Calgary but not by the Fort. It was by the MaxBell Arena. Apparently it was another stiff. The news called it "human remains" so it sounds like it may have been there for a while. Its kinda scary as I ride by there almost every day. There are often peculiar smells in & around that area, I wonder if any of those were coming from .... ewww... never mind.

The "scene" was still secured on my way home. One of the officers said that the area will be closed till Friday.

Riding east to visit my wee one, I called out to a fellow cyclist "Have a good ride!" and instantly I heard, and felt the tone "Excuse me?!" and she was about to start yelling, I called back "I said, have a good ride - relax!" - I figure she thought I was saying "learn how to ride" or something.

She later caught me at a light and said "sorry about that man, you don't hear nice things too often". I chuckled with her, and we had a brief chat during the lights. I again wished her a good ride and went on my way. Funny story, but sad really.

Even though I feel a comeraderie / fellowship with cyclists, there's still a strain sometimes to even pick up a nice "Hello" at a stop light, it's too bad we're still stuck in our worlds too much sometimes (I'm guilty of this too at times).

Ride was good, got out east fairly quickly - warmer weather, but coping. Gotta saviour it while it lasts, really not looking forward to the cold at this point (even though I prefer it overall :p)

It's partly the wind. Makes it really difficult to hear what others are saying to you. Plus, when you're cycling on the roads, you're probably in a defensive mode by default, expecting nastiness and dumbness from everyone around you... have to, if you want to stay alive and unscratched. :(

80% humidity @ 70F. Sort of uncomfortable compared with the last few days. Nice ride though. I saw a whole pack of high school students riding the other way toward the school. It sort of improved my outlook for humanity. :p

Oh and I saw a big dead frog on the road. Eiw.

Brilliant weather. Clear, sunny, and just a bit humid. Mid-60s. The perfect summer morning. Shame there won't be many more like this. Fall comes too early.

Stupid driver day.

Riding down a main street got passed by a semi. He then slid into my lane and immeditely into a right turn lane giving me abot 1 foot of clearance behind his back bumper. Then he stopped at the red light. As I passed him on the left, I punched the door of his truck. The thin metal actually dented in. Had I punched harder, the dent would have stayed and he would have had to explain it to his dispatcher. too bad.

He yelled at me about riding on the (non-existent) sidewalk.

Beautiful morning. Actually it's quite dark at 5:30. All the cars that passed me (maybe 15-20) gave me the full lane. Guess it's easy to do with nobody else on the road :)

I wanted to be at work by six so I broke a sweat in the first 10 minutes of the ride. Made almost record time - and as it turns out I could have taken another 10 minutes to get here.

We met up with many JAM ******bags on the way in today. The more expensive the car, the worse they were - especially the Mercedes drivers. Wow. I'm glad I won't be riding in for a few days [vacation].

No ride in today--Mrs. Caloso had to be in the office early so I dropped her first, then the kids at daycare, then to my office. But I threw my bike in the back of the van and I'm hoping I'll have the opportunity to make up for it on the way home.

62 and heavy fog. A lot of cars didn't have their lights on. I could just imagine a head on happening to someone passing me because of reduced visibility and no lights.

A great ride in. It has been a week since I started riding again since my near 2mo. break. I slowly have been getting faster. It was fantastic conditions (90F/45%RH) allowing me to push myself for a 20.0mph average. My lungs still feel weak, a bit of gasping after bursts of speed. I'm looking forward to that going away, but at least its no longer painful to ride again.

Going home has been a different story. Yesterday it was 113F and was brutal, after 20min it really hits me and all I can think about it getting home to recover. Although it was beautiful with gigantic thunderheads all around, rain came about an hour after I got home and cooled it down to around 100F. Nice.

Al

apologies for not reading through the last 837 pages, i just opted to subscribe to this thread and will make my way through it eventually.

i'd like to share that i just started a new job, which means i am now responsible for providing clients with nutrition and hygiene type assistance (among other things). so i get paid to go shopping for supplies, but that means transporting them too. i don't drive, but i could access a car-share program or transit if need be. of course i commute by bike, so that is my preferred method. since there's a butcher shop and cheap veggie market (among many other things - i love my neighbourhood!) by my house, i will be shopping at the begining or end of the day, and transporting things to work.

which brings us to today: it was the first time using a pannier bag attached to the rack bag on my 3-speeder! i didn't carry a very heavy load because i wanted to see what it was like, and it was surprisingly easy! i could have carried way more if i brought my backpack too! yay me!

Not such a fun commute today. The weather was glorious, so it should have been great. However, I had a stinking hangover (too many Belgian beers last night) which wasn’t pleasant, especially the head throbbing when climbing the hills…

So I took it pretty easy. One part of the ride goes through a busy pedestrian area (it’s a shared bike / pedestrian path, so riding there is OK) which I often find the worst part of the ride. Anyway, this morning I’m riding through, going very slowly. I do take care around people walking, and with the throbbing head as well I’m literally going at a walking pace. I am going past someone walking, and there’s a guy walking towards me the other way. There’s plenty of room for him to move over a foot or so to give me room, but instead he doesn’t move, and deliberately shoulder barges me as he goes past. Like he actually makes point of walking into me, swinging his shoulder into mine quite hard. Very irritating indeed. No idea what his problem was.

