The warm weather brought out the crowds again, and yesterday I got to see a bunch of people I hadn't seen for a while. The ipod zombies, the my dog is walking me on the wrong side of the path, and oblivious rollerblader girl (she got extra points for staring intently at her phone while rollberblading with earbuds) were all out, as well as the I'm not riding in the ice and snow commuter (me).

True. An under appreciated benefit of the winter commute are the months of solitude and unimpeded riding. At times that can be mistaken for loneliness and the fight for survival when it's 10 below and the wind is howling. Every season certainly has it's pros and cons, as long as I'm on the bike I can handle it all.

ice and snow? we barely had any ice and snow this winter. hell, even calling this past season "winter" feels wrong. it was far and away the mildest "winter" in my three and a half decades of living in chicago.

Newest one was the Mommy in a cowboy hat on a wiggle board behind the baby on a big wheel had to smile at the unusual juxtaposition of human powered transports...been nobody but me and the crows on the MUP for the last few months, and they aren't good company...

That sounds very entertaining! Did you get a photo? If so, please post!

Rick / OCRR

Perhaps the saddest yesterday in the 73F record temperature was a guy on his roller skis. Unless he traveled, he couldn't have had real skis on his feet more than a handful of times this winter around here.

Oh, but the view is much better in the spring/summer!!

Yeah, that's the bad aspect of good weather. There were lots of those types in NYC in the last few days. Part of me says that it's good to have more people cycling, but part of me wants them back in the woodwork

Tucson will be coming up on its "winter" about the middle of May when it gets hot enough that nobody else wants to ride their bike.
This will continue until early October.

For the record, I'll miss the company on the bike path.

I hate the high schoolers who scream out there window at riders. Dumb @sses

Ignore. Their brains are not fully developed yet.

I enjoy the company on the MUP. Its nice to be around people who are also getting into shape. They add to the nice scenery too...

I get a lot of weird looks from people my age. One reason is that I am a clyde. The other is that I am only 18 and I take biking seriously, and I enjoy it. It is very, very hard to find people my age with the same interest in bikes as me. And this weather also causes a lot of people to hang out on the trail like it's a social hotspot to drink and smoke, which also irritates me.

The bugs were out today, I was surprised to see them already.

yeah, had that on last weekend's ride. Drove me nuts. But it has been warm this year and this is the second warm week in a row, so I realized it made sense.

Yes, I encountered quite a few of them on the ride home last night. With my face.

We hardly had a winter here in southern Michigan. We just went from fall to spring and now summer is here early. Yet oddly, after being so warm during the day we had a mixture of rain and golf ball sized hail last night. I think it it will be a long, muggy summer this year.

I like seeing MUPs and bike lanes packed; it means we need more!

Normally I would agree, but today the scenery was an old woman who decided to stop for a smoke where I was taking a break to enjoy the view, lol.

I am trying but it is hhhhaaaaardd

Here in Santa Monica we have the great beach bike path, but it's people like this that keep me off of it. Tourists who rented bikes, recumbent trikes, or even worse, Segways, going nowhere in particular and stopping on the path with no warning...the walkers and joggers who ignore the signs reading BIKES ONLY and the sidewalk right next to the path and veer onto the bike path...I almost never bother riding on there unless it's the middle of a weekday, or if it's cloudy out.

Yeah, I tend to avoid bike lanes during the warm months too for that reason too.

It's for all these reasons I prefer riding on streets than on pathways; it's just easier to deal with motor traffic than with foot traffic.

Not in Madison, WI, or many of the northern cities where winter cycling is the norm. There you get nods and waves of solidarity from the other winter warriors as you pass...but yeah, the warm weather does bring out the other folks that don't cycle safely, and those that have no idea that MUP/bike path etiquette exists.

Weird. I rode 46 miles of arterials and highways just tonight alone, and not a single iPod zombie, nor any of the others you listed. Just nice predictable auto traffic. I'm probably doing something wrong