It was 4°F when I left home and -3°F when I got downtown this morning.

I was ok until about the last 3 miles, then my feet started to get cold. Not bad, but I was glad to get to work (how often do you say that?? :D).

Dang dang dang! I don't have studded tires for the new bike yet, and this morning the commute was coated in a fine sheet of frozen sleet. No way the Conti UltraGatorskins were going to work on that slickness!
Ended up driving in :( due to that, and the fact that my fiancee asked me to drop her off at work because she wasn't going to try driving her car in this stuff. (She's got a light, sporty little car w/ too much torque for its own good. Fun in the summer, sux on the ice.)
Gotta buy a pair of studdies once we move, because the new place is 600' higher than where we are now and gets much more snow/ice. Current place got about 0.25" of freezing sleet. New place got 2.5" of snow on top of some freezing sleet.

Not a good commute this morning. Pretty cold, but an extra layer kept the core temps good, and the hands didn't get uncomfortable till the very end; at least I had that part right.

No, it was the other road users this morning that caused my problems. First, taking the lane this morning approaching a right turn, I had a driver behind me honk repeatedly for me to move over. Of course I ignored him (the lane there is standard width, but it has a gutter pan and a kerb; no way am I going to ride to the right and let people think it's safe to share the lane). Eventually he passed me...only to get stuck right in front of me at the light. I was tempted to ride up beside him and say, "Was that worth it?" Instead I stayed behind him and watched him shake his head and have a conversation with himself, clearly about cyclists who don't get out of his way on the road.

Later in the commute I was nearly left-hooked at the entrance to my building's driveway. I turn right there; a guy I used to work with was turning left and turned at the same time I did. He scared the heck outta me, but apologized for it when we arrived at the building.

Yah, same here. Thankfully, there were no open areas on my commmute, so I didn't get knocked around too much.

Hadn't ridden this year until last Wednesday night due to flu followed by strepthroat, and had to use up '07 vacation days last week, so I haven't really commuted much yet - but it felt great to be back on the bike. We've had some crazy winds recently, but fairly warm - this week looks to be cooler, and last night and this morning we've had some snow again.

Good rides though, and I've decided to start chronicling my mileage/maintenance stuff in a spreadsheet so I know a bit more about my rides/bike health.

I picked up some neoprene Subzero gloves this weekend from Canadian Tire of all places ($20) and have had great success with them so far, and I know it's been pretty cold with windchill as I've had to don my goretex waterproof just to keep the wind/cold out at night - my hands have been fine, barring occasional fingertips being cold - they soon warm up though.

Barring a lever/caliper and rubber, I'm all ready for my Rob Roy group buy frame arrival - gagging to get going on that ride once it's built up - woo.

38F, calm, RH 100%. The NOAA website says that visibility is less than .25 miles, but that's an overstatement. There were times when you couldn't see to the end of the block.

14f, 10mph wind, 5 mile ride to work was still wonderful.

Should be almost 25f by the time I head home...that will be better than this am...it was quite chilly.

Cold! 20sF. Sunny (nice view of Rainier) and not windy, though. Cold thumbs, brrrr (gloves have some sort of clever design of different fabrics in different areas; dumb gloves)

I live in the North, so I got the push on the way in. Going home will suck big time.

Lovely day today - blue sky, sunny, warm. It's gong to be hot later, I think.

Uneventful commute, except for the pain from a stinking hangover. And here's a weird thing. When I drink too much, my knees ache. Not just when riding, I mean generally.

The felt pads inside my helmet are disintegrating. I wonder if I can get new ones.

Hmm, can't think of anything else. Enjoy your rides, everyone!

Beautiful warm day, so I decided to ride a few extra miles to a grocery store and pick up a couple things. On my way, a lady is parked in the bike path on a 4 lane 50mph road and she leaves her door wide open forcing me into the traffic lane. Luckily, I was clear, but I yelled at her to shut her damn door next time. Other than that, just peachy :)

Leaving from home this morning the GPS handlebar mount broke. Preparing to return home I found I had the battery and dionette tail light but not the custom adapter. I had to settle for the almost shot/dimming cateye sucker pop sized blinky (and it didn't face the right way on my backpack). I cranked my DIY halogen lights to full (lightbrain controlled). At 1 mile from home the BMS on the lithium pack cut out and my lights went out. Damn! Good news - no flat in sub-freezing temps.

great on the way to work. Warm, breezy tailwind helped a lot. The way home was crazy. Headwind hit 60 mph! I have to use an overpass over some tracks and walked the bike over because of the wind. I couldn't stay upright. My water froze, but I never felt cold. That was difficult to say the least.

