairly warm. Not looking as hot on the ride home though. Overcast sky's, drizzle and wind. Still seems to be warm though and if I get out of here early enough (ha!) could be a fun ride in warm rain. Plus even the threat of rain keeps the amateurs of the trail. ;)

Had some lunatic at a roundabout in Broadbeach try to kill me last night. Rather stupidly I reacted by giving them a verbal serve, which only made me feel worse about the situation. I should have just ignored him and called the cops. I can't believe I lowered myself to his level by reacting. It was dumb.

Still, when I got home I was greeted by my pet lizard, and put Alex Lloyd on the CD player (a bit of Lloydie always does the trick) and felt better. Still, I should have known better than to get involved.

It looks like the monsoons have started for this year. I tried to beat them home today. Luckily, the wind was in my favor (gusts up to 35 mph). I did get my first flat (commuting) on the way home. That was one nasty chunk of glass in my front tire. I got a little wet, but managed to miss the biggest part of the storm. :)

Bright sunny morning, I left the house way under dressed. It was 41 degrees F with a stiff 8 mph headwind all the way to work. I was quite cold but dry for a change, today is my heavy bike day, panniers, trunk bag full of tires, tubes and tools and a bag bag full of rain gear, 65 pounds of bike when I left this morning. All in all it was a relaxing fairly slow ride. The weather is supposed to improve as the week goes on.

No commute for me on Friday, as I was leaving from work early to go to Toronto (to watch the Blue Jays kick some Red Socks A$$..but I digress...). So Sunday I did a nice 30km ride. I started off feeling like crap, but by the end of the ride I felt great and felt like I could have done another 30. So this morning, I continued to feel great, as I did my 25 min. commute in about 21. Good morning to you all!!

Darren

Great ride in this morning. The temps were nice and cool and I was in the mood to ride hard. I hammered up the hills and hit 178 on the HRM in the process :) I tied my best door-to-door time of 25:17 for my 6.3 mile commute.

I also got to finally check out the backlight feature of my newest bike computer - the Cateye MSC-3DX and it's very cool being able to see my speed and HR anytime I want.

The afternoon ride is looking to be a good one as well. Temps should be in the mid-80's.

Zack

great ride in today - nice cool sunny weather

I haev never seen so many bikers on the quieter first half of my route, must have passed a good 15 people, and was, shock, horror, passed by 2 people myself!!

Another chilly morning ride (48 degrees) but clear with a beautiful sunrise. This afternoon promises to be warmer, in the 70's. I was really tired as we'd ridden about 50 miles on a wet and muddy C&O Canal yesterday-my legs refused to turn. I'm glad I rode though, I need to work on back to back ride endurance. I'll stop by the LBS on my way home to pick up: rear light bracket, cyclo computer battery, and front fender bolt (as all of them decided to kick the bucket yesterday) and then nap without any regret of missing a workout as it will already be done-my favorite aspect of bike commuting :)

Nice this morning, but OMG will it be hot on the way home tonight! Summertime in Sacramento (City motto: "But it's a dry heat.")

Nice ride in this mornign, big fluffy clouds, reasonable warm, and a light wind that blew from all directions (so it wasn't that bad) My legs felt a bit of the monday morning blues on the hills, but all in all a nice ride in.

I finally completed my new commute after changing jobs in November. My old commute of 10 years was 5 miles of very quiet suburban side streets. My new commute is MUCH different. Longer, more climbing, more traffic, more speeding, etc. I was a little hesitant to tell the truth. I'd been driving a lot to work simply because it was cold, wet and a simply miserable winter/spring in Ohio. I drove and re-drove the route many times at different times of the morning to get a feel for the traffice flow and patterns. Well last Thursday I did the commute to work (partly because of my car being in the shop). The ride "to work" was great and easier than I thought it would be. I ended up getting a ride from a co-worker to the car repair shop so didn't end up riding home at rush hour.

Today was chilly, but sunny and I thought I'd do the whole ride. Morning "to work" went well and I made it in 1 hour 15 minutes for a distance of an estimated 16 miles. Lots of intersections, cars going 35-50 on two lane roads, but I felt safe.

At 5:00 it was time to venture home. How different it was. Tons of cars all "hell-bent" on going somewhere is a big dam_ hurry, although overall despite the speeding and road rage (against other drivers - not me), it went well. Mixing it up at a major intersection with three lanes (two turning right and left and me in the middle going straight) was "interesting" to say the least. I had to negotiate a large traffic circle with 7 roads coming and going into that hub and that was my only real confrontation. As I made my way around the loop, I saw a woman coming real fast up to her stop sign. I slowed, gave her a direct eye contact and she waited. "Good" I thought. I heard a horn beep behind me, thinking it was drivers getting on each other about pulling up in traffic. But noooooo! It was a woman in an Audi A4 on by a**. Guess I wasn't moving fast enough for her. As I made my exit out of the traffic loop and onto the straight, I suddenly was completely shocked to see this Audi about one foot from my left hip and coming at me to push me into the curbing. In over 10 years of commuting I've never had this happen. It was very obvious what she was up to. "I'll show him that freak on a bike that is holding me up from my oh so important drive home" There was not other traffic on the road and plent of room for her to go around me. I yelled at her partly in fear and partly in rage "Hey watch out you A**hole, what's your f***** problem". She pulled out before she nailed me and kept on driving. I didn't get her tag number. But you know what?? If she is a regular. I'll see her again. It was too hilly to chase her down so I just tried to not think about it and headed home. Unbelievable!!!!!! What is going on in the mind of a person, who is obviously wealthy, educated (probably) and a licensed driver? I'd love to have stopped her and asked (nicely of course), just what she thought she was doing. I'll guess I'll never understand.

