Really nice weather today with sunshine and scattered clouds with temps in the 80's... it was soooo nice that I started my commute nearly 40 minutes earlier and was cycling on the beach-side at a snails pace, soaking in the rays. Reached the office with plenty of time to spare too!

Have been back to commuting on the bike this week, after more than a month off the bike due to funerals, illness and never-ending rain in the afternoons. We finally are seeing a little dry weather here in South Florida and have been cooling off this week with me leaving this morning with a 66 degree start to the day and a breeze from the north. It's nice to leave in the early morning twilight, and watch the sun come up off my right shoulder as I head north up the road to my work place. I was suffering some leg pain for a while when riding the bike, but have learned that the seat had moved and I was really stretching that left leg (on my recumbent the seat tends to migrate BACK away from the pedal) so once I paid attention to that, I'm feeling better and riding more. It's good to be back...

Tractor Tom in Okeechobee, FL

Almost the same report here. :-) But the ice on the roads was because St. Paul seems to love to clean their streets in sub-freezing temps. It was easy to avoid and most streets were warm enough to keep it liquid (this time), but it's irritating. :-)

And the last part of the commute, I was riding west, with the morning sky glow in my rear view mirror. It's the first morning I've made it to work before the sun actually rose.

One additional note: The "country" water fowl are starting to head south and overnight in the MN Valley Wildlife Nat'l Refuge. They can be distinguished from the locals in that they're spooked by cyclists and take flight, whereas the locals just ignore us and continue doing whatever they're doing.

Glad you're OK. Could have turned out much worse.

I've been commuting every day, but to busy to stop by here so I gave been playing catch up as far add the forum is concerned.

The weather is getting good... Really good. This morning was around forty degrees F when I rolled away from home. Perfect weather for a long sleeve tee or short sleeves and arm warmers, which was my choice this morning. Legs felt great once I got warmed up... I was trying to record my ride on Strava, which for some reason didn't record, which is too bad because I am pretty sure I would have set a new personal best on a couple segments of the MUP. Oh well, recorded or not, it was a wonderful ride in.

Had a close call/buzz with a plumbing company truck a couple days ago. Guy just passed way too close as he was gunning it. I
managed to get the plate number, so I have a letter drafted to the company's president, which I'll be mailing today too complain about bad driving on his employee's part.

Coldest day of the week. I'm very glad I have convertible gloves (go from fingerless to mittens). If it gets much colder, I'll need to start wearing my face mask. I didn't check the thermometer, but I imagine it was around 38-40F (3-5C).

-1C with a 21kph headwind, I should have put my shoe covers on as my feet started getting numb toward the end of the ride. About 2km into my ride I came across a guy on a mountain bike wearing shorts, he must have been cold. About 1km later he took the MUP and I stayed on the road, our paths intersected twice over the next 3km at MUP underpasses.

My gears are shifting very smoothly after I cleaned the housings last night. That little loop going into the rear derailleur was probably the culprit. During wet rides water can roll along the cable and freeze up inside. This cold weather has my cantilever brakes howling very loudly.

It has been my experience that you can cause problems by wearing shirts and pants that are too warm. The same is not true of gloves and boots.

Awesome commute today, ran 5 miles then rode 4.5 into work. Not really a bad day at work but an extremely eventful day at work that included a 911 call and by the time I rode home all that stress was just gone.

25 miles in heavy drizzle. Got soaked, yay.

Had my first good 'soakeroo' of the season. I had fun, except for dealing with all the wet stuff afterwards.

3.5 miles in steady rain ... 54 F ... cake walk

Well... damn.. there must be something in the rain. Or whatever that was on the ground that got wet and and splashed onto my chain (I assume salt water). Got on my chain and it started to rust within an hour. Same with my girls friend chain too.

Friday was the 100th day commuting for the year! That was my goal last year but I only made it to day 94. I got an early start this year because of the mild winter and easily made 100. My revised goal is 120 commutes, or about 1/2 of the working days in the year. I'm guessing I'll hit that number around Thanksgiving.

BTW, Friday morning was a beautiful clear sky and I had the pleasure of staring up at the crescent moon and Venus for just about the entire ride. Funny how it kept reminding me of the Soviet Flag!

A very nice warm morning at 66f (19c). It was one of those beautiful nights to have spent near a campfire, talking about anything and everything with good friends.

warm and wet .....

I had to bring my car to the mechanic as it needs a sticker and before it gets a sticker I need to know what needs to be fixed to make a decision to either sell it and get a new vehicle or fix it and stay the course. The good thing was I was able to bring my bike so I could ride from the mechanic's to work. The ride was only 6 miles and very flat, compared to my usual 10 and very hilly. Though I got to ride so all is good. I saw many people out walking this morning, usually I see very few people. What a difference in the localities.

Heat wave! 61F/16C with a blistering south (tail) wind. Not really looking forward to the ride home. Maybe I'll take the MUP. It's flat and slower so the wind won't bother me as much.

Heat wave indeed....I was positively comfortable riding in. Two close calls: one last night with a SUV just inches from my bumper...driver simply not looking forward but rather back and to the left. Then this morning I was side by side with a coity bus, I was in the bike lane and the bus pulled ahead...as we cleared an intersection a police car comes whipping through to make a left. Gave 'em the death stare (as far as I could and still feel like I would not create a problem for myself!).

