Back on the bike for the first time in a week! Loaded up and on the road to work just as it was getting light, about 57 degrees, but that darn wind (well a breeze actually) 10-11 mph, right on my nose. After a week off the bike, I could tell as I took off, legs were slow to warm, and I never did get up to my normal morning cruising speed. Light traffic, no long waits at the lights, got to work in 35 minutes or so. Looking forward to this afternoon when the wind will be at my back and I can get up in that 20+mph speed zone.....

Tractor Tom in Okeechobee, FL

-10C with a nice tailwind this morning. The temperature is supposed to drop in the afternoon.

On Tuesday afternoon's ride home I came across a senior who had slipped on some ice on the MUP while out for a walk. It took a while for it to register that it was a person laying across the path. I ended up having to call for an ambulance, and waited until they arrived. The two EMTs nearly fell over while walking over to us. It has not been a good year to be a pedestrian around here. The frequent freezing and thawing has left ice everywhere.

Good work taking care of the guy!

... and it is a hard-core cyclist who says that icy conditions are hard on the pedestrians ... but doesn't see a problem with cycling!

45F and rainy. The road whose closure diverted a massive flood of traffic onto my quiet backstreet of choice has finally opened, 4 months later, so I am going to check out tomorrow if that backstreet is peaceful again yet.

Had an older guy in a large truck (had formerly been a U-Haul) get behind me at a light. A few blocks later, when the bike lane started back up and he was able to pass, he gave me an enthusiastic thumbs up and a big grin. Not the finger I was expecting. Made my morning.

Warm, dark, rainy, and foggy. It will have to do.

I think I'm going to get a J & G bicycling poncho and see if that's more comfortable in warm rain than the jacket.

Today started day 4 commuting for me. Another beautiful morning in the low 40's.

Last night, wheeled bike out from my office building only to hear an all too familiar sound... spoke on front wheel popped. Weird though because I wasn't even on the bike yet. Who knows why it went just at that moment... Anyway, nursed it home in cold nasty rainy damp weather in the afternoon, and sure I had an appropriate spare front spoke around in my bike tools and parts, decided I'd just fix it this morning.

This morning, I find I actually didn't have a front spoke around. Ones for my rear wheel are too short. Luckily I realized my old rear wheel's non-drive side spokes are the right length. So I managed to cannibalize one from that wheel, install it on my front wheel, and true it up reasonably will with the brake pads. Running a little late at this point since the wheel repair took longer than anticipated, I emailed my boss real quick with my smartphone, telling a white lie that I had to fix a tire on my bike that had gone flat overnight and would be late. No harm no foul, right? Innocent white lie. Well, karma bit me. Got downstairs to my bike and now the front tire really does go flat, explosively so. I had managed to pinch the tube remounting the tire, and BAM! Threw on a new tube, remount the tire more carefully this time and finally I was off.

Adding insult to injury, I rode into a pretty gnarly headwind this morning. NWS says it was ten mph, gusting to twenty, but I think it was more like twenty occasionally relenting to ten.

In good news the ride was nice and sunny. And I now have a good source of future replacement spokes for the front wheel... Just need to finish disassembling the old rear wheel I had left lying around. I knew it would come in handy! :-)

Today was the first day I commuted to work since having fallen off the bike and banging my head up on Tuesday (posted about it in the Advocacy & Safety's helmet thread as well as in my blog). The doctor had told me not to ride if I still felt dizzy, but the dizziness had gone down so much that it was only occasional (and didn't happen at all during the ride... it seems only to happen now when I have to bend over to pick something up). Besides, I figured with only ~1mile commute I would be fine.

Air was cool (around 40*F, 14*C) with hardly any wind. This morning was going to be the first time I used my new Garmin Edge 305 with HRM & Cadence monitor, but apparently you have to hit the "Start/Stop" button (I thought just turning it on was enough, lol). I'll be able to test it out this afternoon on the return trip.

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Did a shake down run today with the Lezyne pannier lightly loaded. Everything was great granted it's 34F right now in the first week of Feb which is almost unheard of in MN.

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Tested out my homemade booties also, have electrical tape underneath with a old wool sock over.

My new commute is 16 miles round trip.

Been on the Honda VTX1300 motorcycle all week. Too many chores, lousy weather forecasts, and spouse working late to ride the commuter this week. This morning and tomorrow my son is taking his motorcycle licensing course and I have to get him there at 7:15 and the track is just south of where I work.
So, those are my excuses for this week!!

