Darth Lefty 

I get a chuckle out of the fact that the networked home exercise bike is named Peloton but they seem to have only indoor spin classes to follow, meanwhile the one that’s an outdoor cycling video game is Zwift which sounds like a food delivery app.

Hopeful for rides tomorrow and Wednesday. Depends on weather and schedule.

jrickards

@Tundra_Man and @esmith2039 This screen capture of a map of current winds shows the current wind patterns. My location is just off the NE corner of Lake Huron (the middle one) and, yes, I was getting wind from the east (and it continues to blow now). This animated map is found at https://earth.nullschool.net

Tundra_Man 

Ugh. The ride to work this morning was so tough that I'm starting to dread the ride home. The temp is up a couple of degrees to -3°F but the wind also is blowing a skosh harder at 23 mph. The net result is about the same windchill I experienced this morning. The only real difference is that the cross wind will be coming from the opposite side which doesn't mean anything significant. Blech.

wphamilton

Nice sun-shining commute in, though a bit cold, whereupon I discovered that offices were closed for MLK day.

acidfast7

Nice. Had a meeting with the mortgage broker at 9am (to buy a second place) and then chilled by the sea drinking a coffee. It had rained earlier but at the point it was clear blue skies

A very relaxing way to start the day

mgw4jc

Bonus miles!

I was off yesterday for MLK. I slept in and was glad I didn't have to ride as it was about 17F here.

Low 20sF for this morning ride. I got pretty cold on the last couple of miles. But we are supposed to get back up to 45+ I think. Chance of snow tonight.

Tundra_Man 

I was all worried about my commute home yesterday but I made it without issue. It was actually a little easier than the commute to work even though the weather conditions were near identical. It was still a tough ride though. Hills that normally are no big deal at 60 degrees turn into mountains when the temps are below zero. I get to the top and I can't suck enough oxygen to catch my breath. The 16 miles I logged yesterday were very physically demanding and I was quite tuckered out by the time I got to bed last night. My muscles were reminding me that they exist and weren't happy.

I'm starting to wonder if some of my angst about the trip home wasn't so much the weather as much as the stress that's happening in our house right now. It may have been my subconscious worrying about what was waiting for me when I arrived and when I started to feel it well up inside I attributed it to the weather conditions. Teenagers. Ugh. There's a reason that kids don't pop out of the womb 15 years old because if they did we humans wouldn't repopulate the earth.

This morning was another sub-zero commute. -7°F with a 15 mph headwind (-28°F wind chill). I left a little early from home as I have to leave a little early from work this afternoon, so my commute was completely in the dark. I kind of like riding in the dark. My wife thinks I'm crazy.

Tonight our company is serving at the local soup kitchen. My original plans were to ride to work, then ride to the kitchen and serve, and then ride home. The predicted temp for the ride home is 0°, but the winds are also predicted to shift so I would have had to ride 7.5 miles home from the kitchen against the wind. I'd also have to haul an additional set of clothes and shoes and find somewhere to change at the kitchen. Given how sore and tired I still am from yesterday's ride, I decided to concede. I will ride home from work this afternoon, then I'll change clothes and drive to the soup kitchen. Serving at the soup kitchen is a work event, but not technically work. Seeing as I've ridden to actual work today I'll allow it to count toward my consecutive work commute streak (443 days as of today.)

jrickards

Cooler this morning, dressed a bit better but not quite enough as I had to stop within about 10 minutes (of riding into a cold headwind) to add a balaclava to the skull cap under my bike helmet. The air temp was -18C/0F but with wind chill was about -29C/-20F. After a few more minutes, I realized that I should have worn my ski helmet instead, it would have been more comfortable and just as warm (as I became, after adding the extra layer, the balaclava).

I toyed with the idea of riding on the 1km/0.6mi skating track that's been made on the lake right beside where part of my route is but I decided not. Maybe another day. I do have studded tires so that wouldn't be an issue and furthermore, at 7am, in the dark, there likely wouldn't be any skaters.

arsprod 

Off yesterday and supposed to be in Orlando but at 4am and about -8 my key cylinder was frozen so at 430 I gave up and went back to bed... didn't want to go to that meeting any way. It's still -3 so working from home!

HardyWeinberg

45F, partly cloudy. Hip much better than after my one ride last week. See how it does after multiple rides this week.

robertorolfo

Oh yes, I always prefer the real thing to the gym. I also prefer sports/activities that distract from the actual exercise.


I also had the day off yesterday for MLK day (first time in years I haven't had to work), and I took the opportunity to install fenders on my commuter (complete with a bit of cutting) and flip the cogs on my cassette (they started skipping in high gears when I replaced the chain, and Sheldon says that flipping them is a viable alternative to a new cassette). Also finished up building a set of wheels for another bike. Point is, spending the day working on the bikes was glorious.

