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!

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.

my typical inbetween solution is to wear a pair of regular heavy wool gloves bought from an army surplus store, and then pull on top of that my half-finger cycling gloves for padding.

I forgot to fill my water bottle yesterday. When I stopped at a convenience store for a bottle of water, the guy behind the register asked if I was "doing work", I think me meant road work. I was confised for a minute, then realized he probably had seen my superflash on blinking mode outside. Cool! We got a laugh out of that one.

I finally broke down and stopped at my LBS after that to replace the lousy brake pads a different LBS put on for me. It made enough of a difference to be worth the money; I can make the tires squeal if I brake hard enough now.

While I was there, I finally took picked up a handlebar mirror. I've been procrastinating gettign one, since I'm worried about dashboard real estate. And, and, and... when I got home, a box from bikesomewhere.com was waiting for me; new bike toys I ordered, including a helmet light. Cool!

A non-commute is news for me. I took a rain day today. We are in a flood advisory due to high winds (gusts to 40 knots) and high tides (we are at sea level or below). What a mess. So , shamefully, I am wimping out. Pretty much caught up at work and lots to do at home anyway. I would not blame any of you 0-Degree club members for not speaking to me.

Enjoy the radar capture! The "X" is my commute. Yuck....

As reported elsewhere cold this morning. Wore the balaclava because I still haven't got the neck gaiter back from the lendee. The 'clava has three problems: 1. If I wear it over my mouth, I have trouble breathing through the fabric and can't catch my breath. 2. Wearing it over my mouth fogs my glasses. 3. It's not as thick as my hat so my head/ears get cold. Obviously there's no solution to #3 (besides buying a thicker one or wearing another hat over it). Anyone got a solution to #1 and #2 besides not wearing it over my mouth?

I also saw another commuter on my route this morning. I caught up to him about a 1/4 mile from my building, and we had a nice chat. I didn't say this to him--I was out of breath from riding with the 'clava over my mouth--but he rides a little strangely (to my taste). Before I caught up to him, he rode in the bike lane for a couple hundred yards, then switched over to the jogging path/MUP that parallels the bike lane for no reason I could discern. Then he stopped where the path intersects a company's driveway, waited for all the cars on his left to pass (none of them were pulling into the building), and started up again. Yes, what he did was a lot safer than just riding thru (right hooks), but (IMO) if he'd been riding in the bike lane he wouldn't have had to stop at all--bikes in the BL are a lot more visible than ones on the path. If he rides that way for the entire road, he has to stop every couple hundred yards for about 2 miles!

Same as yesterday; maybe colder, but I was more pre-psyched so didn't feel it as much. Again, no wind, which is always nice. Forgot to look for Rainier.

Try exhaling downwards out of your mouth, it sometimes works for me.

Technically, it was warmer today by a degree but felt much, much colder with the dry wind. Legs felt better and I'm starting to look forward to race season.

I cut a hole the size of a nickel or quarter in mine for my mouth. I had the same problems before that.

Blow straight out when you exhale- this helps at stops too. I also wear ski goggles, and they have not fogged down to -3F so far. I wear an extra skull cap from Under Armor (sp?) that I got for Christmas. It seems to help keep my head warmer.

I did not ride in today, as I was running late.

Um...a possibly flood is definitely a legitimate excuse.

You KNOW that some hard-core person out there would still ride... and not understand why they are the only one out there... LOL

Actually I've been that guy before. It had rained all day before, and I set out the next morning only to find part of my usual route flooded. I fought my way through some woods and over a railroad track and continued. But I am terrified of deep, fast-moving water.