I got to come in late today, yay! It was a nice, warm midmorning commute. I had time to stop for coffee (w00t), which put me in good position to go down a really big hill! I had to deal with a lot more car traffic than I do when I leave the house at 0500, which was interesting, but it went well. No close calls.

17 miles of rain in the morning, 17 miles of strong headwind going home. Coulda been worse, I guess..........

I had no desire to come into work today. I took my time and stopped a few times to adjust things on the new bike but still managed to show up early. WTH**********????

rain rain both ways yesterday. Nice and slow coming in today, kept it on the 36t ring.

21st Street is usually empty at 6:30 am, but not this week as all the car commuters looking to avoid the I-5 shutdown are filling up the surface arterials. There was an article in the Bee this morning about bike commuting increasing in the area with the double-whammy of $4 gas and the I-5 project. That and it's been an unusually cool May.

Yesterday afternoon riding up the MUP I looked over at the canyon to my right and saw something moving FAST up the the opposite ridge. Didn't look like a mountain biker (no paved road there, but there are some dirt trails) - then saw it was someone on a horse, going at a fast canter up the ridge. Looked like he was flying!

This morning it was cool and foggy. I've been steadily getting faster over the last week or two - last night I covered my 14 miles home in 1 hour flat. Feeling pretty smug!

Rode home late last night, around midnight. Riding through the city is great at that time. Just watch out for the cabs trolling for fairs. The warm weather brought out all types, the Manhattan Bridge bike path was full of drunks singing, homeless ****ting, people coming home from dates and bike messengers smoking doobies. Rain started in my last 2 miles or so, rained all night ending just in time for my am commute, love them fenders...

late night
 

Rode home late last night, around midnight. Riding through the city is great at that time. Just watch out for the cabs trolling for fairs. The warm weather brought out all types, the Manhattan Bridge bike path was full of drunks singing, homeless sh*tting, people coming home from dates and bike messengers smoking doobies. Rain started in my last 2 miles or so, rained all night ending just in time for my am commute, love them fenders...

Tell me about it. I ran out of the house this morning because I was running behind, slow rainy commute, I show up a half hour early somehow and say to my one other co-worker this morning..."man, are we the only ones in here?!?!?!"

off-topic rant...

I'd ridden into work the other day and walked across the street to the bike shop around lunchtime. I was looking for a different quill stem for the bike I carry my daughter on. The guy's asking me more questions than he needs to and then gets all in a snit and gives me some safety-nanny rant when he hears that she's riding in a front-mounted bike seat.

...blah, blah... I'm going to fall on her during my inevitable crash... stems weren't "made to do that"... etc. - as if noone's ever ridden on a handlebar before.

This was the only bike shop in town I could tolerate, but I think I'm done with them as well. Came back and ordered the stem online.

All Star on Falls... I probably won't be back.

Commute today = broke speed limit, traffic light laws, and door to door speed record.

Low traffic.

Where is Gus Riley ?
He started this thread 6 years and 25,000 posts ago.

You can't just start a thread and then ignore it :)

I was on my way home from school today when I noticed a car honking behind me. There was no one behind him and I waved him over to pass me in the other lane. He breezes by me with about 2 feet to spare then cuts in front of me. After a few hundred feet I see him pulling into some IT company parking lot. So I decided to catch up to him and give him a little VC education! After he circled the lot a few times trying to find a parking spot, he saw me and pulled over. I pulled up along side his door and he proceeded to yell at me "do you know you are not allowed to ride on the street?". I was pissed! I yelled back at him "do you know I have as much of a right to that lane as any motorcycle or scooter?!" He said "you can not drive non motor vehicles on the street". I replied back "where was a supposed to ride, there is no sidewalk. I have every right to that lane, and if you want to test me, I have my cell phone in my bag and we can call a police officer to the scene and I will file harrassment charges on you for using your horn in a non emergency and threatening manner and we will see who is right!" He said "I dont want to test you, and you may be right". My parting words were "when was the last time you had driver's education? When you were 16? Maybe 40 years ago that was what the law state, but its not like that anymore. Maybe you should know what you are talking about before you honk".

I felt so good after that. Dont people understand that if you are going to harrass someone to not do it where you can be confronted shortly after that? What if I had a gun and a temper? Well, I have the temper. Thank God I dont allow myself to own a gun. lol

Great commute this week. Today's not so fair weather here in Orange county (a little misting 'rain' and 62 degrees) trumped gas prices. Hardly any bikes on the train or during my ride.

Commute home was foggier than in the morning! Couldn't see 200 feet ahead, yet in patches where the fog broke it was a bright sunny day. Never seen anything like it.

I found $5 today!

No excuse to commute--I'm home grading exams. But I went out anyway to run errands, put in about 5 miles and discovered I forgot my lock so I just turned around and came home. :) But I still have to grade the exams. :(

Who says that commuting doesn't pay for itself :thumb:

Wet again this morning. After a record breaking dry May, June is already looking like it's going to be record-breaking wet...

http://www.smh.com.au/news/water-iss...258948976.html

Other than that, an uneventful ride.

Take care when confronting motorists, Jeremy - what if he had had a gun? That said, a bit of driver education can also be a good thing. Just try not to lose your cool!

I didn't find any money. Boo.

Got caught in some rain on the way home. (Surprise!!) Luckily it was light enough that the laptop didn't get wet, in spite of the 2 inch rip in the top of my backpack. Perhaps I will spring for some real panniers one of these days....

LBS says my husband's bike is ready to pick up! He's been looking very wistful at the idea of riding, but his bike's been hanging in the garage for more than 5 years and he was feeling shy about taking it in to get it tuned up :p. So I took it in for him as a birthday surprise.

I took the long way home… turned my 15 mile commute into a 36 miler. The weather was perfect. I spooked two deer that ran a hundred feet ahead of me for about a quarter mile… That was cool! Great commute!

The massive thunderstorm that was threatening my commute home, and which led to my very nice partner offering to put my bike in her car and give us both a ride, cleared up five minutes before I left. YAY!

It was a beautiful ride home, too...cloudy, humid, cool, and mellow. It took me half an hour to get home; not because of any real delay, just because I liked being out in the nice weather so I rode super-slow.

Not sure why, but that made me laugh out loud.
I save $4.40 every time I don't use public transit...

Yikes! Got caught in the hellacious thunderstorm that passed through this afternoon. According to the Weather Channel, local airports were recording 50-60mph blasts. I didn't get any of those, but it was pouring buckets and blowing pretty hard--motor traffic was slowed to a crawl.

Unfortunately, I also found that I had not put enough tension into the canti arms on this new bike--it's a bad feeling to have both levers bottom out on the bars at ~20mph while approaching a 4-way multi lane intersection in a violent thunderstorm. Sheesh! The look on my face was likely priceless!

But frankly I had some luck and got through it. Got off the main drag and snuck home safely. Problems fixed, lessons learned, and no harm done (but I'm not discounting my luck--in another situation I might have been seriously SOL).

Had a great ride this morning! As usual. ;) It was cloudy and a little windy, ncie enough for biking. Broke my speed record pretty good, almost 5 minutes off a ride that's been taking me 30 min usually. Sped past two cute little rabbits that seemed to not have had enough time to run so they just stood by the road and stared at me trying to look inconspicuous.

Today's going to be good. :thumb: