After taking a couple of weeks off after having 2 flats on the way home and variety of scheduling issues I rode to work for the first time today. It was great for the most part, with only a small amount of traffic and wind to aggravate me, and the only thing that reminded me of the hassles I'd been dealing with before was the roadie salmon I saw on my way up a small rise. I'd never seen one of those before, it was surprising.

A good start for the week the temp was 70 f degrees this morning for the first day of fall with partly cloudy skies and darkness.

Consecutive Bicycle Work Commute Number 807:

Chilly morning. Temp was 50F, but the humidity was very high causing damp air that made it feel even cooler. My glasses kept fogging over at every stoplight.

MUP is still several feet underwater, as the river remains over the banks after the tornadoes and torrential rain two weeks ago. Doesn't look like it's receding very fast either, so I'm still riding the main roads which are much hillier.

Got stopped for a train. That's one downside to not being on the MUP, as they route the path under the train trestles.

LBS emailed me over the weekend and said they had a new fat bike in my size. I'm going to ride there over lunch and check it out. I may wind up spending a bunch of money this week.

Hopefully nobody falls on the first day of fall. A pleasant ride in this morning.

my first official fall morning bike commute of 2019 is in the books and what a gem it was!

60 degrees, 54 degree dew point, sunny blue skies.

the 12 mph WNW wind at my 10 o'clock wasn't awesome, but a rather minor complaint on such an otherwise gorgeous morning.


here's to the best season of the year for bike commuting!

Beautiful day for a ride down here as well. Clear, calm (weather and traffic!), and cool enough that I zipped my (short sleeve) jersey partway up.

Another perfect ride, on my single speed carrying my company laptop in my laptop pannier so I kept it reasonable. A roadie passed me right after my warm-up and I could tell he was out of his comfort zone to stay ahead; I felt kind of bad about that but maybe it made a better workout for him.

First commute after two weeks off for various reasons. Stars were amazing this morning. Roads were wet and messy, the gravel was a bit muddy but it still was a great ride. This headcold gave me troubles breathing off and on. Legs felt good which helped. Roadkill skunks are pretty common now. Had four deer quietly cross in front which only caused a brief slowdown. Should be a nice upper 60's temp range with full sun for the ride home. Debating adding a few extra miles of hilly gravel. Will probably skip it today to not push this headcold too far.

Nothing like a double digit headwind to say welcome to Monday, but a nice ride otherwise.

A very pleasant commute in this am again with the temp at 69 f degrees this morning. Dark partly cloudy skies but there were stars to be seen.

I'm enjoying the fall weather too. Humidity is much more tolerable. Took some of my long-cuts for 15 miles this morning.

But why does this one lady insist on walking in the middle of the MUP? Yes there is room on both sides of her for me to get by, but it's tighter and doesn't allow room for me to dodge debris or anything. She sees me in time to move over, but doesn't. Oh well.

A glorious morning, and it was really tempting to take another hour or two to go for a ride. But my legs told me otherwise, so I tried to keep the ride in a recovery ride. Felt really good, and faster than expected -- must be some additional fitness I picked up over the weekend, right? Well, that worked until a half mile from the office, and oh my goodness, I've been pushed along by a tailwind.

Does anyone ever deal with random days with like 20 times as much traffic as usual?

I purposely map out a route that takes me behind strip malls and stores, through parking lots before stores open, and assorted back roads that have the least amount of car traffic.

I probably have to watch out for 5 cars a day on this route. Mostly cars from a distance away that I just need to keep an eye on. Overall a very safe route.

Today though....good lord....there must have been 100 cars in these various usually empty places. Driving through parking lots at 5-mph like crazy, running stop signs, there were 2 construction situations that caused a build up of moving equipment where there normally would be nothing, and every single intersection had a car that barely stopped and made me nervous.

It was just one of those random rides that had huge amounts of traffic for no apparent reason. And it made the ride into work absolutely no fun at all.

Now watch, the evening ride home which normally has more traffic will be like riding through a ghost town for some unknown reason.

Almost had to use a headlight on a beautiful, 52F Fall morning. As always I had my front flasher going and was surprised when a crossing runner yelled at me to turn it off. If I'd have been less surprised I would have yelled back "don't look!"

Yes, a few times a year there's something going on downtown that makes traffic heavy, slow, and erratic -- much like your description. Usually it's a day-long conference (instead of the usual evening meetings), or a rally of some sort. At least I've never run across a high-end restaurant offering free breakfast! :)

Unless you just jinxed it, and you'll have ten times as much afternoon traffic to deal with!

Yep, that happens enough to not be surprising any more. It seems like everyone is out around me some times, and makes those commutes without anyone around even more glorious.

I took a truck full of stuff to Goodwill Express this morning and was turned away. They were full. Then at lunch I took it to a different one and was turned away again. The lady was sitting in the doorway, next to a floor to ceiling pile of stuff filling the converted gas station and spilling out the door. I gave up my bike ride for this?

Yesterday, I not only rode to work, riding WAS work. I started a part time job where I'm riding an e-trike around Manhattan, picking up compost from commercial customers. The e-trike is a monster. By the time it was full, it weighed about 1,000 pounds. Learning to ride it and control it didn't come instantly. It was an adventure. And so was pulling it through heavy traffic, squeezing through wherever it fit. But I had a lot of fun, and I'll be back at it on Friday.

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Dude, you called that one

The ride home SUCKED!

