+1
I don't think it is the best idea, I need to have all of my senses engaged in order to be the most aware.
No tunes for me just the sounds of the environment.

It's getting warmer again! I had to ditch the jacket for a long-sleeve jersey today. I fixed my brakes last night so I can stop again. :rolleyes:

There goes the excuse for biking past the office in the am.

Beautiful morning; over-dressed; lots of riders on the trail (yuck); extremely busy at work so finally reading this forum; leaving work in 10 minutes. Can't wait to get back on the trail! P.S. Love the video of lakeshore ride in Chicago.

My commute today was poopy! 40 mph winds--sustained--with gusts up to 55 and a brown sky. Half the time I was struggling in FIRST GEAR. :bang:

There's one in Upstate New York. I grew up a bit down the road from it.

My commute today was good. I rode through a snarly car jam in the morning and had a good quarter mile up Ridge from Granville (for those playing along in Chicago) all to myself. I was also early leaving the house, and there were fewer people getting into and out of cars, so while I didn't know the schedule of which blocks would be clear of parking, I did have better odds of not getting doored on my birthday.

Coming home was sad. I rode to the LBS (Uptown Bikes) to drop the new bike off for a 30-day checkup. Walking home was weird.

All these speeds are making me want a speedometer...
Nice ride home. Uneventful. Warn 23C. Not too bad winds.

Today was another wierd one! Went out to the bus stop to catch my connection ride to the trolley. As the bus rounded the corner there were already two bikes in the rack, with a friendly wave the bus drove by. This connection is important as it leaves me stranded 60 miles from home if I miss it.

I jumped on the bike and set out to the trolley station some 7 miles away. Much to my surprise I not only made the trolley, but I beat the bus.... Once on the trolley I was feeling pretty proud of my acomplishment till I suddenly noticed I had jumped on the wrong trolley (again)... With a quick departure I managed to get on the right trolley and made the connection with the train.

I elected to try a new route today (16 miles) from Fallbrook to Temecula. The route was totally hills. Not the fun short one's but the 7 miles of gradual grade that leaves to talking to road signs and fire hydrants.

Once in Temecula I came across some guys stealing gas which resulted in a call to 911, and a wait for the local cops....

All in a day!

Commute was great in the morning. I tried out a new route and I like it much better. I eliminated one big hill and the ride was so much smoother. The 7 mile commute to work only took 27 minutes.
Coming home was a little tougher. I had a slight head wind, about 15 mph. It was only in the mid 80s though. A lot more traffic though. It's also more uphill. It took 45 minutes. At one point in the ride there are three lanes. I'm in the far right lane, owning my lane. Some old jackass comes right up on my ass and lays on the horn and passes my by mere inches and then gives me the finger. Normally I have been just ignoring this kind of ignorant behavior. In this case though I was really pissed, so I returned the gesture. Then I caught up to him at the light. I pulled right up close next to his window, and I'm talking close. He was white as a ghost. He wasn't expecting that at all. He had his window down. I didn't say a word, but I stared right at him until the light turned green. He wouldn't even look me in the face.:p

Oh and on Tuesday a kid threw an empty soda can at me. I caught it after it bounced off of my face and I caught him at the light and politely tossed it right back into the bed of his truck. He couldn't have been more than 16 years old. I probably had 100lbs on the kid, and I could tell he was a little frightened.:D

I know that I ought to try and turn the other cheek, and I usually do. But on these two instances I was pretty mad and my anger got the better of me.

Not commuting tomorrow:cry:. We're going out of town. My daughter is turning 1 and we're having her birthday party in our home town (125 miles away) since all of our family lives there. I just want to get home quick so I can cash my check and beat the traffic out of town. I will definitely be resuming on Monday.

I have it on a medium-volume level in one ear. The other ear is uncovered. I can still hear every squeak and noise, but I like to hear some tunes in the background.

My route to work is fairly car-light, and yes I do pause it when I'm riding downtown or somewhere with heavy traffic/construction.

After 10 years of doing it on motorcycle and bicycle, it hasn't been a problem yet. Heck, I used to have to flip tape over on-route. lol

Just rounded out my first full week of commuting. It is a shade under 6 miles each way, and it really is pretty easy from a traffic standpoint. The ride to work in the morning is made somewhat difficult because for all intents and purposes i'm riding slightly uphill for the whole trip, but it is totally worth it because it is just enough of a slope to make the ride home easy and a ton of fun. and then there's the occasional d-bag driver to liven it up.

this morning, for example, I came to the fork in the road where i typically veer left. i signaled and had taken the lane quite well (if i do say so myself). That, however, didn't stop this little audi from zipping around me on my left then cutting back across to the right to veer the other direction. He not only almost took me down by clipping first my elbow on the way past and then my front wheel with his back bumper, he then just about hoppped the curb in the middle of the veer and nailed the car sitting at the stop sign. :mad:

Thought I'd see how fast i could ride in today- 13.04 miles in 42:43 = 18.3 mph. Not too shabby if I say so myself. If not for the annoying stoplights, I probably would have averaged 19. Most days I ride a fairly leisurely ~16 ish pace, but its nice to know I still have some speed in the legs.

