Took the longer way to work yesterday (22 miles) along the lake. Left at 5 am and stopped by Dunken donuts, got a muffin, At the state boat launch stopped and ate my muffen, drank some coffee. Looked across the lake to the Islands and Vermont, watched the sun finish rising. the only thing better than that is being in Vermont, looking at the Adirondacks in NY.

Then on the other side of the city on a road they are working on, the flag man made the line of cars (maybe 6) wait for me as I got to him, going up hill. I felt sooo important.

Really was a great morning.

Today, I went to a different job. Away from the lake up in the foothills. Very hilly, 11 miles. All forest, no traffic, again a great way to start the day.

I love the first commute of the week. I spend all weekend pulling my daughter (and sometimes groceries) in the trailer, so when I unhook that thing on Sunday morning, I take off like a rocket! It's a great way to start the week.

Loving the early mornings and all the wildlife. Not so happy riding home when its 100 plus the last couple of days. Been wrapping ice cubes in a bandana and tying it around my neck. It helps ALOT! Don't know how you people in hot and humid areas do it...bleh!

GirlJen: So what panniers did you go for? Curious since my girlfriend is looking for some for her bike and isn't too sure she likes mine...too sack like apparently!

My wife was annoyed that raspberries I brought back from the farmer's market got a little squished in my pannier. Maybe this is the opening for a big dummy!!

I have Detours Uptown Tour panniers now. They're small, have little insulated lunch compartments inside, attach with great big zip ties, have pockets in front and on top...I personally don't like them as much as my old panniers (Detours B-49), which are bigger and more sack-like.

I use my remaining Detours B-49 pannier as a diaper bag on the weekends. It's awesome.

coldfeet CO2 Huh? I guess that gets you up to full pressure? My pump only seems to manage about 50 lbs, which is fine, but i ride on 90 lbs. How many fills can you get from a cartridge? What device do you recommend?

I've not really measured the pressure, but it got MTB slicks up to the point I didn't feel any need to pump. They claim 40 psi for a fat MTB, or 120 for a skinny road. I have used the type that takes non-threaded, cartridges, but the body of that is bulky, co-incidentally, I was just looking at the Planet Bike ones at MEC and decided to pick one up next time I'm in. They use the threaded type, and thus do not have the bulky body to worry about. It would normally take one cartridge to fill a tube, but any left over is kinda hard to preserve for another tube. Now you have made me think on this, I should maybe experiment to see how well they fill Big Apples? I noticed they take more pumps to fill with a floor pump. Fortunately, they seem pretty flat resistant. I carry a pump as well, because if you get it wrong and don't have spare bottles, you're basically SOL. It does mean that if it works as advertised, the flat only delays you enough that you can make it back up, instead of having to apologize for being late. When I get my Xtracycle/Big Dummy, I'll probably carry a road morph, and not worry about CO2. With the weather here being so freakin' changeable, and other factors, I have to carry a ridiculous amount of gear, so space planning is necessary with a regular bike and panniers.

Rode from my sister's house about 2.5 miles away yesterday, made it in 7 minutes! (running late is great motivation.)

I guess it's time to make jam!!! :love: I'll be ok if I never see an apple again in my life. I brought home a trailer full of windfalls and have apple butter, apple sauce and a happy accident, apple honey (cooked the jelly too long :o) coming out my ears!

If it helps you get the big dummy, great but in my case it would take a lot more than squished raspberries

coldfeet - thanks for the CO2 info. Looked at them at a bike shop today getting some bearing grease. I used to use the screw in cartridges for my SCUBA inflatable vest.

Changed my bearings and grease today. WooHoo! Can't wait to get her out on the road again to see just what magic is in store. I was able to feel a difference just walking it around to the front of the house. A little test spin showed everything is back in place and calipers are set good. Definitely need new wheels. These wheels that came with the used bike definitely have some wobble to them ...

While today wasn't a commute. I did take my first baby steps to getting back to commuting via bicycle. I took a short 3 mile ride in low gears. My knee handled it fine, course I didn't push at all and just keep spinning at a steady pace. I feel like I'm at about 70% so I still have a ways to go (ice works wonders by the way). It felt great getting on the bike and feeling the wind hit my face. I only have two more days before I see the doc, it's been hell waiting for this appointment.

I can't begin to explain to you all how hard it's been to stay off the bike. I get my fix by reading about you guys & gal's rides. Don't take any day you get to ride for granted, love it & enjoy it. Screw the cagers who honk at you, only we know what they're missing out on.

Peace!

the Wolf - You have surgery or something? I had knee surgery 11 years ago. I wouldn't want to go through that again. What a nuisance!

Amen!

Great commute this morning. Was following a guy going at a good pace, which kept me going. He jumped the red lights each time, so I had to sprint to catch him up once they went green. Managed it every time!

Beautiful weather though. Sunny, blue sky, cool but not too cold.

I need to take my bike in for a service. I think the headset is working loose. I don't know if it's the way I ride, but I had this problem on my old bike too.

No surgery bud, (at least i hope not) I just took on some type of knee injury about a month ago and have been off the bike since. It's been more of a nagging pain & also discomfort and grows as the day goes on.

It's feeling better but I know it's not ready for me to commute yet. I have an appointment to find out what the problem is on Tuesday. However, I just found out that a dang tropical storm is going hit Galveston/Houston Tuesday morning. I might have to reschedule.

Houston commuters, load up on the beer & nachos!

