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.

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.

Phew! For a minute there I thought you were recounting a new incident on top of the other one a day or so ago. Then I realised you were filling in the detail of the one we already knew about.

Those metal plates really suck. They use a lot of those here in Sydney too. They should be coated with some kind of high adhesion paint (kind of like paint with coarse sand mixed in). If such a thing exists.

I try not to have more than one crash per Week.

By law, they are supposed to inset those plates a certain way here, but they very rarely do.

I have seen coated plates here, but again, very rarely.

Most often they just plop them down and call it a day around these parts.

Weee-doggies! 46F/8C, wind and rain. Not the deluge we had overnight, and I didn't see anything like the water-rescues, road-closures, and downed trees reported around the area--though I did see a big chunk of a tree broken off that I'll have to steer around on my way home later. I did feel like I was tacking and pedaling upstream a good bit though.

Made me realize how quickly the nice Spring weather has gotten me spoiled.

Be careful out there, y'all...

Today is the sort of day I would normally drive -- it was raining when I got up with more showers and high winds in the forecast. However, I got totally shut out of riding over the weekend and needed a fix. I had family obligations that kept me from riding on Saturday, and it rained all freakin day on Sunday. Fortunately I still had my fenders on my bike due to all of the rainy weather last week, so I rode to work. I got lucky and didn't hit any showers but the roads were still wet the last half of my commute. The ride home should be fun, right into the wind with 30-40 mph winds expected.

Great ride in this morning it was sunny and a little cool and I felt quick on the bike. Looked at the forecast for the week and it looks pretty good, it looked like rain last week.

What a difference adjusting chain tension makes! My chain was a little loose yesterday and I adjusted it and it was running really smooth this morning.
Left the house at 705 and arrived at work at 730 or so, pretty quick ride for me.
5.5 miles

Yet Another Nice Day. 50F. No wind. Sunny. Saw some cyclists heading in the other direction.

Lots of flowering trees that smell nice.

The trees are amazing right now, the smells and the colors, everything is becoming more lush and green.

The storm yesterday blew sand clear across a section of the lakefront trail so everyone got a little cyclocross action this morning.

Nice short ride in this morning. I take the shorter route on interval mornings.

After work I will be taking my new salsa frame in to a LBS to have the cups pressed. I can't get them in any further with my worthless arm.

Kinda cold today, clear and light wind. At the bottom of a hill the road turns, it's an 18 inch gravel strewn shoulder at that point. Today a guy in a van tailgating a car in front of him at about 50 blows past me with about 6 inches to spare, laying on his horn. Real nice.

Very heavy traffic today, though I was travelling at my normal time. Wasn't able to get into the left turn lane so had to use lights, and even had to thread between traffic lane and right turn lane at another point. I hope this isn't a sign of things to come.

Don't you hate that?! When people know they can just barely squeeze through and for what? What is the point in speeding through, all you are doing is endangering people's lives.