After feeling like an abject failure yesterday, I rode today. 29F, wet snow, roads were wet, but clear. Good ride, if a bit slow.

Rode the elevator up to my office with the President of my company with my slushy bike in tow. It was fun. :)

I hope the roads are still clear on the way home.

Freezing rain, easy ride. First bike commute in weeks.

Forgive me forums for I have sinned. It has been 5 days since my last commute.

Granted it's because I haven't been working but it's been a relief because the weather has been less than favorable for cycling. But last night I was back on the bike for a little shorter commute, a round trip of 12 miles instead of the usual 21. I'm working at a different location for the next week or so.

I rode yesterday in some really bad (good? I'm a masochist) rain. See the attached Doppler from yesterday morning. People couldn't believe it, but I had my justification--as if I needed one--ready. "My wife bought me rain pants for Christmas. I HAD to try them out!" And let my say, they were great. Between them, my neoprene booties, and rain jacket, the only parts that got wet were my head, face, and hands. I like.

My goal each year is to not drive to work a single time. Last year I made it to December before driving. This year I only made it 3 days into January. :cry: I got up this morning and the wind was howling. The weather channel said gusts were up to 30 mph so I chickened out.

2nd day in a row of steady rain and high 30s temps.
Stopped at a light, I squeezed my hands into a fist and watched just nasty dirty water pour out of my gloves- rinsed them out in the sink at the gym and they were indeed foul. Need to get something more waterproof.

On the bright side, the rain is stopping and should be cleared out for the ride home.

Snow on the ground and sleet in the air! Not that bad, just a bit slower pace than usual, and some traffic backup at the end.

Wet, 50sF felt chilly but I wore shorts. Legs dry off faster than the pants or tights I would've worn. We're in the midst of what's supposed to be 6" of rain in 24 hours. Yesterday was just bad, wet eyeglasses and blinding headlights, this morning I finally broke out the $5 safety glasses to wear over my eyeglasses. They did the job exactly right, w/ dry glasses I could look w/ focused vision through the wet safety lenses, kinda like driving a car w/ a windshield. I had my helmet and baseball hat propped up higher than I like but that wasn't an issue today.

Also on day 2 of no kickstand commuting and I am continuing to hate it.

Very nice rides this week. It's been between 18 and 28*F every morning, and not a lot of snow. We did get some freezing rain this morning, so I had to watch it when walking out between the house and the garage, but once I got the studded tires under me, no problems.

I'm feeling pretty strong with the clear (not covered with snow or bumpy ice) pavement left over due to the melting of a week or two ago. Riding through the deep snow and slush and rutty ice was very draining.

Gave my poor legs a much needed break today. It looks like it might be riding in the rain tomorrow. Yuck.

Took it easy today with a semi-recovery spin. I wanted to wear my new team kit but I hadn't ordered a long sleeve jersey so I wore a long undershirt, armwarmers, s/s jersey, and windvest. Looked sharp but still was cold. I think if it's this cold tomorrow, I'll sacrifice fashion for warmth and wear a l/s jersey and wool undershirt.

46 degrees, barely any rain, and 7 miles of 18-20mph tail (or cross-tail) wind.

Heading back into it on the way home is not going to be fun.

Ugh, I need to get the back wheel on my other bike fixed - my backup bike doesn't have fenders. Slushy mess riding in and back. Probably doubled my riding time because I was trying not to go too fast and get wet.

Balmy this morning. Strong winds, gusts to ~30mph but they were at my back this morning so I had a fast fast fast commute in to work. Was only smattering rain at that point. YESTERDAY the winds almost knocked me over...they drove me to almost a standstill at one intersection and I quickly decided that the wind would push me over unless...I...kept...pe...da...ling. That and horrible headwind and rain in my face all the way home. I'm wearing an older pair of glasses for riding at this point. Should be interesting tonight since I'm not heading home until 8:00pm and that's when the weather may take a turn for the worse.

Rain today
 

It was a rainy day going and a rainy day leaving work. The temps were good though, middle 30s.
It was mostly an uneventful ride; all my gear kept me dry on the inside and it all dried out before I
left work. I only saw one road rage driver, but the road was wide, so it didn't affect me.

First commute ever today, ride in was chilly w/ light snow, but enjoyable! Ride home i was shweaty before i got back and found myself coasting more than i am used to by the second half of the trek. Overall a good experience, will try to keep it up when the roads are bearable for my 32 tires!

Just rode home in an icestorm...but it was okay. 32F

Rode in wearing several layers of clothes. It was about 35F in the morning. Rode home at it was mid 70's. I really enjoyed the ride though. Only my second day of commuting more than 5 miles.

Slow and windy. It felt like I was pushing through something thicker than air.

