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How was your commute today?

3M views 28K replies 753 participants last post by  cyclingdutchman 
#1 ·
Well how was it?

Mine was good... hadn't been able to ride at all for the 10 days leading up to today, so it was a bit harder to get into the groove.

Forgot my battery pack for my big light, so I had to ride the last 5 miles on pothole ridden bikelanes with a little flasher.

Got honked at when I was as far right as I could be without getting doored.

All in all, it was a good commute... I ride alongside two different freeways (on a bike path) and get to see the traffic backed up for miles... People feverishly trying to type out their morning emails on their blackberry or looking ragged from sitting in traffic. Then I break away from the bike path and the traffic, and it all looks like a rat race in my rearview mirror.
 
#4,642 ·
Forgot to turn on the rear light today on the way to the grocery store. Didn't realize it until I was locking up...could have been a very bad oops. I took a wooded route through the park with a couple blind curves. I guess I still have my reflectors (red rear facing on the seatpost and amber ones on pedal) and a couple white reflective stripes on my bag.

To be honest, I think that stripe is more effective than the reflectors. I'm not sure what it's made of or how it's made, but it seems to be much more effective than any reflectors on my bike. I've never walked around my bike and thought, wow those reflectors are bright. I have, however, left my backpack around the house, and looked at it several times and thought wow, the light from the other room or the sun is reflecting off that stripe even though it's fairly bright around the object.

When riding or driving around at night the amber pedal reflectors on other's bicycles seems to be much more noticeable than the red one because they move around. They still don't seem all that effective though. The white reflective stuff on shoes, bags, etc seem to be even more effective.

I'm also starting to get a bit annoyed at my front light. It has a 1.4A draw on high according to my measurements at the tailcap, and in theory, I should get 2 hours of run time. However, I am having a hard time keeping track of use. When the light runs low, it will it will turn to low automatically. I can change to high, but only for a flash and then back to low. It took me a while to figure out why the light was behaving that way -- turns out open voltage was 3.4V at that point. Guess I need to get used to carrying a spare 18650 with me all the time.
 
#4,643 ·
What a strange ride home.
According to VDO, my max speed was slightly less than my average, with 0.00 as the max and 3.6 for an average. Not very fast, but when you consider that I climbed a little over 71,000 feet in under 20 minutes, I`d say I did okay. A lot of that climbing was at 99%grade, too. And I noticed a few 99% downgrades, so I probably detoured and rode off the face of El Capitan without noticing. Probably a good idea to go check my rims after that landing. If they`re trashed, I might be in for a real job finding replacements, though- ended the morning at 14,000 ft, so thinking I might possibly be in LaPaz, Bolivia. Not sure what kind of wheel suplies I might find here. While I`m looking, I think I`ll get a new battery for the poor computer.
Sounds like you had a lot of fun. Did you find any U-2 or SR-71 up there? At 71000 ft, it sounds like you climbed Mount McKinley three times over or Mount Everest two times and then some.
 
#4,644 ·
I hope you get your snow trail commute for a while longer, Xplorer- fingers crossed for you.

Honestly I am suprised that Darwin let me grow old for all the stupid stuff I did. :madman:
Amen!
But you`re still more patient with the current batch of new experiments than I am.

Oh, and thanks for the new bike comments- now I can use the "only following orders" defense. Think it`ll fly better in Reno than it did in Nuremberg?
 
#4,646 ·
Passed 6000 commute miles for the year on the way to work this morning. 7000+ total miles for the year. It's been a good year!
Congrats! I do not keep track of all my mileage, especially commute miles. I ride with a GPS, and not always even when mtb'ing. Have thought about putting a cheap cyclocomputer on just for the odometer I wouldn't have to think about using.

I think I'd be up around 1,000mi on the year, though. My commute is only about 7mi round trip, and my average mtb ride is probably around 15 for the year.
 
#4,647 ·
I find a cyclocomputer keeps you from getting lazy, I like to know what my max and average speeds are from one day to the next, but LCD screens don't work very well in the cold so I don't usually bother with one in the winter.

Gotta love studded tires. Crossing the High Level bridge this morning, bumpy smooth ice from wet snow and footprints that froze overnight. A couple cyclists were walking their bikes, I covered the 2500 feet no problem, it would have taken a lot longer to walk it.
 
#4,649 ·
I am just a data geek, in addition to my daily mileage, I track cumulative elevation (I've ridden over 67 miles straight up this year), riding time (21.4 days in the saddle so far this year), speed, temperature, conditions, etc., etc. All with graphs. Why? Heck if I know - I guess it's just in my DNA. Probably why I got an engineering degree in college. Drives my wife crazy too but for some reason she puts up with me.
 
#4,651 ·
Congrats on the new kilomile marker, Woodway. I`d like to look at my data too, though so far the gadgets to track it aren`t sufficently idiot proofed for me to comprehend.

RPK, have you set a higher bar to aim for now that you broke your hour goal, or just grooving and taking it as it goes?
 
#4,653 ·
Not too bad this morning at around 32 F. Light headwind, which I hate since I am single speeding, but oh well, I just keep pushing.

I am really looking forward to the new bike next year with 8 speeds. That will be so nice to change things up and be able to up/down shift.
 
#4,656 ·
upper 50's this morning and wet from some rain that came through last night. rather pleasant, really, rode in my lightest jacket unzipped with the sleeves rolled up. probably could have pulled out one of my lightweight vests. it was pleasant until the UPS guy coughed up some diesel soot in front of me. blech. unintentional, but still blech. gonna bike over to the local coffee shop (they do their own roasting, even - and they are the hub of our local bike culture) for lunch.

picked up a smaller chainring from my lbs yesterday. dropping from 46t to 42t. The 46t is good on the level stuff and I coast on the downhills...but it's too big for the hills on my route. I probably won't put that on until the weekend, though.
 
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