Holy Cow! I'm glad you're ok. ???

I've been grazed, but never deliberately. You must have some bozos living in your area.

Keep after it! A few weeks back I was cut off by a driver that turned into me. I smacked into the rear corner of her vechicle and she kept going...she was too busy talking on her cell phone. At any rate, to my suprise, a sheriff saw the whole thing and pulled her over. I don't know if she got a ticket, but it was cool to see that a cop was actually around when you needed one.

Apollo :mad:

Today wasn't the best commuting experience I have had. On the way I my chain started skipping. 3/4ths of the way in I finally noticed that the inner plate on one of the links was beginning to work itself off the rivet. Fortunately, I made it to the office OK. I've left my car there so I was able to drive to a bike shop and get it fixed.

Then this afternoon I had two motorists pass me and immediately make right hand turns causing me to have to slow up. The first one was a lady in a camper. I pulled into the service station to discuss the situation with her but she wouldn't wind down the window. I think I finally convinced her that her made a mistake 'cause she looked apologetic and pointed to herself. The other guy had his window down so I just yelled at him as I went by. What is it with drivers that they can't wait 1-2 seconds until I'm past the side street?

SteveE

Well, this run of fine warm weather had to end sometime - and it was today.

Nearly had a moment at the bottom of my street when I braked, only to discover that I must have got a tiny amount of lube on the rim after cleaning the chain yesterday. Luckily it just wore off in time! That is a very good reason for NOT using a spray lube. I would not normally, but it was some stuff for motorbike chains left by someone else at work.

Hope you all have a good weekend,

Cheers,
Ed

It wouldn't be the week I've had without a Friday night flat. :( . Oh well, long weekend this weekend, I'm off to the Darling Downs for a few days. I think it's about time to piss off for a couple of days.

No rain this morning but the roads were still wet from rain last night. I though the ride was going slow but when I got to work I found that I made it in 1 hour exactly so I guess the ride was actually fast for my 18.5 miles. It's suppose to be a nice day, we'll see, it sure would be nice to ride in the sunshine without headwind. Have a great day and a great weekend, keep turning those cranks.

This morning I had planned to take it easy since I did 3 separate rides yesterday and felt tired when I woke up this moring. Wouldn't you know it, I set a PR by 1 second :). I also almost gagged when I inhaled a bug :(

BTW, you know your bike like is bright when bugs start flying into it. I had a couple different bugs fly right into the headlight this morning.

Daniel: I hope you're OK after being forced off of the road.

Zack

Had a good ride in this morning. The sun was out for the first time in a few days, so that helped a bit. I was up early and at work earlier than ever today. My legs are feeling the 6 straight days of riding, so I'm ready for a weekend off - I just have to get home tonite and then I'll be off the bike till monday morning (upon reading that over, it almost sounds as if I'm not enjoying commuting...which is not the case, but I do need a couple days off :) ).

This week was the "Commuter Challenge" (http://commuterchallenge.ca/) at work. I've logged 100km this week for my workplace. For some reason the challenge considers car pooling equal to cycling, so some people have 100's of km of driving, which annoys me a bit. However, I'm certainly not against car pooling, as it's better than each person driving individually. I just wish that they gave more weight to walking/cycling/etc. as opposed to driving. What do you all think?

I've also started to post a log of my cycling on my webpage. You can take a look at it if you want, at http://www.oxford.net/~davecope/outdoors/bikelog.htm As it says on the page, I mainly posted it for motivation, so I don't expect you all to rush over and take a look - it's not really that exciting!

Anyway, that's enough for today.

Darren

Finally, a beautiful morning here in waterlogged southern Ontario, though more rain is in the forecast.

It was a wonderful ride to work other than the idiot who almost cut me off. I had signalled to ride into the left turning lane, got ready to turn left, stopped for an oncoming car, noticed a van pull up beside me in the straight-through lane, and then noticed that he was also turning left right in front of me instead of pulling up behind me in the left turn lane and waiting his turn.

Looking forward to my ride home--the sun is still shining!

Man hot today --record setting temps in W, Washington. Great ride in though before it becomes too warm. I saw a great blue heron fishing in the stream, and was paced for a while by a giant dragonfly and later a Tiger Swallowtail. Then doing a bit extra on the trail I was passed by some sort of school outing of about 30 kids on bikes. Crazy!

The commute today sucked because I'm on call for the week starting today and I had to drive! Finally some sun and no bike!
I'll be bringing a road bike to work next week for some lunch time sprints. I've also come up with some working applications for a mountain bike that I want to try out next week. Might be bringing 2 bikes to work!

Rode in to work this AM with nice cool weather conditions. My chain started to act up again, so I guess I'll either replace it or see if I can get by with one less full link of chain. The guy at the bike shop yesterday said the pin was bent and I ought to pay attention of it. Guess he was right because the fix only lasted less than 25 miles.

Since it's Friday, I'll drive the car home for the weekend. Maybe next week I can do four full round-trips. This week I did three.

Chris couldn't spend one day without a bike.

He probably robbed his Grandmother and...well, nevermind.

:)

I have been commuting 2 or 3 days a week for a little more than a month now. Today was the first time I rode in two days in a row. Yesterdays ride home was really hard because of the strong headwinds so I thought I would be pretty tired today. This mornings ride was really good but all day I felt like my legs were a little tired. I thought the ride home would be tuff but I made it home in record time. My legs felt really good and I was flying (well at least for me). I came close to that 16mph avg I have been shooting for on my round trip. Maybe next week.