I've used that excuse: The weather's too lousy so I rode my motorcycle!

I'm sure it would have been nice, but sadly, I had to drop my wife's car off for an oil change early this morning. Even if I threw the bike in the car and planned to drive to work from the mechanic, I would've had to get there by 6:15 and they don't open that early... Drag. It's a pain when I get to work and a colleague says something like, "What, is it too cold for ya?". And what's worse is getting home and feeling cranky cause I didn't get in a workout. Suppose I could change the oil myself... That would solve a few probes, including the $32.00. Suppose I could put that money towards some nice egg beaters...

I rode to work all four days this week. My ride home today was early, just a couple of hours after my ride to work.

Funny how something as simple as an MRI can change your life. Yesterday's results show that I have a cratered rotator cuff in my left shoulder. There are three tears, surgery is likely. My employer has maintained its no "light duty" policy, and put me on medical leave. It will likely take me a couple of months to get to see a VA orthopedic doctor, more time before the surgery, then rehab time afterwards. For the foreseeable future, my bike commuting is over. At this point, I'm glad I ride recumbents. If I had to lean on the handlebar of an upright, I'd likely be off the bike for a while. As it is, I'll be riding, just not commuting.

Adios, amigos.

Cold and wet. 1C this morning, 2C this afternoon, and rain/snow all day.

Overcast and low temperatures (6 Celsius), but no commute since I've been under the weather all morning long; and having all public transportation on a 48 hour strike doesn't help either!

66 degrees and humid in Okeechobee, Florida this morning with a light breeze from the north. Got to work with a 16+ mph average (which is good considering the length of some of the traffic light waits) and an easy commute, but was soaking wet because of the humidity. Supposed to have thunder storms this afternoon, plus I need to stop and weigh in this afternoon. It may be a miserable ride home???

Tractor Tom in Okeechobee, FL

Altho I am a wimp when it comes to rain, I don't mind the cold (at least what we get in NC), so I've had no excuses not to ride lately. This was the consistently coldest week of winter here with lows in upper 20s and low 30s every morning, but it's been dry and not as windy as it has been most of the winter. So I've been racking up the miles and working on my longest continuous streak of commuting days -- 10 so far. That is nothing compared to some of you guys, but I generally drive 1-2 days/week due to rain, errands and other factors.

No commute today -- Day off! However I will take the ol' bike out for a while today, there's some shopping and errands I need to do. :thumb:

Another nice ride in, temps up in the mid 30's and above. That first crack of dawn is growing with each day.

Agreed. We've been having great winter commuting weather -- cold, but not real cold, and mostly dry.

Agreed with fellow DC area commuters... It's been a winter of good commuting weather and today was no exception. Lady night, too, for that matter, and that sunset was amazing. If I hadn't been in such a rush to get home, I would have stopped, fished out my phone, and snapped a photo, though I know it would not have truly captured the beauty of the colors and the clouds.

Have a great weekend everyone!

45F and wet.

Getting pretty tired of the sub-zero temperatures and gale force winds every day. What a horrible month! We had such a nice January, too.

Sorry to hear that Bud, but glad that you have the problem diagnosed and can go from there to start the recovery process.

Ride here was chilly (~40*F, ~14*C) with almost no wind. I was glad to be able to ride, period, considering the forecast called for rain (looks like I'll be riding back in it, unless I stay late to do some work at the office). I tested out my new Garmin Edge 305, which worked wonderfully, but also shows just how embarrassingly short my commute is (on the plus side, now that I know just how minimal it is, I can start adding other rides throughout the week to compensate).

My ride from the west was a little colder than the other DC commuters. High 20's on the way in (7:00 hour). But a mild winter overall, no doubt. This was my first commute in a week, always good to be back on the bike. Wish I could commute more, but the schedule doesn't always allow.

Sunny, 55 degrees at 7:00 AM. No wind for a change.
Rode and chatted with another commuter for a bit. That's a very rare thing around here.

Snow, 16 F, wind N 18 gusting to 29mph, about 3-4inches snow blowing and drifting. Most uncomfortable commute of the year so far.

That's bad news.

I hope things work out quicker than what you describe.

I'll miss seeing your posts in the mileage thread. When I see them, I usually go, "Damn that Bud Bent. He passed me again!"

Ouch.