Darth Lefty 

I’m riding today and tomorrow. But this morning i sliced my thumb putting away the Cuisinart so I’m not going to write much

rhm

It's cold again!

I rode my oldest bike this morning, it's from the 30's, complete with an early dynohub that puts out 12 volts, running an old headlight that I modernized with LED's. All good fun... but today there was a short circuit where the wires attach to the hub. The result was that the light would be lit for most of the revolution of the wheel, but at one point it would go dark for an instant. Really annoying! I stopped to try to fix it a couple times, which caused me to miss my train; was still trying to fix it when the next one came in. I think found the problem, and will be able to fix it easily enough when I get back there, about two hours from now.

ptempel

No cyclecommute for me today. Forecast calls for about an inch of snow. Was more like freezing rain when I left the house. Oh well. Tomorrow should be better...

Tundra_Man 

This morning was 7F which was about 15 degrees warmer than yesterday. I even had a light tailwind.

I felt like a wild man!

acidfast7

very windy today, but nice nonetheless.

arsprod 

Forecasters, hah! They said it was going to be 8F this morning and it was 0 (sarcasm)... like it makes a difference! These multi days off from riding are a killer for me especially in the winter - I thought I'd never make it. At least the trail was mostly clear

Harhir

Single digit wind chills this morning. Added some more layers and off I went. With the sun rising it was actually a pretty nice ride ;-)

Darth Lefty 

Foggy. I took the longer route on the road which is faster with less climbing for the same ride time but greater feeling of accomplishment

ptempel

You, sir, make me feel like a whimp for not riding today. Maybe I should get some studded tires for the MTB? Like a car, its tough to justify studdes tires in my hood. But today might have been a good day for it with the freezing rain. Ride on brotha!

Tundra_Man 

Studded tires definitely make icy conditions more rideable, but unfortunately they aren't cheap. I think I usually pay around $65 per tire. The good news is my previous set lasted 8 seasons before the rubber sidewalls finally cracked. So my dollars per year ratio is about $16.

joeyduck

Good morning and Happy New Year. I have been busy with nothing major but all the small things that keep me off the forum.

I have been busy this second week back to school after break, so busy with filling in for sick teachers or the ones who are getting their long owed prep times finally approved. Twice I have had to get pulled out of the classes and sent to another school where my need was greater. I also had to reject a posting for a week at my son's elementary school in a grade 6 class. I don't care for elementary and I don't speak french, so it wasn't a wise thing to take.

I also fixed my old trailer hitch again. I fixed mt father in laws years ago and it has held strong; but my trailer's fix really started to fail this month. My fix is using fuel line and a strong spring over it and mounting it the same way Burley would. In our move I found the extra pieces I used for my father in laws trailer and I was able to re-repair mine easily. This was good since the golf cart was also out of service and it made transporting of goods on the island very tough. But I was able to rebuild the golf cart carb this past weekend and the 27 year old engine in running well again.

We have had very mild weather as well compared to the rest of the country/continent. We had a few days below freezing but mostly above 40°F/5°C. Two days ago we caught a gorgeous sunrise. This morning it was a wet windy ride in gale force winds. Choppy waters and blowing rain make the investment in good rain gear worth it.

jrickards

No pics, no Strava upload (yet) but today, I decided to cycle on the skating track that runs for about 1.1km/0.7mi along Ramsey Lake in town. I was on and off in about 10 minutes and only saw one dog walker walking in the snow beside the track so I didn't disturb anyone: I expected to see very few people, perhaps even none, so I assumed that I wouldn't disturb anyone and it was the case.

Of course, I had studded tires on and shortly after I got going, I put on the rear brake to test the traction and it was there but fairly light so I took it carefully. The ice was extremely smooth and hard, in some parts white and other parts, black. Pickups plow the snow off the track so I wasn't concerned about going through but it was a little eerie to be 100-200m/yd from the shore on the ice.

I won't ride back on the ice because there will be more people on it but I might try it again another morning. Perhaps some of the reason I had weak traction was because there was a bit of snow on my tires, next time, I'll brush off the snow so it is "bare" tire (and studs) on the ice.

jrickards

I meant to stop at one point and take a photo from the lake but I was concerned about putting my boots down on the ice as I didn't have studs on them. I also spotted the photo opportunity late and, on the road, I would have come to a hard stop and taken the photo but a hard stop wouldn't have been recommended or possible on the ice so I've just made note of it for next time, I'll post it here when I do take it.

arsprod 

And what's frustrating is when there are small areas that require the studs but most of the paths are cleared and don't (speaking for my situation!).

10F and 10+mph headwind, I rode just a little ways and then took the bus the rest. I'm tired of fighting the cold, wind, ice and snow... wah. I have to say I could get used to short commutes!