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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.
 
#8,324 ·
I'm off until the new year, so today is my 100% commute. That's 2 in a row, so whoo!

More ice-rink roads this morning, though. The longrange forecast is for snow snow snow and just general cold, so next week should be a good one to skip. Although I'm hoping to do a few fun rides.
Congrats

How do you define 100%, does not include vacation days? does not include days when not visiting the office? does not include sick days?
 
#8,325 ·
^ basically any day that I've worked, I've ridden. So that includes a few training days out in the boonies, doing some interviewing at the university, I think there was a site trip or two in there too, and one day I rode to the city centre airport to catch a flight to Calgary.

I have also had to get a rental to go down to Calgary a few times, which admittedly pushes the definition a bit. But that would be a 12+ hour ride, so I figure I'm allowed to cheat a bit on that.
 
#8,326 ·
^ basically any day that I've worked, I've ridden. So that includes a few training days out in the boonies, doing some interviewing at the university, I think there was a site trip or two in there too, and one day I rode to the city centre airport to catch a flight to Calgary.

I have also had to get a rental to go down to Calgary a few times, which admittedly pushes the definition a bit. But that would be a 12+ hour ride, so I figure I'm allowed to cheat a bit on that.
So sick days and vacation days don't count as a missed ride?

BTW the Sun is finally comming back, tomorrow will have a longer day than today ihave been waiting for that for a while now.

Ha you can fly out of city center to Calgary but not from Calgary to city center....or was it a charter?

By that definition I am a 100% going back probably 7 years. Ihave had a few surguries that take about a week to recover from I catch a ride to work for that week.
 
#8,327 ·
**I should note that I break my "man up and ride" rule whenever I want, due to my "man up and break the rule" rule.

Shiggy, I just got a new phone with that panorama camera feature...Need to play with that. Cool pic. Beautiful area. Love it up there.

Congrats Newf. That's big. I started to bounce back yesterday and the ride home wasn't awful. Must have eaten something funny. In fact I took the long way to check out the frozen beaver ponds. Nasty headwinds from the incoming storm.

Studs went back on the Ogre this morning, and it was a mellow ride in with about an inch of fresh on top of pavement, and a nice tailwind. Snowing hard now...
 

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#8,331 ·
So sick days and vacation days don't count as a missed ride?
Actually the last time that I count myself as having not ridden to work was sometime in 2010 when I sprained my ankle and spent a day hopping. I needed my wife to drive me in so that I could do one thing, and then she drove me right home again so it was basically a sick day. I really should declare that one void, and then my streak goes back even further. :D
 
#8,332 ·
Well for those of us on weird schedules where the end of the year is actually the middle of the year... even though this is my last commute day of 2012, I'm celebrating the fact that it's the shortest day of the year and we'll now be moving closer to ditching the headlight and enjoying some daylight in the morning. Not to steal any of your well deserved celebrations...
 
#8,333 ·
Good job newf!

I define 100% as never driving the car to the office.

This morning I set out for the office and got a few miles down the road when I finally wised up to just how slick it was and how dangerous it was for me to be out there (I don't have studs, does not get under freezing often enough here to justify them). So I turned around and rode home and just decided to work from home for the day.
 
#8,334 ·
Nice work all of you! 100% up in the great white north for 7 years is pretty impressive, no Jeff, you don't have to count days when you are having surgery or even the day after :)

I'm at about 92% for the year, not for lack of trying. I'm at 100% for the days I didn't' have other commitments but I don't think that counts.
I don't count if I have to drive out of town.....or if I have to drive to pick up lumber or something....

Thing is it is easier to ride to work then drive and find parking for me....I also ride to most of my appointments....again cause it is easier.
 
#8,335 ·
Wow, a lot of 100%'rs out there. :thumbsup:

I consider myself lucky on the ride home. The downpours stopped and the winds died down, the only difficulty was the dirt roads, which were like pedaling through wet concrete. Some parts of VT were really rough today, "Winds gusted to 125 mph on Mt. Mansfield at 10:35 a.m. Friday - one of the higher readings recorded atop Vermont's tallest peak." Many towns on the western slopes of the Green Mountains got gusts in the 60's and 70's, and power poles snapped in two even without trees falling on the wires.
 
#8,339 ·
Love the pics.

Another day of high wind and our first snow. Big tree down on our power line.

New glasses to replace the ones that saved my right eye (the scratch resistant lens was gouged, the titanium badly bent.) I decided that the wind plus first snow and idiot drivers was not a favorable commuting situation. Besides I did not think they'd let a snow covered bike into the waiting room and there is no safe lockup outside. One accident is all I can afford in 2012.

BrianMc
 
#8,340 ·
How do you define 100%, does not include vacation days? does not include days when not visiting the office? does not include sick days?
That kind of question is like figuring out what counts as "commute mileage"- it isn`t going to be the same for everybody. I prefer to just count trips I make to work, then how many of those I ride or don`t ride. If you count every time the sun rises and falls as a day when you could conceiveably have ridden to work, that makes sense in its own way. Pretty simple for people like me whose workplace is always the same. For people who have satelite locations, work from home ops, frequent business travel, etc, it looks like they all come up individually with what seems like a reasonable way of counting and go with that.

In fact I took the long way to check out the frozen beaver ponds. Nasty headwinds from the incoming storm.
Trippy. If you hadn`t mentioned ice, I`d have thought you Photoshopped your bike onto a liquid beaver pond. Pretty neat picture.

One accident is all I can afford in 2012.
One is plenty, but didn`t your pothole-water bottle- spokes co-alignment happen in 2012 also? Either way, I think you`ve paid your pedalin dues in full. Hopefully no accidents in 2013!
 
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