Crummy day. It was 87 degrees and humid, and I think I must have been having some dehydration problems. I kept drinking all day, but was still thirsty when it was time to leave. I usually reserve my Camelback for my long weekend rides, but I filled it today, and by the time I got to work I had sucked out everything but the ice cubes. Drank another liter of water at work, and drank most of the contents of the refilled Camelback on the way home.
On the way home, it was cool and breezy, and pleasant, but I just felt like a sponge with no energy at all...

I'm reposting this tip just in case it's useful to anyone.

I have a thermos that fits in a bottle cage. I fill it with my morning coffee, since the other cage's bottle holds enough water for the morning ride.

Coming home in the PM on a day like today requires a lot more water.

First, I don't for get to pre-hydrate. Very, very important! Then I drink the water from the plastic bottle during the first part of the ride. About 15 minutes before I get home, I stop and open my thermos which now, instead of coffee, contains ice-cold water from the cooler at work.

Ice-cold spring water available near the end of a 95-degree, 75% humidity ride will, I promise, get you drunk.

RichC

I was sluggish on the ride home. I've been doing mucho miles recently and had a barn burner ride this a.m. It all caught up to me.

Still, I took a longer course home and managed a good hill climb.

Total: 25 miles.

Fully recovered today! The weather was cool and partly cloudy, no wind, and I went up hills in gears I couldn't touch yesterday on the flats. To make it all the sweeter, the UPS dude delivered my new E-Bay saddle 20 minutes before I planned to leave, so I was able to test it today. (Selle Italia women's Octavia, felt pretty good.)

On the way home, someone in a little parasail engine flew toward the highway I was on. I couldn't help thinking how, if I were in the car, it would have been a dot in the rear-view mirror a moment later. As it was, it crossed the road directly in front of me, couldn't have been more than 30 feet up, and looped around to go back the way I came over the field next to me. Fun to watch!

Inkwolf, sounds like a super ride.

Today was a down day for me. No bike-commuting. Still a little sore from all the miles and hills I've done of late.

I instead sat in traffic for a while. It was nice, however, to jam to CDs on the way in. I missed the afternoon giddiness of knowing I'd have an awesome ride home.

Looking forward to zooming in tomorrow though !!!

Some days you just don't have it. I was extremely tired.
1. I got distracted and ran up over the curb into someone's lawn. This has never happened before.
2. I dropped my water bottle in the street after taking a drink.
3. I stopped at a stop sign but when I did, tried to maintain balance and spun the handlebars around, causing a very awkward dismount.
All this in under 10 miles!
This was worse than the time someone gave me a dilaudid for a headache before one of my rides. Now there's a story.

Took the day off yesterday, from work and the bike. Today I had a great ride in to work, the air was a little heavy but I was able to maintain an average speed of 16 mph without breaking into a sweat. Took me a little over an hour to get here. We had hard rain last night so the roadside was full of junk. It's going to get hot this afternoon, I'm looking forward to the ride home.

Yesterday it was threatening rain all afternoon but it didn't actiually let go until after dark. So it was extraordinarily difficult riding home, air hard to breathe, hot, muggy, dangerous ozone. I may have to re-think this.

Funny thing. I rode the rain bike all week because of these constant threats of afternoon thunderstorms. Never actually got wet.

This morning I rode the Airborne and got wet twice going through huge puddles from last night's storm.

Cooler today, better air. It was still cloudy and humid this morning, though.

But it was a hell of a week to have done all five days.

(My ribs feel fine. The healing power of exercise.)

RichC

WOW! A real bad day at the coal mines! Next ride will be better, from here you can only go up!

Yesterday morning,I commuted home from work... Day was nice... Nicest part of it.... Three times in one day, motorists gave me a friendly honk and thumbs up... One was a truck driver, even.. More used to getting thumbs down.. Made me happy to know we have friends in the motoring world..

Ever have one of those commutes where you wonder where the traffic went? Well, today was one of those days. Wierd, the lack of traffic.

Overall, the 20 mile trek on the Trek 520 was pretty much the same as always -- excellent, fun and rewarding. I did have a bit of a close call with the classic cut-off-the-bike-lane-while-turning-right maneuver. The guy never saw me, and I have a strobe light in the front, a jacket that radiates energy and colorful helmet. And he had passed me just seconds before!!!

Nevertheless, the sixth sense we bike-commuters develop kicked in. I saw an infinitesimal twitch of the front wheels and I kicked in the brakes in plenty of time.

Arrived safe and sound. I dropped a few more pounds, to 218 (was 228 a couple weeks ago).

Wow, Andy, this must be bad driver week. I just about got hit head on yesterday morning. I was waiting to turn right when a guy in a utility van turned left, cutting the corner. He stopped a couple of feet in front of me. I was staring into his front grill. What's more crazy is the guy pulled around me, stared me down, and didn't even stop to apologize. A lady I work with was coming the opposite way and witnessed the whole thing. She stopped and asked "Was that as close as it looked?".

We were two miles from work. I beat her to work I was so angry!

