joeyduck

No, I rolled my sleeves down, so it is actually on my face, sitting in the car!

I used to get neat sunburns on my motorcycle. I had a distinct line on my hand/wrist where my sleeve stopped.

essiemyra

Today's commute was a nice uneventful ride.

Johnny Mullet

I took my single speed commuter to the beach and rode it in the sand some over the weekend. During this week's commute I been hearing some grinding noises while pedaling and this morning I rode in early so I can see what's up. Bottom bracket bearings were full of sand. Thankfully I mostly run bikes with one piece Ashtabula cranks and had it tore down, cleaned, and repacked in 30 minutes. I soaked the chain in the parts washer and at lunch I cleaned and lubed the chain and installed it.

Tonight after work I might as well rebuild the coaster brake and front hub, but this is also a cake walk on the old Huffy.

esmith2039

Went the long way this morning thru the river market area. Really wasn't much further 7.1 versus 6.2-6.5. Interesting though is my legs feel less zonked. May have to take a rest day. I've did almost 80 miles a week for three weeks straight.. starting to bark at cars.

mgw4jc

A clear night yielded a cooler, less humid morning, but it warmed up pretty quickly with the full sun out too. I couldn't find many snacks in the house to bring to work, but when I was about a tenth of a mile from home I remembered there was yogurt in the fridge. Turned around and went back for a couple of those.

Wolfhaven

Low 50's made for a cool ride. Wore a lightweight jacket and cruised in at a relaxed pace. Been doing a lot more biking in the past two months and can feel it. Went to a brewsana (yoga and beer at a brewery in town) class last night and wow, my hips and quads are extremely tight. I have some work to do.

arsprod 

Woah, only 57F this morning

KD5NRH

And another PR on the hill this morning. And I'm #31 now. #30 still has nearly 20 seconds on me, though. I'll catch him someday.

Tundra_Man 

Got up early and went out for a run. About 1/2 mile into it the rain started. I considered turning back, but then decided I was prepared to get soaked in sweat anyway, so what did it matter how I got wet. Did pick up the pace a little bit just to try and wrap it up a little sooner, and wound up running the 2.8 miles a full minute faster than I ran the exact same route on Monday. Felt like it too.

Got back from my run and saw my wife and son who were up unusually early for a summer day because he has a golf tournament this morning. She was worried about him being out in the rain, and because he refused to eat any breakfast. He refused to eat breakfast because his stomach usually has butterflies before a tournament and he doesn't feel like eating. I unsuccessfully tried to convince my wife that my son wouldn't die of excessive moisture, and that he wasn't going to keel over from not eating for four hours. She's a worrier. Me, probably not enough of one.

Showered off and hopped on my bike for my consecutive bicycle commute number 96. Rain had reduced to a light sprinkle. Conversely from my running, I didn't push the bicycle pace this morning. It was a pretty easy ride.

HydroG33r 

Two flats today; one on the way to work, one on the way home. Add that to another I had last week and it made for a ChainReactionCycles order this morning at work.

Riding up a long hill at ~15 km/h (<10 mph) I heard my rear tire burst and felt the air blast out against my right ankle. It was great weather and I was across the street from a park so I was able to kneel on the grass in the shade and change my tube. Sidewall had a clear gash in it though; small but obvious. Corresponding but smaller tear in the tube. No sharp objects detectable in the tire. Changed it and finished the last 10km of my ride to work.

About 7km into my ride home, exact same failure mechanism for another flat today. Only got <20km out of that one. Can't see any other tears, so presume that it failed either due to a pinch flat (this was the first time I'd ever used the more expensive Continental Race 28 "Light" tubes) or possibly (less likely?) the tear in the sidewall compromising the new tube.

I had just switched to the Continental Grand Prix 4000S II 25x700. Seems to me this tire is not able to stand up to the abuses of my paved road commutes to/from work. Going back to the Grand Prix 4 Season. Also switching back to the regular Race 28 tube which has always lasted me in the past. After my flat last week I needed to restock on tubes, but they were out of my usual tubes so got the "Light". Big mistake apparently.

essiemyra

The commute this morning was a nice uneventful ride.

mgw4jc

Running in the rain can be quite enjoyable, as long as it's not a crazy downpour or accompanied by thunder. Good job for continuing on.

Nice, humid ride in today. I had somehow come by a free breakfast sandwich card for Chick-Fil-A. I found it recently and noticed it expired today. So this morning I skipped my usual long ways around and stopped by for some breakfast. Some pretty good chicken and biscuits they got there.

Tundra_Man 

This morning's ride to work was pleasant, but unremarkable.

My lunch time plans, however, are quite remarkable. The first Popeye's chicken in our region is opening today at 10:30. I'm going to take an early lunch break and ride my bike over to be there when the doors open.

My only worry is that I'm going to gorge myself so bad on red beans & rice that I won't be able to ride my bike back to work afterwards.

PatrickGSR94

Super nice this morning, upper 60's to around 70 and lower humidity. Compare that to 80 degrees at 6:30 AM with 90%+ humidity last week.

