The temp was 28f degrees with a full moon when I left the house this morning. A neighbor of mine saw me leaving this am, and felt the need to tell me it is cold outside, when am I going to take the car? I did not answer such a question cause I do not know when I will take the car. I much prefer my bike. Other than that it was a very nice uneventful ride to work.

Warmer today but was misting and course didn't know a mile into the ride. Wind must of been out of the south east also. And had shifting issue's since I had the tire off last night. Kinda of a miserable ride!

Funny. Maybe it will be so cold that your neighbor's car won't start and you can wave as you ride by. :)

I did not expect the temperature drop yesterday. It was 60F coming to work and in the low 50s by 5pm. With that, the winds, and a lack of gloves, my hands were quite cold by the time I got home.

As bad as this morning's 48 degrees with light rain sounds, it wasn't all that horrible. My headlight battery was low as I forgot to charge it on Sunday. It lasted well enough until it got naturally light out. Gotta remember to charge it tonight though.

The time change coming this weekend will mean I probably won't need a headlight in the mornings again, at least not until December.

Hah, ya think! That's actually really impressive, that the tire didn't blow out. I want to know what kind it is!

47F, dark, rain, leaves... pucker factor 10

Still hurting from pulling a muscle in my ribcage this weekend.:rolleyes: Hard to twist and move plus cold and rainy today and tomorrow.. being a slacker and driving these three days. I hope and plan on riding another 30 miles by the end of the week so that I can get 4000 miles for the year by the end of October. :)

~45 degrees, dark, little to no wind. Nice ride, really. But...

When it gets colder and you have to put on what feels like a thousand pieces of gear to go ride in traffic in the dark (hoping you don't flat), commuting is a lot less fun. I was trying to think back to last year to remember at what point I stopped riding to work. I think ice on the road was the deciding factor, or temps below freezing. Those of you ride to work year-round, you certainly have my respect.

It was a $25 Giant S-R3 Flatguard. I purchased it in September of 2014 when I hit a piece of metal and put a big cut on my previous tire. I stopped by the LBC near my office and they said they've had fairly good luck with this rather inexpensive flat-resistant tire, so I decided to give it a try... and it wasn't a bad tire for the price. It had quite a few miles on it, so it was probably near the end of it's life anyway.

well dayam, that's amazing!

Consecutive commute #126 :

Thermometer said 46 degrees this morning which really isn't that bad, but when I opened the garage door I realized it was probably 99% humidity which made the chill go straight through me. My hands were pretty cold by the time I got to work even though I was wearing my full-fingered bike gloves. I survived though.

Was pedaling down the MUP in the dark when suddenly there was a "road closed" sign with a truck parked across the path. Apparently they were doing some utility maintenance and there was a manhole or something right there. No big deal. The path was only closed for about 100 feet and there was plenty of room to ride through the grass and go around.

What I wasn't prepared for was as I rolled through the grass was a small stump that had been cut off near ground level, but still had about 4" sticking up. Didn't see it in the dark. I hit it and came to a sudden stop. Thankfully I had unclipped before I rolled into the grass so I didn't go down, but I did slam my shin into my pedal as I was putting my foot down to catch myself. Ouch. Got a bruise from that one.

Thought sure I was going to have a flat front tire the way I hit that thing, but I made it the rest of the way to work and it was still holding air so I think I got off lucky.

0C/32F with a nice stiff tailwind. Had a few of those zen moments where I was cruising along at 30 km/h with no wind noise in my ears.

Is the wheel still true? I hit a cement block hard with my back wheel once; the tire was fine, but the wheel was way out of whack.

Yep, that was my other concern as I was riding my bike with low-spoke count wheels (20). Thankfully the wheel still spins dead true. Been pretty impressed with how well these wheels are holding up considering all the commuting duty they've seen coupled with the fact that I'm a clyde.

That would be funny, agreed.

My evening commute was remarkable because I very nearly collided head on with an SUV. I've been riding since bicycles were invented (almost) and days like today shock me back to the reality that even very seasoned cyclists need to always be vigilant. I was making a left turn at a busy intersection, thinking I was being extra safe by waiting for the single oncoming car when I actually had time to make my turn before it reached the intersection. So I waited and started my turn right after only to realize there was a black SUV with no lights right behind the first vehicle. It was very dark out at that time and only my headlight allowed me to see that vehicle and steer to right, avoiding a collision by the narrowest of margins.

I don't know what to take away from this. How can you avoid what you cannot see? I will certainly be pondering the question over the next few days. Oh and other than that my commute was enjoyable and a little warmer than normal.

I know how you feel..but you can't avoid what you can't see..as in don't worry about the stuff you can't control.. In this case though, your headlight did it's job and you saw the SUV and you didn't get hit. Because you planned ahead and used your lights you stayed in control of the situation..as they say 'Plan for the worst, hope for the best'.. :)

Rainy ride in, slight headwind, 59F / 15C. Warmer than I expected...funny thing about rain gear is how sweaty you can get. Kind of defeats the purpose I always think to myself.

Much better today with the wind was out the north west and light and the temp was in 50's. And figured out the derailler problem.. need to overall the whole setup back there. Guess for $40 not bad so may just do it. Supposed to be cold tomorrow not looking forward to it.

... and it's still raining. I scared the crap out of a poor runner this morning. Because of the rain, dark, and mup fully covered by leaves there were parts where I couldn't tell the trail from the gravel curb. So I was riding as close to the center as I could. Apparently I was over the center as a runner was coming the other way. I didn't see him until we crossed and he started screaming some unintelligible nonsense. We didn't really get that close but I can just imagine what was going through his mind as he sees my headlight getting closer to him. It happened so fast I didn't have a chance to say sorry, though I was laughing so hard I'm not sure I could have any way.

Consecutive commute #127 :

Today's ride to work turned out to be tougher than expected:

• For some reason I woke up with a stiff neck. Seriously, I'm now old enough to injure myself while sleeping?
• Got out the door late due to chatting with the family, so I was running a little behind.
• Got rolling down the road and realized I forgot to brush my teeth. Hopefully my cup of coffee will mask my breath.
• 39 degrees out, which was expected.
• 30+ mph steady headwind with gusts on top of that, which was expected.
• About halfway to work it started to rain, which wasn't expected. Probably shouldn't have worn shorts and should have taken a bike with fenders.
• Didn't see a broken beer bottle in the road until it was too late and I ran over the shards of glass. Was waiting for a flat to happen but thankfully I got lucky.
• A couple miles from work I started having some gastric distress which made the remainder of the ride, shall we say, a little more urgent.

Got to take the good days with the bad, I guess. :)

Stayed up too late watching the Royal's last night, so the commute this morning was a little rough. Once I got rolling was actually a pretty nice ride. Winds are supposed to get pretty strong this afternoon (head/cross wind), so the evening commute may be a little slow.

Which is why I don't wear true rain gear. A water resistant jacket is good enough, but at 59F, I probably wouldn't even wear that. Maybe a light weight long sleeve top and shorts.

@Insidious C., glad you got through that one okay. I saw a Jeep with no lights on Monday morning. And then driving last night I saw another car with no lights. I think they had both just pulled out of a well-lit shopping center parking lot, and thus didn't think about it.

I took a rain delay couple of hours off this morning. I had been up early for a morning run, showered, got ready to ride and saw it was raining pretty steadily. I could have ridden, or I could have awoken the wife for a ride. But I opted for choice C: go back to bed. An extra hour of sleeping to the sound of the rain meant I could ride in after it passed. It was quite nice! Although the favorable winds of Monday and Tuesday were now a bit more head wind like this morning. Oh well.

Wow, so we're finally drying out here around the Memphis area. Yesterday was my first bike ride of any kind since last Thursday. The rain started Friday afternoon, and didn't stop until sometime after midnight this morning. Over 100 hours of nearly non-stop rain or drizzle. It's been extremely dry around the area, we only had like 0.03" of rain for all of October up until Friday. So we needed the rain bad, but dang I hate when it goes on and on and on for that long.

So my ride to work and home yesterday was definitely wet, though it was never really more than just a light rain for short periods. Otherwise it was just drizzle/misting. Tried out my new Giro shoe covers, which I hope will help keep my feet warm into the 20's. But for a wet ride in the 50's they worked great also.

Less than a mile from home yesterday afternoon, an SUV passed me on a neighborhood street with some teen kid shouting something unintelligible out the window, with a smart phone in his hand. I assume he probably took a video or pic of me before they passed. I searched a few pertinent hashtags on Instagram shortly after I got home but didn't find anything.

I bet my commute was colder than yours :). -6C/21F. Brr. I was dressed warm enough, but barely - my fingers and toes were starting to get cold by the time I got to work. Nice commute that was soured a bit near the end by some close passes and one particularly unobservant driver.

I think I need to invest in a new front light. I was followed on a dark MUP by someone with a headlamp bright enough to cast my shadow in my own headlamp beam.