Darth Lefty 

Pleasant lap today. Spring is the best. Dialing in my new full suspension MTB. So far the rear seems way better than the fork.

jaxy357

On my work from home days, I've been trying to push myself to ride, working on training for the Commuter Challenge next month so hills are a necessary evil. Today I rode about 4 miles to a new Cafe and then the library on my lunch break. Bike racks outside both establishments!

Welshboy

An odd week that started with a complete soaking on the way in on Monday, followed by a nice road bike commute on the Tuesday (still a bit cool in the UK though). On Wednesday, I had one final commute to my old work location which is only three miles away so I used my old commuter bike with flat pedals wearing normal clothes and no rucksack or panniers. Unexpectedly, I came away with the small gift of a bottle of wine from a work colleague and could only think of using my bike's bottle cage to get it home.

pdlamb

Cool ride this morning, and slow: I'm trying to get back into the groove after WFH and I need to work on all my routines. Packing and loading should take 15 minutes, not 35 minutes! I'm not looking forward to this afternoon when the wind picks back up...

Some of the wild and old-timey roses were blooming this morning -- beautiful! I've seen more bluebirds this spring than I think I've ever seen, but this morning was special because I managed to watch one coming out of a bluebird box (probably an old Eagle scout project) half a mile from work. Timing is everything: bright blue head and back popped out of the hole, a hop, and off it flew, all within maybe one second.

Tundra_Man 

Consecutive bicycle work commute number 1648:

Today was about as perfect a day as you can get. The sun was shining, the temp was 53°, there was barely any wind and the humidity was low. The temp was right in that sweet spot where I was comfortable in shorts but not so warm I was sweating.

I took the road bike. Because the weather was so nice I made a detour and tacked on an extra 2.5 miles just to enjoy the day.

pdlamb

WFH today, but a pretty good commute yesterday. Q: when does a 20 mph wind feel pretty nice? A: After two days of riding home in 35-40 mph winds.

This has been a long blackberry winter. I usually expect it to last 3-4 days, maybe a week, but we're going on two weeks now. And yes, that means the blackberries have been blooming for the whole time! Should be a good summer for berries (and bears).

Welshboy

There was a Bank Holiday in the UK this week but I managed to get my commutes in on the available three days of my four-day week. It's not that warm but I switched to a sleeveless jersey which was, er, cool! Some banging headwinds this week but I'm feeling much stronger than I was.

RidingMatthew

Hello there long lost commuting friends!

I used to commute year round in North Carolina from 2011-2021. I left my job of almost 11 years to teach middle school social studies in July 2021 and I was no longer employed by December of 22. I was let go from teaching because I teach with "too much academic rigor!" I think that sums up the education system right now. (And I was teaching at private school.

What is amazing is that I was able to go back to my old job with the same boss and team with a pay raise from previous position and almost double what I was making as a teacher. I started back March 22, 2023 and commuted for the first time on April 21st, 2023.

This week, I rode in the wind two days and achieved 53.4 miles. For the month of April I only had 67 miles. So I say that is a win!

What is amazing is that everyone at the job was asking me if I was going to bike in now. I was I hope too. The weird thing is that I am allowed to work from home two days a week and have to figure out and get enough conditioning to ride from the house in the morning. I was planning on doing that this morning but 42F and tired legs didn't seem like a wise move.

I would attach a photo if I could figure it out.

Tundra_Man 

Consecutive bicycle work commute number 1651:

Another beautiful morning at 55°F with the sun out and a light wind. Again, I tacked on a couple extra miles just to enjoy the day. Today is a multi-location day where I'm riding to different offices, so by the time I get home tonight I should have nearly 24 miles logged.

I'm way behind on my video editing. I finally got around to putting together the hightlight reel from the first two months of 2023. It's a good reminder of how harsh this winter was:

Darth Lefty 

Two laps this week, one on the new FS and one on the commuter

I haven't been here much because I've been really focused on learning more about coffee, which a strange crush to start at age 45. Shopping for a better espresso machine right now to give myself for my birthday

Tundra_Man 

Consecutive bicycle work commute number 1655:

A little on the chilly side this morning at 47°F, but the wind was light and the sun was out so once I got moving I was comfortable in shorts and a long sleeve sweatshirt. Kept finding things to slow me down as I was getting ready, so I wound up leaving the house about 15 minutes late. Interestingly enough, I saw most of the same people/cars I normally do, which tells me a lot of people were also running late today.

Got a little over a mile from home and saw a garbage truck going by heading in the opposite direction. After a few seconds my brain suddenly put all the puzzle pieces together and realized that was my garbage truck, and I had forgotten to wheel the trash and recycling containers out of the garage. I did some quick mental processing to try and remember how full the cans were, and if I could skip a week without repercussions. I decided I'd better double back and try to beat the garbage truck to my house so I could put the trash cans out in the driveway.

I turned the bike around and cranked for all I was worth. Unfortunately, I had just come down a monster hill which meant I had to try and sprint up the thing. The hill comprised a majority of the mile between me and my house. I usually go up the hill around 4 mph, but this morning managed to hold 8 mph. I did beat the garbage truck to my house (only because it had to make a few stops on the way) but I arrived so gassed I could barely wheel the trash cans out of the garage. I had to take a few minutes to try and recover before I got back on the bike to ride to work.

It's bike to work week. Each day this week the local bike shops are taking turns having special "refueling stations" for people who commute to work via bike. Today it's coffee and bagels over lunch at a bike shop about three miles from here. The weather should be beautiful so I'm going to ride over and enjoy a snack during lunch.

Backing up a couple days, on Saturday morning it was raining so I was unable to do the yardwork I had planned to do. Instead I spent the morning in the garage working on bikes. I cleaned and lubricated the chains on four different bikes. I finally got around to soldering the cable from the computer to the sensor on my fat bike, after a crash in early December snapped it in half. Then I decided to replace the kick stand on my winter mountain bike, as the end of it had worn down to the point where it was now short enough that it wouldn't hold the bike upright any longer.

This should have been a fairly easy swap. The only problem is the old kick stand that had been on the bike for 22 years had turned into one solid piece of metal as a result of years of salt and chemicals. I tried liquid wrench. Then I tried heat from a blowtorch. Then I put a breaker bar on the wrench, and managed to twist the kickstand into an even more unusable state, but the bolt held firm. Finally I broke out the sawsall and cut the head off the bolt, but the unthreaded portion of the steel bolt still remained completely melted to the rest of the aluminum kickstand. I wound up having to slowly cut the kickstand into tiny pieces in order to allow it to pass through the little frame section behind the bottom bracket. I had to be careful as I didn't want to accidentally cut into the aluminum frame of the bike. My quick 10 minute kickstand swap turned into more than 2 hours. Yuck.

jaxy357

This morning was a big win for me! Happy Bike to Work week! I usually ride about 2.5-3 miles to the train station north of me, which is not set up well for getting a bike onboard. Today, I pushed myself to ride about 5 miles to the train station that's south of me that has ADA accessibility. Then when I got to campus, I took the Low Stress bike route to the gym (1.5 miles maybe?), showered and got to my office about 5 minutes early. Next time I'm going to try to have my commute stuff ready the night before as it was a bit rushed this morning. I'd like to be able to get coffee at the train station ahead of my trip but will have to leave earlier next time.

Also, is anyone else DYING from the pollen right now??
#bikesontrains

Darth Lefty 

Pollen has died down here. Peak season was a little late due to the big wet winter

campfire

Recently moved and am settling into a new life with new routines. This threw off my bike commuting for much of the winter. But the last couple months I've been back in the saddle 3-5 days per week. Sometimes on my touring bike, sometimes on my gravel bike, sometimes on my cheater (electric) bike. I'm definitely out of practice, and some days I just don't have the stamina I think I do. Yesterday was one of those days. A slight headwind...that shouldn't have been a problem...felt like a problem.

I need more practice. The good news is I'm getting it regularly, so this problem should gradually correct itself.

campfire

Motivation flows after the first mile or so, but getting started can be hard. I often have to drag myself out to the bike in the morning, even though I enjoy the ride. The family is getting into longer tours, which has been fun. We'll easily knock out 20 miles at a time, and we're building up to a 500-mile ride in July. Somehow this recreational riding seems easier than my 12-mile commute. Perhaps because it's unstructured, unscheduled riding rather than repeating the same course, at the same time, day after day after day.

Either way, once I get myself rolling, I never regret a ride. I just need to get started.

pdlamb

Interesting day for a bike commute. It rained last night, and though it didn't rain during the day, the water on the pavement didn't evaporate for four hours, it was so humid. I was soaked in sweat when I got to work, even though the temperature was below 70F.

This afternoon? Sunny, cool breeze, an easy ride home.

Pollen? The pecans (about the last trees to pollinate here) made the morning commute slightly hazardous, with wet noodles all over the road under the pecan trees.