This morning at 5am it was cool and damp, with a steady wind blowing at a 45 degree angle to the road (headwind.) It was a nice ride in.

The temperature climbed into the upper 90's, though, and everyone came into the store complaining about the heat. 45 minutes before heading for home, I bought a Gatorade and stuck it in the deep freeze. It was slush when I headed out.

The ride home wasn't as bad as I feared, though. The wind hadn't changed, and in addition to giving me a push, it made a refreshing cross breeze. The only bad part was on the initial uphill (I start my trip near a big climb, both directions) I had sweat pouring into my eyes and couldn't see.

Whoever started this thread deserves applause!

Looks like it was Gus Riley. Yay, Gus!

Mornin all, what a beautiful morning in new england, the weather is just about perfect, not too cool, not too warm, the air is still and the sky is clear. I took the long way to work, totalled 27 miles, I didn't see much for wildlife and all of the patches in the road seamed to smooth out over the weekend. I can't wait for the ride home.

Had a new one last week - a guy at a stop light yelled at me out the passenger window of his car "bicycles can go on a red light". His passenger translated that for me as I could not understand what he was saying. My reply was "Thanks, but I don't think the other cars at this light would agree with you.".

The guy was not nasty or anything. He actually had good intentions (unless he intended to run me down when the road went to a single lane a 100 yards up from us!).

I did my first night commute. I get off work at 11 pm last Sunday and it was dark (No moon to speak of).

I have a single LED light on the front and two blinkies on the rear.

I took off into the cool night. The urban part of my ride was great. No traffic, plenty of light. Not a bad ride at all.

I had one really dark run, through a city park. It was un-lit and a bit rough. No problems seeing, I just took it slow.

Then I was back into the urban areas. My rear wheel began rubbing against the brake. I tried to find the middle, and rode off. 2 miles later, I can hear that howl from the brake rubbing again. I adjust once again, but now losing hope.

Then, the bike trail takes me into the rural/farm areas. Let me tell you how spectacular the fireflies are at night. It is like flying through stars.

I made it home, but it was a long slow ride. I am not sure I will do a night ride again. Maybe with a full moon.

Oh, and my back wheel rubbing... ...broken axel and bent skewer. No wonder the ride was such work.

Here in Tokyo this morning it was as humid as hell and as it is the rainy season the clouds are always threatening. My bike and I (it deserves some credit too) ran into a headwind from the start which kind of slowed things down a bit but we still managed the 17 k at an average of 23.5 which is not too bad. A rather too close Near Door Experience (NDE) as this silly woman opened the taxi door ( which I adjusted to go around) and then ran straight into the middle of the road like the back seat was on fire. This I did not adjust to that well and missed her by a cigarette paper. Her satisfying scream of fear only reached me when I was quite a bit past her.

I shall remain at DEFCON 4 on the way home lest the same occurs.

I tend to deal with this by holding a consistent line wide enough to avoid suddenly opening car doors. My old commute ran through Surfers Paradise, which can be very scary during the tourist season.

Today I got the most beautiful sea-breeze in the world. Danm I love Queensland winters!

Another beautiful day in new england, warm and a little on the humid side. I rode in on a newly paved road this morning, not one bump or crack, it was a fast easy ride. It will be a hot ride home this evening but I can't wait, weather should be like this year round.

Commute was good. I had been away for a couple days. Last time I had ridden at all was Friday morning so I was a little anxious to get back on the Green Monster (my name for my Trek 520).

I had a minor almost-close-call today. I was at a right-turn yield and there was a line of cars waiting to make the turn. They were waiting for traffic to clear. Usually in this case I would wait in line as (a) there is little room to the right of the waiting cars and (b) I knew they'd be focused not on me but on the traffic flowing from their left.

But for some reason this morning I was a bonehead, and I squeezed my way along between the line of cars and the curb, up until the front of the line, stopping only when I reached the front -- plainly in view of the lead car. But ... I knew then and I know now that this person was focused on the traffic to the left. Not the brightly-colored biker to his right.

When the traffic cleared and the lead car proceeded with the right yield, he was startled -- I mean he jumped !!! -- when he saw me. We never got that close ... but it could've been close.

I suppose some in this forum would blame the driver had I been squished like a bug on that road. But then again, some people in this forum always blame drivers.

I caused this problem by pushing a limit, even though I was totally within my rights. I should have waited in line given the circumstances.

I won't do this again.

I've often heard Californians say this, citing the legality of lane-splitting in that state.

One wonders whether you might have been cited for unsafe passing, however.

In practical terms, one of the things I try to avoid is passing the same car over and over by virtue of lane-splitting (which is illegal in PA anyway). This tends to make drivers' blood boil, and I can understand why. Passing a bike is a severe challenge to the skill of the average driver, and making them do it multiple times is cruel.

RichC

Agreed on all counts. However, whether I could have been cited or not is, to me, incidental. I practiced unsafe cycling. The SUV could have squished me like a bug ... and I was the cause for this potential.

You could use the same argument about cycling generally if you wanted to take it to extremes.