Woohoo, temp. quadrupled on the way in this am. 1 degree when starting out, and 4 upon arrival. Not too windy, but windchill was below 0. Mississippi had steam/water vapor billowing up off of it---very cool sight! Nice commute.


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Another great day for a 26 mi RT commute. 50s in the am, 60s in the pm on the ride home. More of the same for the rest of the week, maybe a few degrees cooler. Doesn't get much better than this. Today was 2008 commute day #10.

Well, tonight on the way home I came off my bike, and sustained a serious injury...






... to my pride. Yes folks, I did the 'sprawl of shame' when I came to an unexpected dead stop, lost balance in a gust of wind and couldn't get unclipped in time. HOW EMBARASSING.

Note to self: tomorrow on the way in do a refresher course and unclip on the right at each stop. I usually unclip on the left, and clearly my right foot is getting rusty.

Hmmm, after examining my shoe I wonder if I in fact had a technical problem. The cleat had been rotated quite a way on the bottom of the shoe, even though the bolts were tight (I couldn't move it at all without loosening them, and I tried pretty hard). The rotation was in the direction you would expect if you tried to unclip but the cleat jammed in the pedal. So looking at it I wonder if I in fact that's what happened. I'll take a close look at the pedal before I go out tomorrow.

Bike computer said 3F degrees once. Nice clear sky. Some wisps of steam coming off 37-degree Lake Champlain.

I saw a total of one person on 5 miles of MUP. Some dude out walking his big furry dog.

great commute - about 24 when I left this morning. I definately need to get better gloves because my hands were in pain by the time I got to work. Looking forward to tomorrow - supposed wintery mix - freezing rain and snow - my first commute in the snow in NC!

Coldest ride yet, 24F when I left. I need a pair of in between gloves. I have half-finger gloves (not nearly enough) and fleece ski gloves (my hands were really sweaty). I also need to make some ear warmers. I made some for my mom & her boyfriend out of recycled felted sweaters, they just slip over your helmet straps. I might make em tonight. Other than that I was fine. Wore tights, loose fitting capris over that, wool socks, thermal long sleeve shirt and my windbreaker. My skin was freezing cold when I changed but I didn't feel cold at all on the ride.

Another cold morning (24) but it didn't feel as chilly as the past few days. I think the humidity was lower because there was no frost anywhere, so that must have been the reason. My legs are tired after riding 5 days in a row, but I wanted to keep commuting while the weather is favorable. We are supposed to get a winter storm tonight and tomorrow -- which around here generally means sleet and freezing rain. I'm not going to ride in that and will take advantage of the weather to drive and restock my supplies at work, return dirty laundry, etc.

Someone in an SUV blew their horn at me on my ride home yesterday -- perhaps the first time that has happened in 9 months of bike commuting. Drivers are pretty courteous here, even though there aren't many bike lanes or greenways suitable for commuting.

Nice ride with a few moving road blocks (peds and slow moving cars), blocked intersections and lemming-like peds (one jaywalks, all jaywalk w/o looking). Had dinner w/ some college friends last night and they wondered at how I could ride a bike in this weather and in traffic. I thought about it this morning while lane splitting and lane jumping and came to the conclusion that they could ride to work too, just not like me.

Cold! Really cold! Well, it wasn't that cold, but colder than it has been for a little while [-16C or something]. I was going to throw on the pogies, but I got lazy. No frostbite on the ride in = I has teh winnar! :D

Rough commute today. As I was riding to work I realized that I am actually sick, and not just feeling a little under the weather. So I worked for an hour and came back home. On the plus side, I saw 14 deer this morning! Beautiful thing to see them all running through the fields like a herd. I try to be quiet and not scare them, but they are nervous animals (as they should be, I suppose)

24F / -4C today, though the sun was out finally and it made all of the snow laden trees rather pretty. I took the scenic but hilly way in today to maximize my winter gawking and rode past one empty pasture while a white retriever bounded out of a farmhouse and paced me and my bike for about 100 yards. He was well trained enough not to run out on the road and give chase, just content to bound through the snow alongside. That was neat.