Had to ride quickly to class to get on there on time! Also, made my best time, just under 30 min for a 10 mile ride Of course the dumb comes with the good and when I was parking, I coasted to the rack, swung my leg over the bike, caught the seat with my thigh and brought the whole thing down with me on my side... luckily I was in a busy walking area where everyone could see me. Glad no one missed that.

My commute was interesting today. I was about 10 miles into my commute and enjoying the weather when I hit a large pothole and my front wheel came off. I flew about 20 feet and rolled a couple of times on hard concrete. Two more feet and I would've ended up smacking a lamp post.
Luckily, my helmet and my backpack took most of the impact. My helmet is cracked right down the side and the entire front of my backpack is torn to shreds. I suffered a couple of sprained fingers and a sore shoulder. It hurts like hell but I'll live. Lessons learned:
1. always wear a helmet
2. always properly tighten the front wheel
I'll be back at it again as soon as I get a new bike. The old girl is all torn up. I was thinking of getting one of those SAAB folding bikes. Anybody know if they are any good?

Ouch! Your front quick-release must not have been tightened properly for the wheel to come off. Do you often remove the front wheel? Glad you weren't hurt any worse.

Thankfully, my commute today was pretty uneventful. It was chilly, mid-30s F, but that's mild for this time of year. Had a tailwind coming to work after fighting headwinds the past few days. Saw a great blue heron flying over one of the busiest streets in the city, during sunrise. That was a nice sight.

A little dusting on the hardpack/ice today... Kinda nice actually. One of the construction guys told me to "be careful on that thing" before I left. I smiled and said "I have studded tires" His jaw dropped in amazement and he called his buddy over to have a look with him. I'm not usually one for showing off, but it was kinda nice.
On the way home there was a 10inch snow bank in my path. It seems someone finally got around to plowing a little bit. I got a "HE** YEAH!!" from a guy in a car when I lifted the front wheel over it then shifted my weight forward to let the back wheel jump it. I got a little bit of air. I'm definatly thanful for toeclips. I would have lost it without them.

Welcome, Crotach! You must have a beautiful commute!

Mine was very pleasant. I actually left the house at a reasonable time to take a more pleasant and less direct route than I usually do in the mornings. The lovely weather seems to be holding: this morning was 43F with bright blue skies and no wind.

heh heh heh. I've only seen snow that bad once here. St Patty's Day in 98. The snow was over the hood of my car. Took me 3 hours to shovel the driveway. But we didn't have to call in the forces. We got moving in about half a day.

I remember that day - we called it the St. Patrick's Day Snow Massacre. My roomie had a 4x4, so we managed to get to a ski hill without sliding off the roads. It was ridiculous snorkel pow all day. When we got back to Calgary, everybody had snow forts in their front yards and were drinking heavily. Okay, that was mostly me drinking, but you get the idea.

The ride in was okay. Gusting winds out of the north pushed windchill down to -31C, and provided a vicious reminder that Ma Nature does in fact pwn me. I'm not riding home today, instead going to a bar and having some pints.

I haven't been here in a while.

It's my birthday, I commuted, I almost got run over by a school bus.
I have a real bright light. Ask my father. He was coming the other direction one morning and made the point of telling me about how bright it is. It was the first thing he said when I saw him one night. It's a mounted LED flashlight with 4 brightness modes and two flash modes. It's super bright and I have yet to outrun it's beam. Even on some serious downhill rides. I've also had some drivers flick their lights at me. I make sure it's point up just enough to see ahead but not blinding. Anyway I ramble.

I get to Kings Mountain High and the buses are pulling out to go get their cattle. As I was pedalling by I see a bus come up to the road to turn left, into my lane. I slow, the bus doesn't and makes a wide turn into the oncoming lane. I swerve left all the way over into oncoming traffic (no cars) and yell a few choice words as I flash a certain finger into the ladies window. I was with in inches of her bus. She glances slightly and then floors it to get in front of me. Happy Birthday to me. Oh, and I was also getting sick and barely made it to work without passing out. Happy Birthday again. Thank God, I'm driving home. I feel like crud.

Between substructure's tale and my own, I can only assume idiot drivers must be leaving their hibernation here in NC.

I worked from home today but ran some errands on the bike around lunchtime. First I had some morons in an SUV yell "SIDEWALK" at me as they drove by. I could see the driver looking back at me so I let him know I think he's #1, and then waved at them, asking them to come back. I got the bike up to ~28 mph trying to catch up to them, but they were too fast. Cowards.

Another guy yelled at me as he drove by about 2 miles later, but he was going the other way.

The topper came as I was leaving the shopping area. There's a poorly-designed intersection in front of the strip mall, where concrete barriers force left-turning traffic stay in the turn lanes. As I was about to pull into the turn lane two cars came the wrong way out of the barriers, nearly hitting me head-on and forcing all the traffic around me to stop.

I followed the two cars back into the parking lot. I waited next to the car of the first driver (she was on the phone--now there's a surprise) while she parked. Finally she rolled down her window. "Do you realize what you did back there?" I asked. "Yeah, the line [huh???] said I could go straight and by the time I noticed it was too late. I'm sorry."