Fast ride in. I was able to draft behind a city truck that was doing about 26mph and the driver had all the lights timed. (Kids, don't try this at home.)

Thought that I might be stuck here until midnight but now it looks like I'll be out of here while the sun's still out. Sweet.

I had a bad experience earlier this week with a close call "brush off" from a lady that was wound just a bit too tight. Man alive!! I made her wait maybe 10 seconds and then she decided to cut it too close and almost brushed my left hip (definately on purpose). I was not to be deterred!!

I road again today (my commute is a bit over 30 miles round trip). Despite the traffic being very heavy on the way home I had a perfectly fantastic ride!! Slight downhill, slight tailwind at times and a couple of times kept up with traffic speeds (I love to do that:). Had a couple of good climbs too and felt great despite recovering from a twisted knee from 7 weeks ago. Man it feels great to be back in the commuting groove again!

Totally amazing run on Thursday. I had a GP Trainers' meeting at Cronton (near Widnes, about 15miles). Perfect weather (i.e. warm, not raining). Much more fun than my usual 5mile blast to work each way, good fast running on pleasant country roads each way. Got back feeling very good.

Then in the evening I went to the spin class at the gym. The instructor, Laura, was leaving and this was her last class. Usually 1h, she gave us 90m. Real party atmosphere, hard work but everyone had a great time.

Result: I felt sort of glowing all over all of Friday, and it's opnly just worn off now.

In two weeks I have a run out to Haydock which is about 25miles each way so I'm really looking forward to that.

Friday afternoon I rode home in a light rain. It was quite pleasant. It rained all weekend so I didn't ride a single mile :( (I know I could have gone out and rode in the rain but I didn't want to take my freshly cleaned bike out in it).

This morning I was ready to ride and had a great ride in. I shattered my old PR by over 30 seconds. I'm down to 24.37 for my 6.3 mile commute. I also did something a little different that was kind of fun. I only shifted the front chain ring. I kept the rear cassette on the 21-tooth sprocket and shifted up or down on the front as needed. It was a really fun ride!

Zack

Nice ride home friday, go a tough start this morning, I forgot to bring out the trash so that led to a late start, had three other stops along the way. I was tired and didn't feel like getting on the bike, I did get going and it turned out to be a very relaxing ride in, the sky was heavily clouded but no rain, there was no wind and the loaded bike just seemed to roll well. i finished my 18.5 miles in 1 hour and 5 min.

Hi folks,

Interesting idea Zack, I might try that "front shift only" technique for a change - finally I have succeeded in getting my front derralieur to run & shift properly without rubbing. I had to resort to bending the inner and outer plates carefully & suspect that it was out of shape from new.

Great commute this morning - recovery ride from yesterday's 40 miler which was too windy for words!

Cheers,

Ed

Mrfix - I've had so many days where you just don't really feel like riding but you do anyways and it turns out to be a great ride! One of the many benefits of habitual commuting! :D

I must be losing my mind - my wife and daughter are away, so today I opened the front door before leaving through the basement door so I could go around the front of the house and put the alarm on.....

......what happens? I sail away on my bike leaving our front door open! Thankfully I rememberd after about 30 mins, screeched to a halt and got a neighbor to close the door

my ride was nice - the trails are still quite soggy after another weekend of rain but incredibly enough the forecast for this week looks quite promising

Hi Folks, it's been a long time since I posted, I've just been out riding. My commutes the last number of weeks have been good but we sure have been short on warm weather. There have been very few days where I've been down to shorts and short sleeves. I've got a bike trip coming up in a couple of weeks, I sure hope this changes. The good thing is my bike mileage is up higher then it's been since 1989. I'm still taking the long way to and from work. It's good hearing from you all.
--Mark

Rode down to the beach this morning. Cup of coffee on the boardwalk is a nice way to start the day.

Yeah, I had company on my ride today! My cat, Leo (da timid Lion), went with me so he could have his cardiac ultrasound exam. Turns out I'm healthier than him, he has hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and will start medication tomorrow. He prefers to ride on the bike than in a car, that's my cat! Being a sturdy little fellow, 12.4lbs=5.6kg, he did add a couple minutes to my trip. It was rather dreary going in, but beautiful this evening.

Nice ride this morning (good to be back in short sleeves after my weekend away). Unfortunately this evening wasn't so nice as I had to dodge two blatant murder attempts. The Gold Coast motoring primate must surely be the stupidest species in existence.

Best day of the year so far, 60 degrees F sun shining, a 6 mph headwind, nice ride to work

Good ride in, but looks windy for the ride home.

Still getting used to having an 8 sp rear.

On the way home last night as I shifted, the front derailer somehow snagged the chain. It got pushed down and into the tire breaking the derailer and even managed to tweek the rim just enough that I had to call the wife for a ride home.

It finally clears up for a few days and I manage to goon up the bike. Looks like it'll be next week before I can ride again.

Good ride in - and it's also amusing to ride past the queues of cars on the ring-road - we have a very good, entirely separate bike path.

Same here though Chewa, it is getting very windy out there.

Cheers,

Ed

Fantastic ride this morning. Quite warm (65F or so) with a stunning mist, giving an unreal quality (e.g. the sun was streaking through the trees) to some of the farm houses and fields I passed. Too bad I didn't bring my camera; I just returned from a photography workshop, so I'm sure I could have used my newfound skills to make a beautiful photo. :)

It's good to be back on the bike after more than a week off.

Tim