Kudos, that's an accomplishment!

Today was cold again well about 48, but luckly I got some shoe covers this weekend, really it wasn't as cold as I was dressed but I needed to test all the gear out before its really cold. I am loving my commute and find a few ways to change it up but ~10-12 miles each way. With lights and traffic takes about 40-45mins.

The best "commutes" happend this weekend. I got my girlfriend a lovely blue trek 7.2 and she loves it! I could barely get her to go to the store and back a few weeks ago but this weekend we rode every day about 2-4 miles round trip for a beer run, saturday breakfast, and sunday night grocery shopping!

We got a slight reprieve from the near- or sub-freezing a.m. temperatures we've been having recently. Looked at the thermometer this morning and saw 6C/43F. Woohoo! shorts weather! Roads were dry (trails a bit damp) and almost no wind, so it was a great ride in.

My path converged with another, very fast, commuter on a hybrid running dual headlights and a nice bright blinky in the back. He started about 30 yards ahead of me, and I had to work hard to stay that 30 yards behind. I chased him for about 15 blocks, when suddenly I heard up ahead, "POPPSSSSSSSSSSSSSSHUPSHUPSHUPSHUPSHUPSHUP"...poor guy got a flat. I stopped to ask if he had a flat kit and yeah, he was fine, thanks for asking, and off I went on my merry way, a little slower. Bummer, I was having a lot of fun!

9C this morning, the first day in about 3 weeks that I've been able to wear shorts on the way into class. I wore a light wool sweater over my jersey. This afternoon is supposed to be 18C, so the ride home will be very nice. I'll have to try for the 40km route home if I get out of my afternoon lab early enough. I'm riding the mountain bike again this week trying to get ready for winter. I took an extended route in this morning that ended up being 28km. My legs were feeling pretty good this morning, I averaged 25kph and got up to 44kph on a final sprint from the light leading into campus.

I did some maintenance on my touring bike on the weekend. The rear v-brake bosses had no grease on them which would explain my sticky rear brake. I fixed a radial anomaly in my rear wheel that was causing pulsation in the rear brakes. But fixing that knocked my wheel dish out by 1/4". So I bought a dishing gauge and figured out how to dish a wheel. I ordered a spoke tensiometer online, so I'll be ready to start building my own wheels.

I was expecting to go on a long ride Sunday. But just one person showed up at the meeting spot. We ended up just riding along at 20kph for 30km which actually worked well to loosen up my legs.

Wet, since it has been raining all weekend, but the cloud cover keeps the temps very mild. It was mid 50s, and it had been down in the mid 40s the last couple weeks. I debated a long time about whether to carry my full rain gear, or just wear the water resistant layers. I compromised and wore the water resistant tights, which keep my legs nice and warm, but just carried my jacket with me for the ride home.

It's supposed to be raining pretty hard, with gusty winds this afternoon. That's unusual around here. More commonly, we just get a nice steady drizzle with little wind.

The weathers totally gone crazy these last few weeks with high temperatures (it's going to reach 90F/31 on Wednesday!) and long duration sunshine followed by brief and heavy storms. Also the humidity is through the roof (for Athens that is) never dropping below 40% which is very strange.

Because of the above, even when cycling during the early morning or late evening with a t-shirt and shorts, I end up getting soaked in perspiration making any trips longer than 15-20 miles very uncomfortable. This morning when I reached the office, my t-shirt was drenched and people were asking me if it had rained on my way there....

The bad thing is that the weather doesn't seem to be changing soon, so we're probably going to enter November (which is the rainy season for Athens) in the mid to high 80s!

Blissful tailwind for the ride in this morning. Made for an easy ride at a pretty good clip. :-)

Keeping an eye on my ear wheel's spokes. Found that a couple were VERY loose last Friday. Tightened them back up. Wheel still true, but I'm a bit disconcerted that those couple spokes had loosened themselves up so much. Besides that, I cleaned and oiled the chain and tweeted the position of one of my brake levers/hoods this morning before I hit the road.

Wet and windy in Portland tonight. Man it sure seems the wind F's with me everyday, in whatever direction I'm going. Always feel good when I get home though:thumb:

Drenched!

But my feet and shoes are bone dry, thanks to my new shoe covers. One of the best cycling gear purchases I've ever made!

Warm this morning. At about 4pm or so I'm chatting with some folks at work that share a corner office on the 31st floor, with a north view up Manhattan and an east view to the UN, and I see how dark it is getting. I do a quick exit and get on the bike to go home before it pours. I got caught in the rain but it was never too heavy. I don't usually ride in the rain so I didn't have any rain gear, but I did think to take a Capilene wicking undershirt and that kept me warm even when wet as the temps dropped. When I got into Brooklyn I thought about taking the subway but when I got close to the station the rain stopped so I kept going. It started coming down hard less than a mile from home. By then it didn't matter anyway.

A nice ride in at 50f (10c). 14 degrees F, cooler than yesterday. Too many cars yesterday going home, and some days are just like that.

had my first fall this morning. riding over a wooden bridge with wet leaves i started to fishtail and immediately went down onto my right side. luckily my pannier with my laptop is on the left side and it survived with no damage. no damage to the bike too it seems, just some bumps and bruises for me