I got on my bike, warmed up for the two blocks to the bike path...and then opened it up! Huge gears! Intervals! I was trying to distance myself from work as quickly as possible; those people make me #@$%&*! crazy sometimes. So I went really fast, got tired, passed some people and continued to go fast even though I was tired, and got home.

I did a fast ride home tonight as well. Caught a lucky green right at the start by sprinting furiously for it, and just kept going. I felt like Cadel Evans!

Had a great ride. I kept up a fairly fast pace. Rode my 10.8 miles in 38:55. It was a perfect 68 degrees. Rode my new fixed gear again and loved it. After 5 days of riding it i'm pretty sure I won't be riding my geared bike to often. I currently have the fixed set up as 44 x 17 which works well. I might throw on a 18 cog just to make sure.

68F/20C and clear this morning. Quite nice.

I wasn't more than a mile in this morning when I strangely felt, "Man, I don't even feel like riding today." Usually when I get that feeling it's before I've started--then after a mile or so that feeling completely goes away. It still went away this morning, too, it was just unusual in its timing.

It's particularly strange given that I spent a good chunk of the weekend changing stems (10cm to 9), shifters, all cables of course, re-wrapping the bars, and swapping out the rear derailer and cassette (11-28 for an 11-30), and all this should have been grounds for expecting (and looking forward to) a nice-and-tight ride. Well, perhaps that's why the feeling went away--the bike is riding very sweet, indeed. :D

Hope everyone has a great riding week...

Man, I was tempted to sleep in this morning and drive to work. However, I sucked it up and rode to work -- and as usual, I'm glad I did. On days when I don't feel like riding, that feeling goes away after about the first couple minutes on the bike. It turned out to be a beautiful morning for riding, a little cooler and less humid than it's been lately, and I was very lucky with traffic lights. So I had great average speed, particularly considering that my legs were tired from riding 66 miles yesterday. It's supposed to be extremely hot in NC this week, with highs near 100 the next few days. I'm not looking forward to that.

Didn't cycle at all this weekend. Good Idea. I felt refreshed this morning. I hadn't had a day of rest in a while, so I had no recovery time the past couple weeks. But after lazing about this weekend I felt pretty good this morning. Little warm for the commute, but I didn't feel like I was working much.

Have to take a fairly large detour on the way home today, left my phone in my jeans pocket when I did laundry last night. D'OH

least I have the insurance.

I couldn't get my butt in gear this morning! But once I got on the road, I got a little boost of energy. That's a good thing, because the lights worked out in my favor; I hardly had to stop at all. I've noticed that it's darker in the morning, which is really pretty, but it tricks me into think I have more time than I actually do.

Woke up to thunder and lightning, and pouring rain this morning. Decided not to bike in. On my drive, I saw a few really impressive lightning bolts. First time in a long time I drove and DIDN'T think how much I'd rather be on the bike today! Supposed to rain again tomorrow, but hopefully we won't have the fireworks to go with it.

Beautiful, cool morning. I got an earlier start than usual and saw a lot of dog-walkers on the MUP. One guy had a lab on leash and parrot on his shoulders! That drew some stares. Not many bikers today and the auto traffic was light too. At one crosswalk, a driver stopped for me so I waved, and she waved back and smiled! That was nice.

Forgot my sunglasses on a day that the temp and humidity is perfect for gnats. Took one to the eye and caught a couple in my eyelashes. Fixed that issue and then was riding along and felt a bit of tickling inside my helmet. While riding I took my helmet off and found a wasp on the inside of it. My solution was to hang my helmet on the side of my drops letting the annoying bugger fly off when he felt like it.
I guess this was my tour de bugs.

Good trip down the greenway with my kids, but then we got detoured because of construction and I stopped paying attention to the cross streets. Ended up leaving the greenway at 16th instead of 26th, so my brilliant decision was to see if there was a good way up to 26th on the sidewalks.

There sort of is (the sidewalks on 19th are pretty deserted), but 6th Avenue itself is not a good place for sidewalk riding, no matter how careful. I was the very model of considerate commuting, but then I let some bozo snarling at me about how I was killing my kids get to me, and stopped to snarl back at him.

Other than that, it was a nice trip, in the 70s, and we saw the little red lighthouse, a big boat with a little tugboat helping it, and a lot of helicopters. I'm looking less forward to the trip home, when it'll be in the mid-80s.

High 40s but felt a lot warmer. I was thinking about adding a 9 mile out-and-back to my commute, esp. since I was running pretty early, but it was heavy mist and I didn't feel like facing the traffic on that detour (tending toward 50mph) in those conditions. Maybe it lunchtime. Supposed to be warm and sunny today ('seasonably warm' as the paper said, vs 'unseasonably hot' which it predicts for tomorrow)

So glad I live in southern CA and only have to tackle hills. Not very much wind/rain or bugs. This morning went well. Still on my once a week commute until I see how my body handles Pilates on the off days.

Lesson learned from last week: do not bring the computer home. It's down hill all the way, except for the last 15 mins of an hour ride. then it's all up hill and seems steeper than on the way in.

I think I've got the time to come in right...few cars and the people who are on the road tend to move into the left hand lane. Other riders still startle me (because they come up FAST), but I'm learning to listen for the "Stay right!". :)

This could become addicting....

Reasonably quick this morning. Light tailwind. I passed a couple of cyclists. Saw a couple more going the other way. It seemed like it might rain but it didn't. Now it's sunny. Might take the long way home (through woods/farmland/etc...)

:twitchy: Ick ick ick ick ick.

You always have the most interesting commutes!

Nice morning. Good legs, cool breeze, bright sunshine. A good way to start the week.