32 Miles RT. Teaneck to Jersey City in NJ The trains from my place to my work place let bikes on after 7 pm so I wanted to ride in later (I can offset my hours at my will).

But you are right, there will be more commuting days !! And I would rather be cranky myself, than face a cranky wife :d

And yea, we work togather !!!!

Got a flat... i was too cold... still an awesome ride :)

Given up on those long back :p I just evolved myself to do without those :D

Recovery ride this morning. Nice slow and gorgeous ride in. Everything is green, the temps are decent, and my allergies have calmed down.

I plan on skipping the train ride back and instead riding 23 miles to where I parked my car at the trailhead. The only thing is that this will be the first time I have ridden in the area the motorist ran into me. I think I will be taking a different street.

Tomorrow is my endurance ride. This week's ride will be roughly 50 miles and then increasing by 10 each weekend.

So great to see you're back out there, DJ! :)

What a fabulous week of commuting, dry, 40s in the morning, 60s heading home at night, gas $3.60 a gallon. I love being able to ride my bikes to work.

I am happy to be back. I will be even happier when I finish my new salsa build. :)
Riding a mountain bike on my commutes is getting boring.

Fourth day riding this week. Another very nice day. Finally some descent weather. Had a big lunch so I hope I can stay awake for ride home.

a great ride in this morning. just an occasional drop of rain. stiff wind in my face and a bit cooler today.

a steady light rain on the ride home.

Needless to say the chillier air, the wind and the touch of rain chased all the fair weather bike pathers away. Had it pretty much to myself with an occasional hard-core runner.

some days i ride to work kinda chill, just taking my time and not really pushing too hard. other days i really fly and hit every green light and get my blood pumping.

yet no ride today. stuck on the subway, rain rain rain rain rain.

Awesome ride home. I guess this was my final recovery in a sense.
Meaning that I finally rode my normal route home and I forced myself to ride down the street I was hit on. Still alive and had a blast. 73F slightly windy and sunny. Just about perfect.

Way to be brave dataj.

My dad had six pins in his leg from a car blowing a red light. Six months before he could even walk without crutches. Pretty much hung up the bike after that and I can't blame him. He really loved bikes and cycling before that. He even bought a sweet replacement bike, but it just wasn't the same I guess.

I had a nice little ride home on my folder. First commute since installing the 52 tooth chain ring and I love it! So excited I posted it on the commuter pics thread. Perfect riding weather too, about 55 degrees F and sunny at 7:30 PM. Almost like Summer.

Crashed on the way in.

Hard.

Rode home real slow.

Chickened out on the 6th day so all up 354km off commuting, just couldn't drag my fat ass out of bed for anything this morning

Ride was just find yesterday! Wet, but at least I wasn't choking on the rain during this weeks weather event.

I use a Wald basket. Along with my work clothes, I had two 8" terracotta pots with strawberry plants, 3 packages, two slices of pizza, and my machete. It was a slower than normal ride home on a lazy rainy Friday, but it was ok :)

Well done DJ. Sounds awesome. Welcome back.

jwbnyc - sounds less good. Hope you're OK.

Had some good rides this week. My knees are aching slightly though. I wonder if I should go to a lower gear ratio on the SS, so I spin a bit more - a few of hills need a fair bit of pressure.

Today was the first time I booted a tire! And that didn't even prevent me from getting to work on time. Lately my commutes have been very eventful mechanically... A busted chain, a ruptured sidewall... What next? The frame snaps in half? Better start carrying some duct tape, so I can still make it to work on time. :D

Aw... What happened?

The ride in was awesome. It was crisp, it was cold, it was quiet, the sun was barely coming up, and I could have just kept on riding forever.

I probably should have, given the day I had at work.

The ride home helped me recover, though. It's hard to be frazzled when you're surrounded by budding trees and cute little birds and warm sun.

well done glad to hear it and the emphasis great news.

that is about how you need to do it, just face the fear and overcome, it is good to know you are back on the routes.

great visual ;) really proves how much difference the simple action of riding can be.

trombone,

Thanks for the thoughts. Made it through the weekend still riding but pretty banged up. The hard part has been getting a good deep breath because all the ribcage muscles on my left side are severely contused. To add insult to injury a coworker came barreling through a door just as I was passing and caught me right on the shoulder in such a way as to re-create (see below) the exact blow that did the damage in the first place. The person in question is a bit taller than I am. They unfortunately took quite a shot to the solar plexus. Apologies all around after he caught his breath but; I'm afraid I was thinking, "Well, I didn't really need that, now did I".

On another note, commuting SS is something I've wanted to do, but the hills put me off.

Great commute tonight. Just flew along; seemed like it was no effort.

Odd thing though; on Pyrmont bridge (MUP) some official looking guy in a safety vest yelled at me 'Oy! Five kilometres per hour, please sir!'

No idea what that was all about. 5kph (3.1mph) is almost insanely slow - like hard to balance slow. Very odd.

My fault. Raining cats and dogs, just fitted some Marathon Supremes to the LHT, had them pumped up to full pressure, really liking them, feeling a bit invulnerable with the 2" rubber - Monster Truck and all that.

I was negotiating some steel plates on a section of street under construction and took one of the plates at a slightly too oblique angle which of course ended up flipping the bike hard sideways. Put me into the steel plate shoulder first. I found out the hard way crashing a big heavy bike, with a big heavy mess bag on your back hurts way more than crashing a light bike with no load. It was a great commute up to that point.

On the upside, the bike was hardly damaged as I took most of the force involved on my shoulder and in turn my ribcage, just a bent brifter and some surface damage to the left corners of the front and rear racks.

In retrospect, running panniers might have lessened the damage to me and the bike. I don't always do that because I generally need to be able to carry the bike at the beginning and end of my commute and a fully loaded bike can be such a bear to do that with. Slightly lower tire pressure might have been prudent, given the conditions, as well. It's just that those Marathon Supremes roll along Sooo nicely when they are pumped all the way up.

Anyway, could have been much worse.

One final note, I think that my trying to accommodate car traffic was the main reason I had this accident.

Instead of just taking the road for about Fifty Feet and running those steel plates head on, I was noodling about trying to get small and out of the way. I won't be doing that in future. I'll be taking the road.