Well lets see, 9 mi to work in 33min, in a shirt and shorts on a wondurful fall evening. Not bad. The ride home, I might have looked odd in the cap, mittens shorts and shorts. But since it was like high 30's or low 40's I sure didn't care.

Took Ol Blue (77 Schwinn Speedster) out with its new panniers and lights. Found rear Sturmey hub cog wobbly. Which caused brake rub and corresponding slowdown. No time to fix it at 5am. New pannier rubbed chain for about 2 miles till I realised my rack had lost a bolt and swung into tire. Flat tire.

All fixed at work, hub re-adjusted and reoiled, tire patched....

The best part was finding a lawn PinkFlamingo roadside! That made everything all better watching the faces of drivers and the speedracers on the MUP with my new flamingo popping his big pink head out of my pannier....

Woohoo!

still riding kind of slow today on the way in. A little faster on the ride home with a stop in Cambridge to pick up my wife and then we did the ride home together. I have a stretch of flat 4 lane one-way street where it's always a challenge to get over and take the left lane to get the turn at the end. The fun way to do it is to spin like mad up to a pretty high speed and move right in with the traffic. Tonight a cabbie let me cross over in front of him (my cyclo read 28 mph) and at first I thought he was PO'd but instead he drove alongside me hooting his horn and yelling, "go, go, go!..."

Considering how out of it I've felt lately this was just the boost I needed. It lasted through the turn and then I was back to Mr. Slow:(

Hauled ass today having eaten a Clif bar with the coffee. Left the house 10 minutes late and got to work a couple minutes earlier then usual. Got quite the "WTF?" look from some girl in a car that I was riding parallel to, a few inches from the driver's side window, at 25mph or so before passing her. Love little things like that during the commute.

Been debating whether to drive in or not lately because the commute home is kinda affecting my after-work group ride in PP which has been brutal lately but realized that getting blocked in by the Holland Tunnel traffic while crossing Manhattan via Canal St. is just not worth the frustration. Nor is looking for parking on the way home.

Come to think of it, I've realized lately that, like a few people have already said, I've yet to regret riding in by bike. These days, every time I drive in (which is usually due to oversleeping) I regret it.

Starting to anticipate winter, as I slowly stock up on cold-weather gear, since last spring much of my winter stuff got shredded by EMS after a pretty bad crash on the last cold day of the year.

Heavy rain when I woke up this morning. I decided against the rain stopping me from commuting 5 out of 5 times this week. Had a great time.

Warm (low 70s) and humid this morning in Virginia. Worked up a good sweat coming in.

Commute in was uneventful with the exception of one @$sh0le that needed to swerve towards me and blow his horn when passing me. He had plenty of room to pass and no reason for the aggression. My commute has been without conflict like this for several weeks so I was genuinely startled by it.

That makes 3 days commuting (18 miles each way) this week which is a good week for me; the other two days I had to go down town. If I can figure a way to accomplish the longer (45 miles each way) trip from Bristow to DC I may be able to pull off a 5 day bike commuting week some time. Hmmm, sounds like a good goal to me ...

My ride was a blast. I caught a red light at which I pulled up slightly behind the dump truck and another lawn maintenance truck pulling a trailer. Light changed to green and I (not wanting to try to squeeze by) kept up. There was a bit of a hill and by the time we hit the lights at the bottom I saw 51 on the speedo (km). I WAS traffic. I was traveling at the exact same speed as everyone else :) I took a quick peek behind and there were a line of cars behind me - as well as the two trucks in front - just a bunch of vehicles moving at the same speed. And the best part is I didn't have to work hard, I guess they were pulling me (plus the hill).

The momentum helped me make it to the top of the next hill which is steeper than the one we just went down at a minimum (at the top) speed of 39km/h.

Saw one other commuter this morning. Stopped and wiping his glasses. Blew by at 40k+. Wish this guy would get a real blinkie. Looked like he had a 5 led $1.99 blinkie with weak batteries. I could hardly see it and I was looking for it (want to see what others are using).

Great ride, but the humidity is up there. Can't complain though, it's nice and warm out there.

I've had to drive the past couple of days because I needed my truck at work. It was good timing. Yesterday morning it was extremely foggy, which is rare around here, and it rained off and on all day with heavy downpours at times. Today is supposed to be more of the same. It has rained perhaps 1/4-inch here in the past three months as we are having a terrible drought, so everyone is happy to see the showers. Anyway, I can't believe my luck. Since I started bike commuting in April, I have only been caught in the rain twice. It's been so dry that I took the fenders off my bike because there was no point dragging them around.

Sweet ride this morning. Very humid. 66 degrees. In Vermont. On October 19th. Before sunrise. :eek:

It was so humid that the pavement was moist on the MUP and I saw 2 or 3 bicycle tracks. Saw a couple of other riders going opposite direction. Lots of geese in the lake, too.

Looks like a front is coming, and bringing thunderstorms for my ride home. I'll bolt on my Nashbar Faraday Cage. :D ;)

tgif

Warm and muggy this morning. Left about 15 minutes later than usual but, with the tailwind, I made up some of that time. This whole week I've been riding on the small ring and only 2 or 3 cogs as my entire drive train is in need of replacement. I just got the replacement 48 tooth ring and have had the chain/rr cassette for a month or so, I'm shooting to replace everything tonight or tomorrow. Everything is so worn that any pressure on the pedals will cause skipping in the front and rear, so rides have been slow with a lot more spinning than I'm used to. My Planet Bike battery is dying, I'm only getting about 1/2 an hour before the light goes, so as you can see the commuter needs a lot of love. I can't believe I rode a century a couple of weeks ago in this condition. Anyway, looks like rain on the ride home.

My wife did something similar last year. Snapped the body of the derailleur right in two! I have photos around here somewhere... Ah, here we go:
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/20/70...4cc41bb857.jpg
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/20/70...75c2e11b21.jpg
If you look closely, you can see the wadded up piece of paper jammed in the cogs, which may have caused the problem.

Oppostite commute for me today. Finally cool enough in Houston to arrive w/o sweat stains. 80 degrees, dry, sunny. Fixie is fixed and I smiled the whole way. only interacted with one car. I'm still smiling. Isn't life grand?

drm

Chilly and dark this morning, but I had the remedy! I finished my DIY quad-LED light last night. Even running at 350 mA, it completely crushes my wife's 10W halogen. Tee-hee! I can't wait to bump it up to 700 mA, or maybe even 1000 mA?!?!?! My mind is reeling...

Nice ride. Bumpy, lot of downed branches.

on my ride back into the office after my lunch break at home, I was passed by a buddy of mine riding with his girlfriend in their car, also coming back into downtown after having lunch. We stopped and chatted at a red light for a minute, and then when it turned green, they were like, "OK, see you later," expecting me to soon disappear into the distance in the rear view, but then I hopped on their bumper and tailed them full speed all the way through downtown, until they were stopped at a light in front of my office building. We chatted a bit more at that light, me a little out of breath but grinning ear to ear at their look of astonishment. It was a good feeling. :)

Wet this morning, was raining still a bit when I left, but the roads were already wet anyway. *sigh* another cleaning due this weekend ;)

Otherwise good ride, lots of traffic on King because of the Queen/Bathurst construction shutting that all down - the streetcars make it trickier for filtering along the wider vehicles, so I've been skipping onto the pavement here and there.

Took my car in for sevice this morning so only rode a mile each way to the office. Felt way to easy just riding a mile. No cycling clothes, no weather worries, no roads, just jumped on the bikepath. My normal 14 mile ride always requires some care and planning. It was a nice break.

what was I thinking? rode in with my rain jacket but didn't bring the pants or the shoe covers. got soaked to the skin by a warm but steady downpour on the way home.:(

Left the house with the roads wet but no rain. Half-way into the 9 mile commute, it started raining buckets. Could barely see the road at some points, although, being Fri night, was fun watching the bar crowds run for cover. Found myself with a huge grin the rest of the way as the weather was warm , and I really didn't mind being wet as I had a full change of clothes in the messenger bag which stayed dry.

Came into work completely drenched. This is my cue to get those waterproof shoe covers.

Bagged myself leaving my building. Rode hunched over all the way home. Still hurts.

actually had the day off but my wife was working in Cambridge so after a gorgeous road ride out in Concord- the foliage was spectacular and the weather super warm for October- I rode into Harvard Square to meet her for her ride home. they're tearing down the tents on the bike path from the Regatta so we had to be creative in our route choice on the ride home. Nice night for a ride.

wet

Dry commute here in Virginia. Getting a bit cooler - I'm using long-sleeve jersey and knee warmers. Toes got a bit chilly this morning.

Commute was good, but then again any commute that is executed safely is a good one in my book!

Replaced my entire drivetrain this weekend (everything was worn, chain skipping), what a difference! Smooth, quiet, fast, nice.... Didn't even get the notchieness I would ordinarily expect with a new chain. The funny thing is that I knew things were very worn and I chose to do this upgrade after riding a century a couple of weeks ago. Everything held up fine on the ride but it started skipping the following Monday, so I've been riding carefully, in my small ring, without standing or hammering. Other than that, legs were a little tight and the temp was a nice 58 degrees. Should be a warm ride home.

Cold: 2C. I dressed accordingly, but the head wind still made for a somewhat more difficult ride than usual. I'll get used to it I'm sure.