Had a Doctors appointment in San Diego this morning..Rainy.Left at 6:10 am..Got there at 9:25...64 miles total distance...That is 19 miles an hour..Can we ride our bikes at that speed.?..I know rain and Californians..Does not mix..But I think they do better in Minnesota in a snow storm? 64 miles took 1/3 tank of gas. Couple accidents...
Cars backed up so far..Can't see how ambulances could access the victims...W/o rain..Might have saved on hour? and wonder the cause of road rage...I felt a case of it coming on...At that rate, a 8 hour work day...Take almost as long to commute as actual work time .Where were all those people going..Does not work normally start like 8:30 am..? 9 oclock and still looked like peak of traffic.

One of my regular riding routes takes me on a bridge over a freeway. At six in the evening, I will be cruising across the bridge at a relaxed and happy 15 mph. Down below, twelve lanes of motor vehicles. Parked. Not moving. Drivers going nuts, or hunting through the glove box for their "medication".

And, looking down on those thousands of miserable souls, trapped in overheating cages, makes me feel kinda happy. Actually, REAL happy. Does that make me a bad person?

Some quick estimates.. I have always favored and chosen standard transmisson.Normally I do not so much as notice it..
BUt today...I would estimate of the 64 miles. Probably 30 miles of it was below 10 mph average..My point...Shifting actually got to me today... a 19 mph average is not normal , I hope...
But..I guess I would have to shift whenever the car traveled below about 8 mph..TO first...above 10 mph second gear...I bet I did not go over 10 mph for more than a 1/4 mile , during the worst 30 miles of travel.
So my estimate..that 30 miles. 1/4 mile at one set gear...that means in those 30 miles I probably shifted between first and second gear at least 120 times...Four times a mile times 30 miles. and probably much more...Much of that kind of driving and I might be persuaded away from standard transmisson.

Traffic is one of the main reasons I moved out of Atlanta Georgia. When I lived there, my solution to traffic was to move near where I worked and sometimes that didn't even help. At one of my jobs I had to travel a paltry 8 miles against traffic and it would frequently take over 40 minutes of stop and go bumper to bumper BS. And for some reason that defies science or logic the traffic would always be worse driving home. I used to get so pissed I'd have to pull over and find a pub somewhere. Everyone new my at that neighborhood Applebee's. I think I drank enough in just one year to buy a Giant OCR1 composite. I'm being 100% sersious. I never adapted to that traffic. It never got any better. It just grated on my nerves, kind of like rap music.

Whenever I hear people here in Indianapolis complain about traffic I just snicker and say, "yeah, right. Don't get out much do you?" They just have no idea how bad it can be. Next month we'll have the Indianapolis 500, which will bring in approximately 400,000 people for a single day. The entire month will bring in numerous out of towners, yet we won't have the kind of traffic I experienced in Atlanta.

Zealot I had to read both of your posts, a few times, to figure it out ... you took the CAR to your Dr's appointment. It was the avg. speed that threw me off, 19MPH. That's a bike speed, in a car you'd got a lot slower.

No Hinault...That was my cars' speed on the freeway. 19 mph..(64 miles divided by 3 1/4 hours travel time.).Hills not that bad on the freeway..Should I been able to ride on the freeway, I certainly could have kept up.. SOme of the confusion might have been an initial case of disbelief.
Had I been able to ride my bike on the freeway, the motorists would have been so mad, maybe I would have been hassled big time.

I grew up in Indy, then lived in Austin and New Orleans - now that's traffic. Moved back to Indy for a while and I felt like I had the road all to myself. I live in Pittsburgh now and it's bad just because of the topography. Doctor Morbius - where do you ride in Indy? We're coming back for a visit in May and I want to bring my road bike, but the roads are all quite different than when I lived there. What side of town do you live on?

I rarely drove a car when I lived in SD, but every time I did it absolutely grated my nerves. And if anything remotely resembling water fell from the skies, forget it; your commute time just tripled.

I understand that it doesn't rain much, but seriously, come on. I remember whenever a light mist would accumulate some mornings, I'd be guaranteed to see at least 1 flipped car on my 12 mile commute from UTC to Poway.

I feel your pain.

I live in Houston now (MUCH worse traffic), but luckily I only live 7 miles from work, and I go against traffic coming and going. Almost finished with my commuter bike, and then I won't have to worry about traffic at all.

[QUOTE=Orikal]I rarely drove a car when I lived in SD, but every time I did it absolutely grated my nerves. And if anything remotely resembling water fell from the skies, forget it; your commute time just tripled.

I understand that it doesn't rain much, but seriously, come on. I remember whenever a light mist would accumulate some mornings, I'd be guaranteed to see at least 1 flipped car on my 12 mile commute from UTC to Poway.

Orikal..you probably had to commute out the 52 to Poway. Unlike LA, San Diego does not have mulitple layers of freeways running in each direction..and to top it off...in the far out suburbs, there are no alternative surface roads..w/o the I-15 there would be no inland access to San Diego..
Last Tuesday in going to a doctors office, I tried...I paid for my adventure off the 15 seeking alternative routes.. Rancho Bernardo Blvd. was backed up like 2 miles to access back onto the freeway..Every time a cyclists passed me by, I was doubly enraged...Took about 20 minutes to get back on the freeway..
But, about the reasons for so much delay on rainy days..-misty most places.-the motorists are as impatient and rude as ever. I try to convince my wife stay back about 8 cars lengths because of motorists cutting you off..four times yesterday, I had to apply my brakes to avoid a crash. There were crashes all over the town..But then..even on a normal commute day..this same 60 mile trip..You better plan on at least 2 hours 15 minutes..You go in the middle of the night say, in light traffic..One hour. I think that is crazy.
If only had a way to put my bike on a train from this direction..I would be a happy person.

A nice guy gave me a ride two weeks ago to the train station because I had a bad fall. He had this monster truck of a car but did not have the window open! He had the A/C on and kept it REAL low to save gas! I almost died in that truck! I didn't say anything because he was helping me out. I don't know how people can do it.

I lived right off the 5 on La Jolla Village Dr, so I'd go down Miramar, cross over 15, hop on Pomerado, and then turn on Scripps-Poway Pkwy. I would only get on 52 if I was feeling sick and twisted.

The point when Miramar turns into Pomerado at 15 was the eye candy capital, expecially after "raining". Always something fun going on there. On the few occassions when I actually had to enter onto 15 (in a car of course), it was sheer flipped car bliss.