mgw4jc

Last week was a pleasant low 50s. But we now skipped the 40s and straight to the 30s. 37F for my ride in and I may have to go put my tights back on under my jeans to help warm up.

tarwheel 

First freezing temperatures of the fall this morning and the earliest I can remember in our area. The low was sitting right at 32 F when I left for work. Felt great to me and I hardly sweated a drop for a change. Wore my tights and long-sleeve jersey for the first time in many months.

KCBikeCommuter

Very mild temps this morning (56F), but strong headwinds. The winds are supposed to increase in strength throughout today, with gusts in the 35-40 mph range. So... hopefully a really nice tailwind for the ride home.

arsprod 

Yowsa, 34F with a headwind this morning - had to dig deep in the gear drawer but I'm encouraged by your temps which should make their way to me tomorrow!

bmthom.gis

Wonderful commute this morning! It was cold...very very cold. First truly cold morning we have had which makes it feel even colder (upper 30s...lower 40s by the time I got to work). I fortified my morning coffee with an extra ingredient, ate some breakfast and bundled up! I generally enjoy cooler weather because it means I get to wear dressier clothes, but the flip side is I have to carry more weight. It's character building. I left a little later than I had been, shortly after 8...so while in the shade it was almost painfully cold (starting out) when I finally got in the sunshine it was quite pleasant. Traffic has normalized again as a lot of the roads are back to being open (minus the ones that got washed out/sinkholes).

I'm glad I didn't wuss out and opt for the heated seats. I have been sore lately and spinning the cranks seemed to take away a lot of that soreness.

On top of all that, late Friday the city finally lifted the boil water advisory! So now I can have coffee also at work and refill my water bottles.

wphamilton

The x-rays showed my collarbone finally knitting up (which I broke back in May) so the Dr said I was allowed back on the bike! I didn't tell him that I only skipped 3 days after his surgery, but it's nice to be officially "back" again.

My legs felt a little dead today, since I celebrated with a pretty hard 50 miles yesterday, stringing my favorite hill segments together.

ChicagoDan

I am in the same boat. Sustained headwinds in the 20 MPH range this morning, and expected to remain the same tonight.

groovestew

Another pleasant commute this morning. I saw lots of other cycle commuters on the way; I guess we're all trying to take advantage of these nice days while we still have them.

greg3rd48 

It was cold but invigorating! 29F when I left the house. I really should have worn a knit hat under my helmet.

RidingMatthew

32F and pleasant ride in. I have to leave a little earlier to beat traffic. Five minutes makes such a huge difference in the levels of traffic in the morning. Wife was surprised I went with overshoes and long sleeve wool jersey. I said "honey it is 32 degrees out there! Apparently we skipped the 40's?!"

Phil_gretz

I missed yesterday's commute (1st in the 30s this season) by sleeping through my alarm. Today was in the low 40s, very pleasant. I passed an impressively strong runner who was blasting up a long hill at ~8 mph. Smoothly striding, she probably could have continued for miles at that pace.

mgw4jc

Nice ride home yesterday.

Just under 40F this morning. I'm fine riding in these temps, but I get a chill after changing into work clothes. Just sitting at my desk is not enough activity to keep the blood flowing and body warm or something. I'm not a coffee drinker, but sometimes I'll have a hot chocolate. I don't have any mix today, so I'm holding a mug of hot water and that is helping.

Ride on!

snow_echo_NY

it has been in the 30s-40s on Sun and Mon and was kind of on the brutal side esp. b/c we have been enjoying 50s-70s. but today was 50s and later will be 70s.

i dressed well yesterday but didn't know it was getting warmer today so i'm a little overdressed.

the commute has been kind of crazy since school has started back in Sept. everyone on the road driving is a maniac. so you have to cycle extra defensively. it's not great. but the weather is so enjoyable. 50s-70s is about as perfect as it gets.

baron von trail 

Conditions this morning were right on the edge of still getting away with wearing shorts and T-shirt. 48-50°F, with 15 mph head winds. Perfect.

...if you're looking for a nice hard hour-long workout, which I am--I guess.

Made good time pedaling into the wind, running maybe 3 minutes behind schedule on the 20 mile ride. Better still, I managed to hang tough with the local team rider who happened to be riding the same route at the same time as I this morning. I saw him, I caught up to him, we rode together for a minute or two, and then he kicked into a gear I didn't have and soared off at 23-25 mph--right into the teeth of the wind

PatrickGSR94

wow, 7.5 minutes per mile, must be nice. I was never able to crack 14 mins/mile when I was running, before I got into cycling. But then I'm a slow runner AND a slow cyclist.