Darth Lefty 

Still avoiding commutes due to the monstrous evening heat. Instead I brought the Paramount in, to ride around the lake at lunch. Sitting at the desk adjusting the straps on my new Giro roadie helmet, bought at the Sports Authority going out of business sale. No watermelon helmet until it cools off again.

ptempel

Thanks again, @joeyduck! I received the glasses a two days ago and have been riding with them yesterday and today. Tres chique. Should prolly start hunting down either the clear lens or yellow lens for cloudy days. Or maybe should just get another frame with the lens already in it. Will see...

groovestew

My company is moving to a new office in a few weeks, and so I "commuted" to the new place to see how the construction was going and make sure the data lines were all being run in the right places (they weren't...) Then I rode home again. So that's sort of a commute. The new place is about 3 km closer than our current office, but I'll probably still work from home most days.

ptempel

Great commute form home yesterday and today. The weather was good 68F morning and 84F or so afternoon. This week is a short week so trying to get in some extra miles in the three days that I'm commuting on.

noglider 

It's the last day of June, and we normally would have hot and humid weather, but it still hasn't come. It's been delightful. I can't believe the temperature reports, because a cool breeze is coming off the river, making it feel much cooler than it actually is. It's heavenly.

I rode to work every day last week, a first for me, and I rode to work two out of three days this week. (We get Fridays off in the summer.)

Tundra_Man 

So I was successful in my plans to take an early lunch and be there when our area's first Popeye's restaurant opened. I arrived at about 10:10, and the doors opened at 10:30. My wife and son drove separately and met me there. There was already a line forming. I was hoping to be their first customer, but wound up being number 18.

People kept showing up and getting in line. We got our food about 15 minutes after we got through the door and sat down to eat, and marveled at what transpired before us. Cars were backed up quite literally for blocks with people wanting to come to the restaurant. The owner, who I'd met while standing in line, was now outside with other employees trying to direct traffic. Eventually the police arrived trying to control the gridlock that was being caused by the store.

I mean, I'm a huge Popeye's fan, but this was absolute insanity. It was like everyone in the city was starving and this was where the Red Cross was handing out the food. When I was leaving I walked out to the owner who was still trying to keep order with the traffic, intending to congratulate him on the success of his first day. He looked at me with an expression of absolute terror and I could tell he was thinking, "what have I done?"

The reason I'm writing this is because I got to experience a great benefit of bicycle commuting. I hopped on my bike and rode around all the cars sitting motionless on the street. In less than a minute I was blocks away and free of the gridlock. My wife and son, who had parked about a block from the restaurant, spent 1/2 hour just trying to get out of their parking space.

joeyduck

I got yelled at by a cyclist this morning.

I live on a busy bike route. I can't/not allowed to bike these days, so I drive to work.

My street is blocked at one end not allowing cars to go through, cars only can turn right. I tend to park facing away from the blocked end. Yesterday I parked facing the blocked end. It is easier for me to execute a K-turn then to go all the way down and around the block to head to work.

So this morning a K-turn is what I did. I have attached a diagram. I noticed the cyclist over a block away as I was starting, he was far enough for me to complete my turn with him just stopping pedaling for a beat or two.

Get to point three as I am finished and getting ready to pull ahead and clear the lane with my car(truck) when he passes directly in front of me. I sound my horn. He stops and starts yelling at me.

He says I need to pay attention and wait. I told him it was stupid to pass in front (or behind) of a vehicle executing a K-turn. He said I needed to pay attention, I said I was paying attention and that is why I sounded my horn. It went back and forth him saying I was wrong for not looking and sounding my horn. Me saying it was a foolish, dangerous, and poor decision to pass a vehicle doing a K-turn. It ended with him saying maybe we are both wrong. Me, not wanting to concede the last word said nope you're wrong.

Anywho, would you guys pass a vehicle mid K-turn?

All I can think of is why would he do that, what if I was playing with my phone or trying to replan my route after entering a street that is blocked (this happens a lot)? What if I wasn't aware of cyclists and hadn't seen him, or known he was coming?

I would have prefered a calmer conversation but he was yelling at me from the start. My wife even called me at work and asked about me getting yelled at, she heard him swearing at me from the house.

PatrickGSR94

He obviously saw you from a block away and sounds like he just wanted to be an a-hole.

PatrickGSR94

I've seen that happen around here as well, pretty much any time a new restaurant opens, especially if it's highly anticipated. You should have seen the area around the Pyramid in downtown Memphis when the new Bass Pro store opened up there finally last year. The Pyramid building is a Memphis icon, but has sat empty and unused since about 2003-2004 when FedEx Forum opened up. It had been round and round for years as to whether it would be demolished or someone would buy it and do something with it. Now it's a huge Bass Pro store with lots of stuff inside including restaurants, shooting ranges, observation deck, etc. It was madness all around there for WEEKS after it opened. But with the renovation they actually included bike parking near the front entrance and bike lanes on the entrance road leading to the building, which is nice to have if traffic is backed up.

essiemyra

I took a different route to work today, which means I did not have to ride the small hill, though small has a somewhat difficult grade. With that change it was a very nice ride to work. And it is Friday before a long weekend!! YaY!!

Johnny Mullet

Loaded the bike on the car and drove to my normal spot at wifey's work. Unloaded the bike to get ready for my commute and the rain drops started falling. I decided to ride in the rain! I hated the last time I got stuck riding in the rain, but this was light and not too bad.

I was having a good hair day, but not anymore