Then later on, I get carved up by a blonde chick in a Maserati. That was quite funny actually; she pulled out without looking from the side of the road right in front of me; the road was clear the other direction so rather than hitting the brakes (I was moving fairly fast) I swung along side her, shouting out ‘whoooaa!’ as I went. She had her window wound down, and was rather surprised to suddenly have a cyclist alongside her shouting through her window – she went ‘oh f**’ and slammed on the brakes.

But with my head pounding, the final climb up through North Sydney put me in a whole world of pain…

Fine, uneventful ride. 69F with comparatively low humidity. Had a nice bright 3/4 moon as secondary lighting as I rode down some of the unlit streets...Wish I had more roads without streetlights. I find that I can see the road better without them (after my eyes have adjusted to the darkness).

Less traffic out today. I guess a lot of folks may have taken the day off to extend their 3 day weekend into 4 days.

Today was one of those days, but I still managed to ride to work. I've been out of town for three days, so that threw me off my regular schedule. Last night I went to install my Cygolite rechargeable light on my bike as the mornings have been getting pretty dark. That's when I noticed my rear tire was flat. That was odd because it wasn't flat a few hours earlier and I hadn't ridden the bike in 4 days.

I removed the tire and found a large hole right at one of the eyelets, and the tube had a dimple at that spot and all of the eyelets. My suspicion was that I caused the problem last week when trying to get the creaking noises out of my wheels, which are old Open Pros and prone to squeaking. While replacing the tape, I found a lot of oxidation around the eyelets inside the rim, so I cleaned it off and then put a drop of 3-in-1 oil on each eyelet, wiping off all the excess oil. Apparently enough oil was left that it seeped through the cloth rim tape and caused the rubber to fail in the tube. I wasn't aware that oil would do that. My suspicions were confirmed when I found the front tire flat this morning before going to work. I found the same sort of bulges in the tube at each eyelet, and the leak was from a large hole at one of the eyelets.

Long story short, I was running late today but was more fortunate than usual with the redlights, so got to work only about 5 minutes later than usual. There was a lot more traffic. It's surprising what a difference 5-10 minutes can make with the traffic congestion early in the morning. The kids have also returned to school, so the buses were out in force. I had to stop for one of them that was loading kids, and another one passed me before a traffic light and then moved to the right of the lane to prevent me from going around him.

Blew up at a jogger today at mile 8 out of 13 and felt bad about it. Second day in a row for this guy, looping out of his neighborhood into the bike lane, in the dark, running with traffic instead of against (and its a metro/suburb area so there are cars and trucks out there for the morning commute), no lights or reflectors, plugged in, doesn't look back to see my lights as he rounds the corner, and its an uphill (well, Indiana is flat, but it was inclined). Yesterday I went way around him and he never saw me. Today it was a squeeze play between me and several cars and I rang him 4 times with my bell without effect so I squeezed him too and yelled at him that he was killing me as I went by, which wasn't so great, despite his satisfying scream and startle as seen in my rearview. I imagining I'll keep seeing him so I'll have to stop and tell him what I was really thinking the next time, that he's not a vehicle and it would behoove him to reverse his route if he can't run on the sidewalk provided so that he can see traffic and get out of the way with less surprise.

Mid 50sF, overcast, tailwind. Pretty quick today. Squirrels are back! It's time to stock up on acorns for the winter, I guess. A flock of geese flew over me, heading easterly. As luck would have it, I came to a stop sign on the MUP at the same time as an older woman I've seen walking just about every summer day since I started commuting in '04. We always waved hi back and forth but today we chatted. She goes south for the winter, which explains why she disappears for months on end. :p She walks a LONG way, too. I've seen her anywhere along a 4-mile stretch of the MUP.

I just started commuting into Boston about 2 weeks ago and am really enjoying it. This morning i had a Great 8.7 mile ride going; traffic was lighter than normal and i was making great time, BUT I had to stop for a drawbridge of all things. Probably lost around 5 minutes. I still made it in my second best time ever, but today should have been a personal best. Of well, maybe next week.

First commute of the school year(I'm a teacher). Mid 60's this morning. I wore shorts and a t-shirt ... shivered for the first mile, but body heat kicked in and I had a nice ride. -- 10 mile commute.

Forgot: Sode a borrowed Giant ORC2. Pretty nice bike.

65 degrees and overcast. In fact, I was riding in the clouds during the high elevation portion of my commute.

slower than usual due to a sliiiight hangover. Almost got smacked by this chick pulling out of a parking lot, but she stopped short. I gave her front bumper a little love tap with my left foot as I passed by (and I can't say I didn't enjoy doing it, either)

Great weather today. 65 degree with no clouds. Beautiful sunrise over Lake Michigan.
Only problem was the wait of almost 20 minutes at the train crossing. Freight train was just standing there and blocking the crossing :mad:

Other than that, nothing eventful on my 30 mile commute this morning.

Wore a long sleeve jersey this morning for the first time in a long, long while. And it looks like I'm going to have to find my headlight soon, too. Other than that, terrific ride in.

I meant to take it easy this morning. But my legs felt good and I decided to punish myself a bit instead.

Super ride home. It was just one of those rides where all was right with the world. :) I rode behind 4 young guys (3 MTB one Road) until they stopped. Then it was just a fun ride home. I reeled in a woman with a messenger bag(!) and I imagined she was a new commuter riding home. She dropped to her lowest of the low gears and was spinning uphill at an impossibly slow speed but I felt like it would be mean to pass her and maybe discourage her. :o I wound up going a different way just so I didn't pass her.

Then I got home and my wife was drinking wine from this place:
http://www.redbicyclette.com/

Long weekend, too! Life is good. :beer: