+1!

I finally rode in to work today, again on my Viscount fixie. My normal complaint is in effect, headwinds, and I think they were stronger today than on any previous day. Very strong. I'm getting used to it. I hope they don't lessen or shift much before I head home. They have a habit of doing that.

Had to dodge an overthrown football from a schoolbus stop it was bouncing back and forth across the road like an indecisive squirrel

My commute this morning, as usual takes me under the George Washington Bridge and right by the Little Red Lighthouse.


https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-l...2009.34.29.jpg


And a few minutes later, I pass through the intersection of Seaman Ave and Cumming St. :)


https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-5...2009.48.38.jpg

The B-tension spring popped out of the claw mount again this morning. Time for this RD to go back in the bin from whence it came, I think.

Weather here is getting hot already. Yesterday I did the long route to work (11 miles around) against a slight head wind. Around 70 degrees by 9:00. Go home and the wind from the north picked up, so I flew home at like record pace. Woke up this morning and the wind was howling. 25mph into my face all the way to work. I was low the whole ride. If I can get out of here soon enough today I'll take the long way home with the wind at my back.

*snicker*

On topic.

There is nothing nicer than riding home when everyone else is sound asleep. So peaceful.

Warm for the ride home last night. Some hanging out at the pool after helped though.

A nice tailwind coming in this morning made for a faster ride than normal. Most rides to work are around 16 - 16.5mph. Today I averaged 18. Funny how it felt like I was so much faster, but it was only about 1.5 mph difference. Maybe I should say I was 10% faster instead.

We have a cold front rolling through which is dropping the humidity and dropping the highs down to 80. Looking to be a nice Memorial Day Weekend here.

Actually saw 3 other cyclists this morning. I think that's a record.

Ride home yesterday was one of those that makes me wonder why I do this - cold, headwind, rainy. The lure of my favorite chicken salad waiting in the frig kept me going. A little warmer today, 48F but same wicked winds.

Well my attitude yesterday was that I wasn't going to ride into work today. Later that night I was changing my mind and my wife told me to just do it. So I woke up this morning feeling pretty good and thought to myself there is no way I am not riding in today. I finally remembered to raise my seat post about 3/4" and what a difference it made. I'm glad I took yesterday easy (total of about 10.5 miles) - my legs felt nice and refreshed (I'm sure raising the seatpost helped). Traffic sucked, but I knew it would based on when I left. I got and returned a one finger salute, so I got under the skin of a cager.....day complete as far as I am concerned.

I brought in donuts. I bought six, because that's about how many people I needed to serve and about how much space I had in my bag. The people at the donut shop will give you a funny look if you ask for six donuts. They didn't know that there were any numbers between 1 and 12.

Wow, what a contrast from what the traffic on the bridge looks like. You've got a nice place to ride.

Encounter with a wily squirrel
 

I'm immensely lucky that I get to ride along this path, and it is most of the length of my commute.

This morning, a squirrel crossed my path, but then once he was out of safety, he decided to head back to danger. He ended up entangled INSIDE MY REAR WHEEL. I felt him thump-thump-thump against my feet as he went by. I couldn't coast, as I'm riding my fixie again today. I took my feet out of the toe clips and stopped as quickly as I could. He was out of my wheel by the time I stopped. I went back to check on him. His front legs were folded under his body, and he was upright. A cyclist coming from the other direction stopped and looked at the squirrel with me. I told her what had happened. Then the squirrel, who must have been just stunned, got up and ran away, though a little wobbly. The cyclist said she saw a bit of blood on the squirrel's tail but she thought he was otherwise fine.

Went out to lunch and ugh...there is a stiff headwind in store for me on the ride home. Oh well...it will help burn off some of that pizza I had

I smoked a sparrow or some other birdie a few weeks ago. They always hang out by the side of the road and when they saw me coming took off, but one decided to go into the street instead of the other way. Got caught up in my front wheel and "BZZZZZTTT" :twitchy: Never had to clean feathers out of a front mech before...

Awesome except ... I took an alternate route that let me get into a bit of a time-trial mode but then I stopped off to buy some stuff before the last couple miles to the office and when I bent over to use the atm card thing this huge waterfall of sweat fell off my head for longer than it took me to swipe the card and punch in 4 digits. So that left me feeling a little awkward. But then it was back onto the bike into the headwind and everything cooled right back down!

It's not every day you get passed by a motor grader followed by a Nissan GTR, but today that definitely happened.

Very windy now, everyday is windy, by windy I mean 10-12 kmh or more. Is it just around here?
I'm getting used it little by little by still... I'd take a Wind free day once in a while.

Temp was cold this morning for the season at 5°c when I left home. A bit of rain on my way to work but not much.

Lovely beginning to the holiday weekend here on the beach. My usually busy intersections were completely free of traffic and there was a bit of a breeze to keep the temperature mild. Now the ride home, which will be filled with tourist traffic and high humidity, will be another story :rolleyes:

Yesterday afternoon there were 2 accidents on the interstate. This caused a lot of drivers to divert to secondary roads. Exiting our business park put me on one of those roads. This two lane road has no bike lane, but I managed to carefully roll past many cars on the shoulder and/or keep pace with them as they crept along. The shoulder is bordered by cut grass so worst case would be I'd have to swerve into that.

Later on I got to a side road where cars were really backed up trying to turn right onto the already clogged secondary road. One guy was apparently not happy with sitting in such traffic and blamed it all on me. "Dumb f*****g idiot!" I just laughed and kept going.

A cool - compared to most days this month - 56F this morning. A light tailwind breeze helped me add a couple of extra miles. Best of all - it's Friday and Memorial Day weekend - 3 days off!

well, as expected yesterday the ride home was super windy. my weather app recorded gusts to 45 mph. i still had fun and enjoyed myself. no commute today as I have to pick stuff up from the dry cleaners and am certainly not set up to carry a comforter, sport jacket and dress all the way home

Beautiful, albeit a bit cool, ride in this morning. (49F) Light winds and a nice sunrise helped as well. Glad to get one more commute before the monsoon season returns this weekend. The weather folks keep changing it up, but we are definitely supposed to get some heavy rain at some point Saturday and/or Sunday.

Mother nature seems to be getting back to "supposed to be" weather though still not up to 50F and a little chilly. The sun's back out and might reach 70 today. Aaaahhhhh! It's race weekend - happy Memorial Day to my American commuter buds

If we had 12 kmh winds here, I would call it a calm day!

I meant that Under 12 kmh I won't call it windy. but the weakest Wind I got this week was about 20-25 kmh.

my commutes this past week have been amazing. gorgeous weather. no rain. it has been a bit cold. other days windy. it doesn't bother me. it's better than taking the subway!

i had a chance to commute by bike to the doctor for an app't. but...between being bombed at work and then my doc taking too long, i didn't. i took a car/cab. it was so bizarre to be riding in a car.

augh. i would so rather be cycling if not for the shortage on time!

anyway. i had a close call this AM. i was riding alongside traffic when a car decided to mash into my lane without so much of a signal or anything. i was beyond ticked. i screamed because he nearly hit me, then i circled back. and i yelled, you have a damn mirror, use it! LOOK in the mirror beforehand, LOOK! then i rode away. the man, Asian 40s-50s just shrugged as if he did nothing wrong.

this same area 2 weeks earlier, i had someone do that to me purposefully - he (white male, 50s, short crewcut, big guy) drove into me and forced me into the oncoming lane (2 way street). i yelled of course ("I'M RIGHT HERE! STOP DRIVING!") but he did it anyway, to get ahead and make a left onto Fulton St. from Gold St. another cyclist who saw the whole thing and who was behind me (an older Asian man on a folder 50s) rode up to me and said i should go after him. of course i didn't. i'm not suicidal. when someone aggressively drives into a cyclist, you don't go flying after them. i filed it on closecalldatabase and i wrote to the councilmember and to the police.

so, am not pleased about these two close calls. but that area is a disaster zone. double parking everywhere. no crosswalks on Fulton so pedestrians jay walk. it's just an accident waiting to happen.

this is district 1 coming off the brooklyn bridge, just south, right around Pace University and the hospital.

haven't had any issues elsewhere. just this section.

I've been looking forward to todays ride all week; there was only a 40% chance of rain, and heck, this is California where it never rains. All was dry when I got up, and about 5 minutes before I was ready to push off, my wife tells me it was raining. Sure enough, it was coming down pretty hard. I gambled and won; the first 5 miles of my ride, it was pouring. Then, it turned into a light sprinkle. By mile 10, the rain was gone, and I was able to change out of my hot rain jacket, and put my vest back on. The rest of the ride was absolutely perfect. My shoes are currently in front of a small fan drying, and I'd imagine that my ride home will be beautiful. I look forward to riding over the 5 freeway today; on the eve of a holiday weekend, it's going to be jam packed with people trying to get out of town, or to San Diego. Thankfully I wont be sitting there with everyone else.

Today's commute was very wet here on Cape Cod, luckily going home will be dry and minimal wind looking forward to it.

One more full bike commuting week.
Participated in the Ride of Silence on Wednesday.