All of the folks wandering into my path of travel on the local MUP didn't help, either, because I kept having to slow down to give them enough time to notice me and step to the side. It was almost like they were trying to get hit.

On Wednesdays I don't have to be at work for any specific time (usually 10AM), so the wife gave me some errands to run in the heart of the French Quarter (she knows what would take me 15 minutes by bike would take her 2 hours down there - waiting in traffic, finding parking - maybe paying $15, walking to the errands, back to the car, unparking, waiting in traffic again, etc).

I ran the errands "Messenger Style" i.e., most direct line from place to place. There was contraflow, sidewalks, double-yellow, illegal U-turns, and bringing the bike inside banks, stores, post office. Nothing too fast, but hitting every gap without stopping. I even had another contraflow cyclist yell "thank you" to me for looking both ways before crossing the one way street on which he was going the wrong way.

This experience was so outside of my routine commute through The Quarter that it made me fall in love with cycling all over again. Having knock-down gorgeous weather never hurt either - sunny and 65F.

So I run all the errands, one of them TWICE because the store opened 20 minutes late, and wonder "How on Earth can they stand to bring their cars down here?" I was in love (with my road bike) all over again!

Then......The Evil Commute Home

35F/2C and clearing--damned nice after several gloomy, rainy, low-slung days. Much as I like it out there, I don't think I'm cut out for the Pacific Northwest (esp these days--sheesh!).

I wimped out of riding the past two days, but was back in the saddle today. Tuesday it rained all day with temps in the 40s F. Wednesday it freakishly warmed up to about 65 F at 6 am with light rain, but forecasters were calling for severe weather and high winds so I drove again. Good call. We had wind gusts over 60 mph throughout the area, and a line of heavy showers and wind came through right when I would have been cycling home.

Today was typical winter weather here, dry and chilly, so I was back on my bike. It felt nice, and I dressed perfectly so had barely a drop of sweat on me when I got to work. My bike, a classic steel lugged De Bernardi, is seeing its last days as a commuter. My new touring frame should arrive soon, and I'll eventually turn the DeBe into a SS/fixe.

Yesterday's ride home was miserable: moderate rain and cold temps, in addition, I had locked myself out and had to wait for my wife to come home and let me in (note to self: keep spare key in backpack).

This morning's ride was much nicer, temps in the mid 30's but it felt kinda balmy. I nice tail wind helped too, but, most puddles and wet spots were icy. I felt/heard the ice crackling under my wheels for most of the ride and the puddles had the consistency of slurpees. I was cautious, kept the speed down, stayed over-geared, and kept the rubber side down without problem. Should be blustery but warmer on the way home.

Nice ride home. Still a bit slower than last week but no problems from motorists this morning.

Everything seemed to go as smoothly for me as it does for JoeyBike, albeit, much slower and obeying most of the traffic control devices. :p

I had a nice ride in this morning 43F and not much wind. Got to try out my new Yellowjacket. It was great. I passed a skunk on the American River Trail. Fortunately it ignored me. :)

Icy, icy, icy this am. watched several riders go down hard. Let's hope it dries out before the ride home this evening..

Some days you just shouldn't get out of bed.

Since I didn't need to bring lunch today I decided to ride the new road bike. This meant transferring all my gear to a backpack. The good news is the ride was much faster than usual (despite the wind). The bad news: as I arrived and reached into my jersey pocket I realized I'd forgotten my locker keys. :(

OK, not the end of the world. My wife has today off, so I called her and asked her to bring the key in. Since BOTH keys were in the same pocket, I didn't bother to say, "Bring both keys." Sure enough, she came to the office with only one key. Sigh. OK, STILL not the end of the world--she brought the key to the locker where I keep my clothing, which is what I really needed.

I walked down to the locker room....and my lockers were unlocked anyway. Since you can't remove the keys unless the locker is locked, I'm assuming the fitness center people did one of their random confiscation runs again and didn't lock my lockers (we're not supposed to leave stuff overnight, but I'm alowed to because I'm the only 365-day commuter).

Itsjustb:

Yesterday's weather was incredible. Winds were terrible.


Today, back at it. About 40 F with a little bit of wind, but nothing like yesterday.
A decent ride, but I'm getting SLOW!

Thanks Kudzu! I just read tarwheel's report of 60-mph gusts. I didn't realize they got that high yesterday; now I'm glad I didn't ride.

I had to take a bus in to work yesterday; I missed my stop coming back because of power outages (couldn't see my landmarks at night). Had you tried to ride, I think you would have soon regretted the decision.

First ride with my new bike. I bought a 2007 Devinci Caribou (touring bike) to replace my 1970s Apollo Prestige. The apollo just didn't cut it for the commute (37 miles round trip), it would break down way too much. I now plan on converting the apollo into a single speed or fixed gear, I haven't decided yet.