Guess I should be happy with the apology, but it doesn't seem equal to nearly killing me.

Finished off the week with a 31 mi RT commute (#27 YTD). Perfect day, almost 70F when I left the building and headed home. First "no knee or leg warmers" commute ride this year. Have a great weekend, tomorrow is my rest day.

I was out last Sunday running an errand--lovely sunny warm day. Was riding along a three-lane (each side) divided thoroughfare approaching a light with additional turn lanes both right and left. I saw a guy approaching in the right-hand turn lane behind me, so I moved over to the right of the right-most straight through lane to approach the light's stop line. As the knucklehead passed me on the right, he said something to the effect of, "Supposed to be riding on the right side!"

Before I knew it, I replied quite audibly, "F**k you!" When I saw him looking back in his rear view mirror, I offered him, very clearly, a place to sit down (while reiterating and further emphasizing my earlier response).

It's bothered me all week. In retrospect, I should have simply indicated that I was going straight rather than flipping him off. Better to educate than infuriate.

But having things yelled gratuitously (and usually quite wrongly) at me gets really tiresome after a while. I'd like to think that I'm better than that, but...

Wonderful to read the great stories offered here. I will have to write something up for my next commute.

Gee, you guys must live in a bike heaven if things like things bother you for days on end. I can't say that Toronto drivers are particularly aggressive or nasty, but for me idiotic comments, and even more so idiotic actions by drivers, are just part of everyday riding. Ignore 'em, brush 'em off, go on. As long as it's not something very dangerous and very deliberate, which, thankfully, doesn't happen that often.

It's not so much the comments and actions themselves that bother me, but rather that they are an indicator of something else more widespread and fundamentally wrong. What bothered me in this case, though, was precisely that: I didn't 'ignore 'em, brush 'em off,' etc.

Not to worry. I'll live.

Wow, Nov 2006 was my last post. June 2007 was my last commute. That was not a good day. I had got my bike serviced a couple of weeks previously....the brakes were nice n tight. There's an incline on my commute where the road joins a main road (the N4 heading out of Dublin), I normally 'reward' myself after the incline with a good slug from my water bottle. So, I joined the N4 and was behind a slowish moving bus, and took my drink. The bus suddenly stopped. My free hand was my left hand so I jammed on the (front) brakes forgetting they were tighter now, and went over the handle bars. I hit the deck and heard my left collar bone snap.
Apart from town cycling, today was my first proper cycle since June. It's GREAT to be back. Can't wait to get back on for my 19km (12mls) commute home....it's the one nice thing about working nightshift, early morning Sunday with no traffic (and hopefully no rain...."soft Irish" rain included !!).

Lorcan.

Its the weekend so no commute but a nice ride, the weather perfect, not to bad a breeze a good run some great climbs and the excitement of numerous descents earned after the climbs.

Wow, a long break. Glad to hear you're healed and are ready to tackle your commute again. Have fun!!!

It has been snowing here and there for the past few weeks. My tire treads are completely useless on snow and ice. Luckily the snow from yesterday melted under the sun at around 11am so I went out for some fresh air on my bike. It's a busy day on the street, the streets near the malls are flooded with people, probably because of the long weekend, a very laid-back day nonetheless. On my way back I bought a few cartons of juice. This is when I really appreciate the capacity of my gigantic basket.

Absolutly sucked. It was all in a car due to a case of achilles tendonitis.

Sorry to hear about the achilles--that definitely bites.

Here it's cold this morning: 13 F with a 10-15 mph wind (riding into it, of course). Not really any colder than quite a few other mornings this winter, but after a week or so of exceptionally mild temps the sudden plunge back into seasonable weather was a bit of an adjustment. More in my head than anything really, I guess. Once I got going it was business as usual.

All in all, not too bad. It was about 16 degrees with a headwind when I left this morning. I wore 4 layers plus my skull cap and heavy gloves. Fortunately I packed my balaclave just in case, and stopped at the 7-11 on Mount Vernon to put it on. I went inside and assured the clerk that I wasn't about to rob him, I think he understood. The rest of the ride was fairly comfortable but I should have goggles over my eyes as my right one likes to freeze up in these temps. Should be a little more comfortable on the ride home.

Snow on the ground, rain in the air. Where the path hadn't been well plowed we had a 10-15cm of the wettest snow you could get. Absolutely sucked biking in that, using 32/34 downhill. Everywhere I had to cross streets the snowplows had placed big mounds of snow in my way. Fortunately I commute on a mtb and I ride XC/All mountain for fun so I could get across most of them. My commute was slowed to a crawl though. Not the best conditions and I just hope the thaw goes on long enough to get rid of the obstacles.

Chilly morning (28F) but fortunately the wind died down. Yesterday we had winds gusting from 40-50 mph and it would have been dangerous trying to ride. Needless to say, I stayed off my bike and went for a long walk instead. I did get in a fairly long ride (42 mi.) on Saturday, so the weekend wasn't a total bust.

COLD!!!! -5 F this morning and a nice headwind. Yuck.