I will not be deterred. I plan on riding on Friday again (plans during the week prohibit Tuesday, Wed, Thurs.) I'll have my eyes open for more jerks. I'm considering having a shirt printed up that says something like...: "Hit me and I'll own you and everything you love, jerk".

All for now. I will say that it is nice to commute again.

bikeman

Yow! Scary ride home, bikeman! Be careful out there...

Overcast, "winter" morning - that means temperatures in the low-mid 20's Celcuis (I kid you not). What was the deal with all those buses this morning. I reckon at one stage I must have passed four of them in just 5km. That probably means nobody else will get a bus here all day! :eek:

Today is the first day of Bike Month and I plan on cycling to work as much as possible this month. As my commute is 52 km round trip, I haven't worked up to 4 or 5 days per week yet. Not as young as I used to be. But my goal this week is to cycle in every day. Especially with this week's forecast calling for sunshine every day. And temps reaching 29 C by Friday.

This morning left at 6:30, the sun was up, the wind was blowing in from the west northwest, very nice tailwind. Made it to work in one hour. Doing mostly 32 km/hr with relative ease. Felt awesome.

Much warmer on the way home, slight headwind, not too bad, was able to get up to 28 to 30 km/hr for some stretches.

Within less than 1 km from home, nearly encountered a nearly full cola cup with lid and straw that was thrown at me from a car passing by. Caught up to the car, slowed up by a bus, and gave the passenger a blast of words, teenager, who gave the look "like what's the big deal". I gave him a few more words. The car carried on past me. As I was nearing the intersection to make my right turn to home, I merged into the right turn lane from the bike lane (the bike lane ends and then either go into the through lane or enter the right turn lane) and a different vehicle begins to merge from my left and begins to force me off the road. I recall staring down at the front bumper inches from my left leg and the driver continued not allowing me to carry on. I swerved to not get under the front wheel and pulled in behind and nearly slammed into the rear bumper as the driver came to a sudden stop as there was the bus in front, which stopped at the red light and was also making a right turn. I pulled to the driver's side and hit the rear window and pulled up to the driver's window. It was slightly open and I gave the driver a few more words. She seemed to not care what she was doing.

I continued on, made my hand signal to turn right and started to make my right turn, and passed the first car of teens, the ones who threw the cup at me, and gave the passenger a little more talking to. He responds with..."It didn't hit you, so what's the big deal?" I responded with "Well, that's a stupid answer." And a few more choice words. As if missing me made it not so bad. As I carried on home, fuming, and thought, well if that cup had hit my front wheel, what would've happened? Nothing? Stupid nit.

So, my whole commute was great up until the last two minutes. I was annoyed at losing my cool, but not as annoyed as I used to be. I just thought how close I was to two dangerous moves by people in their cars. Trouble is, as I'm trying to get a few words out, attempting to do so in a nice manner, I'm trying to catch my breath. And I'm huffing and puffing and the driver is shrugging me off. And then I blow my chance at a learning opportunity. And say several choice words as I'm dumbfounded to see their stupified looks and their, so what's?

Just like Bikeman says, I'll never understand.

Will be another great day tomorrow. So, here's happy commuting. On the bike.

beautiful sunny day, rode the bridgestone, took the long way into work,

A lovely ride in to work. Slightly cool and cloudy. Rain in the forecast again for the rest of the week so no commuting for me. Used one of my new panniers. What a pleasure to just hook and unhook rather than lashing down my backpack with bungee cords. Can't believe how much weight I carry in my bag. Good practice for, hopefully, a tour some day.

Great ride this morning. Fairly clear with temps in the mid 50's. I felt a little better than yesterday but still decided to spin most of the way in, giving my legs a rest. I picked it up a little as I crossed a windy 14th street bridge and started to encounter other riders (the most I've seen, as I'm on the trail pretty early). It was cool, 3-5 of us zipping into the city and waiting for green lights, all branching off and going in seperate directions. Looks like rain will be rolling in this afternoon (big surprise) making for a wet ride home.

Hi Folks,

Antonius - Thats a real bummer to end your daily ride. Sometimes these thigs happen, and others do not think their actions were "a big deal". It is a case of them not understanding the vulnerablity of a cyclist whilst sat comfortably in a car. It is hard not to be infuriated.

My commutes are excellent at the moment. The new route is much more of a ride, and is pushing me more despite the slight (about 0.5 mile) shorter distance. Two things seem to help. Firstly the ride is much less interrupted by traffic lights and junctions, allowing me to set a continuous pace with no rest stops. Secondly there is a bit of hill to give a good helping of extra required effort. Average speed is beginning to increase already, but I have yet to establish benchmark figures. I'm hoping for somewhere around 19mph or better.... It is also a very attractive ride. Perhaps I'll be able to post some pictures soon.

Cheers,

Ed