On the way home I often cut through a cemetery that hasn't had a burial since the 1960's, so it has the absolute bare minimum of cars or people or anything in it. I see maybe 1 car A YEAR there visiting an old grave.

But today...FOUR cars were speeding through it. 1 even honked at me and yelled something for hogging the 1 lane road. (That the car was driving the wrong way on). Honking and screaming...in a cemetery.

Today was the shortest ride of my year. 5.5 miles. I took every short cut and direct line home.

Today was the rare day when I just wanted to be off the bike.

Tomorrow brings a new day

A very pleasant commute this am with the temp at 51 f degrees.

Very comfortable 61F this morning. I managed to get out a few minutes early. I had a bit of a tailwind both going home yesterday and coming in today. Got me to average 16+mph even with a traffic light stop.

The lady on the MUP this morning was a little more to her side, but still closer to center. I still nod and smile as I go by.

Very nice cagers this morning. I pulled out in front of a sheriff's truck stopped at a traffic light (yeah, a little nervous about that!), and the minivan in the left lane left me about 50' to cross to the left turn lane. Then on the last "interesting" left, a car slowed enough for me to pull in front of her for 75 yards or so before I pulled off again.

The counterpoint was the turkey who passed me once in the left lane, didn't switch lanes at the upcoming traffic light, then gave me the intelligent cager holler as he passed me a second time. That's the one that goes something like "Ooouu oooaaaugh."

In between it was crisp, almost chilly, and clear again. Saw on the news we've had less rain this month than Las Vegas, which is nuts. But great for cycling. Hope we can skip the forest fires that hit after the last fall drought and burned half of Gatlinburg!

Didn't ride today. The other day going home I had a head shaker. I was on a brief stretch of state highway heading out of the city that has an 8' shoulder. Up ahead was a motorcycle stopped on the shoulder. As I approached I was right in line with him and noticed cars would pass me about a foot from the fog line, as they got close to him they moved over another 2 feet. Won't move over for me but they do a parked motorcycle. Go figure.

Well, I pulled the trigger: last night I bought a 2019 Salsa Mukluk. I intend mainly to use it as a winter commuter, but I couldn't resist the urge to ride it to work today.

Being an end-of-year clearance bike, the shop had knocked $700 off the price. I then used my credit card rewards that I had been saving for the last 4 years to cover the balance. So basically, free bike! I paid the shop to convert the wheels to tubeless, and then bought a rack from them and had them install it. I had an extra bike computer and platform pedals sitting at home, so I installed those last night.

It was slow, but no slower than I had expected it to be. It probably is about the same speed as my studded winter tire bike when riding on pavement: 10-11 mph average. I had a brisk head wind this morning so that didn't help either.

I still have to work on dialing in the fit. I also have to figure out some sort of fender system.

I definitely didn't need to call out to let pedestrians on the MUP know I was passing; those big knobby tires are loud enough that they could hear me coming 50 yards away.

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Nice! The family resemblance to my bike is obvious in the front triangle and the rear DO's. You got the Alternator rack, that's on my shopping list for a few years hence.

Those Minions have to be the most gnarly fat tires on the market. They look like dirt bike tires. Most fat tires are like big but very light carcass XC tires... or if not that then studs

Another pleasant commute this am with the temp at 50 f degrees and clear skies. Typically the moon is on my right side but this morning it was in front of me and I took the same route.

Best part of the day is its my Friday!

Nice looking machine, @Tundra_Man. I would think you'd sound like a monster truck coming through with those tires! And good job on the purchase deal.

Another nice, fall morning here. We are still getting up to the 90s in the afternoons, but it seems to start cooling off for my ride home. I definitely have more shade on my route than I did in July/August.

This week may just be the first in a while that I have ridden all 10 commutes the full distance. Either holidays, days off, or wife pick-ups/meet half-way have kept me from doing so. I'm currently on track to break 140 miles for the week. I've only managed that a handful of times this year.

Consecutive bicycle work commute number 810:

Backing up one 1/2 day, my commute home last night on the new fat bike reinforced my need for a fender solution. I rode through some mud where the flooding had recently receded. The bike handled it with aplomb, not sliding or spinning. However, those big knobby tires threw mud everywhere. Even though the muddy patch was only about 20 feet long, my brand new bike was peppered with chunks of dirt and even worse, I was covered all over with brown spots the size of a dime. I definitely don't want to be constantly sprayed with slushy snow this coming winter.

Today I have to ride about 20 miles total, so I was back on the road bike. The morning was chilly, 47F with 98% humidity and a decent wind. I threw a sweatshirt on and wore a headband to cover my ears. I was still in shorts, though. I'll ride shorts down to about 30-35 degrees. My legs were a little chilly this morning, but my body will quickly acclimate so in a month 47F with shorts will feel pretty warm.

Supposed to have 30-35 mph headwinds for the ride home this afternoon. Yay.

@Tundra_Man I got a Mudhugger for the rear and a Mucky Nutz Full Face for the fork. I got 29er versions for my plus bike. They have fat bike versions too. They keep the spray off the body but they don't direct everything to the ground like road bike fenders. Cuffs, boots, and drivetrain are still vulnerable. Portland Design Works sells a huge downtube mudguard and it would be a lot better than the Amazon cheapie I got, it was clearly meant for little old 26ers.
https://ridepdw.com/collections/mountain-and-fat-biking

I only need them for a few muddy months and a few rainy days here, not sure if that's solution enough for you.

Apparently this also works for Thursday.