Pretty nice this morning, TWC said it was 50 when I left, but the display on the bike said more like 48, and got as low as 44 at one point. Bib shorts + unpadded tights, long sleeve base layer, short sleeve jersey, and wind shell. Wool socks and toe warmers. I was a bit overdressed I think, but my face (ears) could have used more covering.

Saw the same dude again who honked last Tuesday and yelled at me to get over to the side last Thursday. Got the full license plate this time. Although this time he passed me with plenty of clearance and no honking or verbal interaction. I'll just file away the vehicle description and license plate number in case anything else happens again.

GovernorSilver

At around 45F this morning, this was the first day that I rode wearing a backpack without sweating - until I walked my bike into the climate-controlled bike parking room at work.

Descent from my house down the hill was chilly, but I have a couple of climbs after that to warm up quickly. I wore:

Long-sleeve base layer shirt
Polyester t-shirt
Light cycling jacket
Backpack
Weatherproof tights
Socks
Skateboard shoes
Polyester cycling cap under helmet
Light cycling gloves

Tried that route through DCA airport roads again. Got stuck at the intersection of Abindgon and Aviation Circle. There's no sensor for a bicycle there - the cars on Abindgon on the other side of the intersection got the green light twice and my light stayed red all the time. There's always cars on Aviation Circle in both directions, so it wasn't a simple matter of waiting for the road to be clear on both sides. I finally got through by taking a guess when it would be safe to ride through the intersection - had to be when the cars on Abindgon were crossing it in the opposite direction, without turning left. That is one guessing game I don't care to play again.

Back to the mulch path for me.

ChicagoDan

I mixed it up a little bit today. I wanted a longer ride, so I exchanged my bike > train > bike commute for a car > bike one. I had to work around every incident mentioned on the radio traffic report. Accident on the tollway, fire at a lumber yard. I also had to wait for a 3 mile long freight train. After all that, I was still only 10 minutes later than I planned to be.

arsprod 

A chilly 47F this morning but much better than yesterday's 30's. The ride home yesterday was great - 25mph gusting tailwinds makes morning headwind much more tolerable. Should be the same today. The other benefit of colder morning temps - mup posers are disappearing and we're back to the stalwart regular bikers and runners that I see year after year. It would be an interesting social science experiment to actually get together rather than just acknowledging each other every day

bmthom.gis

I learned from the ride in yesterday and being underdressed....35 when I left the house in the dark...pants, jacket, wool socks, ear warmer, cycling cap, full fingered gloves. Have tow warmers on the way. Felt great to be out there! Traffic was light all the way in, and the hot shower at the office felt wonderful.

PatrickGSR94

I have a place like that coming home. Always cars coming from my left and right, and across from me, but going my way most cars turn either left or right in separate lanes. So my straight ahead lane often doesn't get a green light. What I've been doing is going across as soon as the cross street turns red and cars stop, a couple seconds before the oncoming left turn arrow comes on. Works pretty well.

GovernorSilver

According to fellow local commuters, it is legal in my state (VA) to ride past a red light if it's been red for more than 2 minutes, or I've sat through 2 light changes - whichever is shorter. I hope I don't have to use this too often though!

Phil_gretz

^ Gov,
I have an intersection in Kingstowne that doesn't sense my presence. I have to cross it every morning against a red light. Fortunately, there are huge gaps in traffic, where I can't see a car coming in either direction. So, crossing is fine.

I expect that I'll have to explain myself to an officer there someday...

Phil

PatrickGSR94

Yeah most states have that. However if it's on my commute and I KNOW it's not going to recognize my bike, then I'm not going to wait 2 cycles. What's the point? I just ride on through at the first chance I get.

tarwheel 

Another cold commute with temps in the mid-30s. It felt colder than yesterday, when we tied the record cold temp for the date (32 F), even though it was a few degrees warmer -- perhaps due to slight headwind. Like others mentioned, we seemed to have skipped the 40s altogether, jumping from lows in the 50s to the 30s. That didn't allow any time to acclimate or adjust to wearing more layers of clothing. My hands and face were particularly cold because I wore the wrong gloves for the low 30s and didn't break out the balakava. The cold snap appears to be temporary and morning temps are supposed to be in the 40s and 50s for the rest of the week.

PatrickGSR94

Record lows? Wow we were breaking record highs here last week. Either Thursday or Friday the previous record high was 87, and we hit 92 officially on that day. Then a strong cold front came through and Saturday's high was only in the upper 60's.