The Chemist

A comfortable 22 degrees this morning. Cloudy, but certainly better than yesterday's all-day rain that kept me off the bike and on the Metro. Took my Giant today rather than my usual Dahon foldie. Lots of two-wheeled traffic as usual, but still some places where I could open it up to 33+km/h.

pdlamb

Only half a commute yesterday, but it was nice! Cool, 67F when I got to work, though I still took 10 minutes to stop sweating after I got in my cube. Stormy enough all afternoon that the better part of valor was to drive home, which meant I lost the commute in this morning, but so it goes.

campfire

Had a nice 14MPH tailwind this morning. Set a (slight) speed record.

The flip side is that I get a 17MPH headwind going back home. Oh, well...

Darth Lefty 

I rode with the twins to kindergarten and then on to work

There's a lady at the school whose job it is to encourage people to follow traffic rules. Some of these rules are good! Some of them seem made up by her. And she seems to have no clue how to encourage individual people. When I was dropping my kid off for first grade a few years ago, she'd tell him that people were waiting behind us. That worked on me, but he could not have given a s--- most of the time and the rest of the time he saw he had a larger audience. Now we find her on the other side of the building as we ride up to the curb where the daycare vans go. She tells us we should have walked from the corner. I told her if cars can carry kids to the curb then so can bikes. She is only there on "super minimum" days when the kids arrive and leave early. On a normal kindergarten day she wouldn't be there at all. Next year I hope she will be back on the drop-off side and we can pull up to the curb on bikes without her.

pdlamb

Wow, a really nice morning's ride in. Cool and clear, next to no traffic. Except for the municipal train, which cleared the road in just a couple minutes...

The cattle-grazing field near the cube farm surprised me a bit; a bob-white was flying over it, and a trio of barn swallows, and a meadowlark was singing. But the bluebird boxes seemed empty, though I saw a bluebird in the next forested stretch a quarter mile off. I guess I missed the bluebirds fledging this year.

Welshboy

The past three weeks haven't been so good in work. I was hoping to be taken on permanently (after doing the job for just over four months) but management had put the job advert out asking for a full five-day week and were adamant they did not want to accommodate a guy who only wanted to do four days a week even though that location is only actually working four days a week! So the last three weeks of glorious weather in the UK has seen me back at my old work location with a measly three-mile each way commute instead of the ten miles each way I was really getting into. I've not bothered with cycling clothing and have just ridden back and forth in work clothing. We're all but finished at the old location and I'll be laid off towards the end of June so it's either an urgent scramble to find something I actually want to do that must be 3-4 days a week or I might just let go and retire. Decisions decisions!

noglider 

It's really hard to motivate myself to ride to work. I need to figure out what's going on with me. Here are some factors.

I'm stiff. I've never had a habit of stretching, and it's coming back to bite me. Walking helps, and I'm glad I have a lot of walking and standing throughout my day. When I wake up in the morning, I'm so stiff that I can't even touch my knees. Remedy: develop a list of stretches that I can realistically do regularly.

It takes more time. Figure out how to squeeze in the extra 15 minuets it takes. Possible solution: shower the night before so my morning routine is quicker.

I don't have a decent place to lock my bike. No solution. I suspect my workplace neighborhood isn't very bad with bike theft, and I have only four weeks left on this job.

Headwinds! Not much of a solution available. Believe it or not, it's common to have a headwind in each direction because the wind shifts at midday. Fortunately, the commute home usually has milder wind. One partial solution is to use a more aero position but that bumps up against my stiffness problem.

Hills. The route is almost entirely flat but it has a very short and very steep climb going to work. I think I need to give up my pride and start walking that small portion. Coming back there is an ascent of about 120 vertical feet over 0.8 miles. That's not much, but there's something annoying about it that I can't put my finger on. A partial solution is to approach the hill with increased vigor. Walking up the short climb on the way to work might cost me some time, and that works against my other obstacle. I'll see how much it really costs me, as it may not be significant.

Well, thank you, folks, for letting me talk this out. Any reflections?

Darth Lefty 

Did you get covid, could be long covid or lingering damage? Just aging? Do you think you're just out of shape compared to some prior state you still liked to believe you were in?

pdlamb

Nice day to ride into work, I think it made it up to 70F by the time I got there. Of course, getting off the bike meant I was dripping sweat within two minutes, but it's better than 85-90. Hit the last four miles a little late, but that was nice because I had four lanes almost to myself.

Noticed butterfly weed was blooming (nice, bright orange flowers!), as was the chiggerweed (or Queen Anne's lace as my wife calls it -- it must be summer already), and even some ragweed (oh, no!).