Oh yea, I forgot to mention. On my ride home Tues, I hit 37 mph on a downhill stretch in a 25 mph speed zone-same thing happens every time I ride down that hill. This time though the white car following ~50 feet behind me turned out to be a cop. He passed me on the subsequent uphill and was looking at me as he passed. I was half hoping he would write me a speeding tickets, so I could get it framed. ...No such luck :-(

Perfect weather & temp this morning, hardly broke a sweat. I saw 2 bike commuters in the early part of my ride. Don't mean to sound like a stick in the mud, but neither of them had blinkies ... which I hate to see on dark roads. You could barely see either of them from behind. Some days I wish I had a stash of new blinky lights that I could hand out to riders without them. Anyway, the ride home will be warm and dry today. Can't wait. :)

I should add that a work mate of mine also rode in today. It's his first ever bike commute
and I am dang proud that he's joined me on the "your crazy" list.

Pretty pleasant (and short!) commuting week for me. Tues - Thurs mornings the temps dropped progressively by about 10-12*F each day--yesterday morning was about 46F/8C and was brisk for shorts and T-shirt (long sleeve Alert Shirt). Back to around 59/15 today, though.

A note for those just starting to commute: after having ridden all winter, a cool, crisp spring morning will just make you think, "Ahhh--after those icy, penetrating February rides, this is downright sweet!" :D

Ran over a squirrel this morning while riding through the parking lot as I got to work. First time that has happened. I was rounding a corner and didn't see the squirrel until I was right near it, and didn't have time to react. Stupid squirrel did the back-and-forth thing a couple times and then went right under my wheel. He kept running, so I guess he was OK.

The weather in NC has been fantastic this week. I've hardly broken a sweat riding to work, wearing arm and leg warmers but no vest.

Pretty sweet ride this morning. Temps in the upper 40sF, no wind, sunny. More people than normal out on the MUP, but not many cyclists. I passed one guy on a bike, and saw a "regular" riding the other way. We said g'morning to each other.

A striped cat leaped straight up out of the long grass/plants next to the MUP. I thought, "That was weird." Then when I got to the cat, I saw another white cat crouched in the grass. I guess the white cat scared the striped cat. :D

Beautiful ride this morning on the new brooks saddle.
I think I rode around the building three times before I wanted to come inside to start my day.
I also took a different route so I could get a climb in and add an extra mile or two.
There is a critical mass happening in Portland tonight and I think my girlfriend and I might join in.

Nah, I hate hearing about fellow cyclists having to bail or crash, especially in the bike lane. I don't experience schadenfreude when it comes to cylists. I forgot my computer at the office, yesterday, was nice to just ride out yesterday and this morning. Broke the wire on my sensor for my hardtail, don't think I'll replace it. :)

I was going to do it today, I really was. But, a couple of blocks from my house I heard a 'hiss' coming from the rear tire. Pulled a small shard of glass from the tire. Guess I'm picking up a patch kit over my lunch break today.

Interesting word usage, do you happen to subscribe to dictionary.com?
That was the word for yesterday, nice work.

Interesting ride this morning - legs felt really tired as I left the house. Seemed to shake it out pretty well over the first 15 minutes, and got to feeling pretty good despite a slight headwind for the first half. Cagers were generally kind, weather was perfect (as usual in the a.m. this time of year), and I started to feel good. At about the 40 minute point, I realized I was a bit ahead of my usual pace and had a chance to set a new PR for the commute (headwind notwithstanding...) So hammer down (for me, anyway), sweat dripping and blowing everywhere, and I managed to cross the finish line 2 minutes ahead of my previous PR - and that was set with a pretty good tailwind for the last half. Feels great to be seeing the progress...

Oh, my! I've always been curious to see if a cop would ticket a cyclist for speeding...
Nice commute this morning. Cool (14C). Cloudy cover. I didn't notice any wind. TheWeatherNetwork says 9km/h with me. I made the 10km in 35 min, though I took a 5 min photo break, so I made my best time to work yet. 20km/h = 12MPH avg.
Today is the fourth day this week I'm biking. 4 days in a row. I never did more than 2 before. I'm getting quite sore.
I also slid my seat forward an inch or so yesterday. I don't think I was sitting right. But now the angle is too high. Gotta fix that.
I'm gonna take my lunch break tightening my rear wheel spokes. The spokes are all lose and rubbing.

I saw two people biking next to each other yesterday and now today. I decided I hate when people do that.

Definitely would have been one for framing, though I imagine a bit bittersweet...

I had a lovely commute today...

Saw my first real life commuter today, very exciting :p . ...except he's riding on the sidewalk, I'm on the right lane in the street--taking my line or whatever it's called (two lanes going each way with a center left turn lane for either direction). The guy all of a sudden, just as I'm about to pass him, comes out onto the street without even looking almost hitting me! Then he yells at me to "watch it" as I'm passing him. Yeah..ok :lol: "Merging" into a street from a sidewalk without looking (or signaling), that's safe :lol:. Then about a half mile later I have this green Impala come up on me, as she's passing me she lays on the horn for a good two seconds scaring the **** out of me...and of course she's passing me about a foot away from me on my left. Using the ENTIRE left lane to pass is overrated, I suppose...:rolleyes:

Good old south FL commute :roflmao2:

Weather kind of sucked, too. 88F, humid, and got rained on for about a minute and a half...well that part felt good.