Tales from today's commute....

[hennbell]

Crap! Winter has returned to the prairies lots of snow blowing about.

 

[Supersuperleeds]

Did my knight in shining armour routine tonight. Woman was dragging her bike along so I stopped to see if I could help. Her tyre had come off the rim and was trapped against the frame. Bit of air out of the tyre, popped it back in, pumped it back up and she was on her way. Saved her a good four or five mile walk. I like it when I can actually help someone.

 

[KnackeredBike]

Pulled out of a side road in a cheeky gap then undertook a couple of police cars which were sticking to the 20mph limit. Made me smile because you can't do that in a car

 

[rivers]

First commute since my injury last month. A couple of close passes today, mostly by white vans, but nothing major. My shoulder is feeling okay, no worse than normal, so that's good I guess. Hell of a headwind the entire ride in though. 22.4 miles so far today, another 16 home tonight, but according to the weather report, I'll have a tailwind.

 

[hennbell]

Yesterday I disrespected the weather gods and paid the price. I trusted the forecast that suggested as the week continued the temperature would get warmer and no more snow would fall. On Monday most of the winter "staying" snow was gone down to snow piles just areas of shade. On Wednesday morning the roads where clear with just a few ice patches and I confidently grabbed my aluminium road bike with fat 25 mm tyres. By 10:00 snow flakes where blowing in the wind, by 4:00 pm we had at least 2 inches of wet snow on the ground. The commute that takes 15 minutes in the summer on a road bike took almost an hour, lots of time spent carrying the bicycle. Today I am on the mountain bike, tomorrow the temperature shoots up to +5 so short sleeves and shorts.

 

[die_aufopferung]

At least he stopped. The guy I saw was smoking while riding

I used to smoke whilst riding all the time before I swapped to the e-cig - puffing one of those things whilst riding is actually a lot more difficult so I've given up trying.

But relevant to the tales of commuter woes - two separate sets of TTLs due to road works within the first 0.4miles of my ride with even more down the road. I'll be glad to move away from this village as it's just been near-constant roadworks at one end or the other for the 2.5 years I've been living here. You expect busy roads in or near towns/cities to have this, but remote little villages in the middle of nowhere? Ludicrous.

 

[clippetydoodah]

Stunning morning commute. No issues at all. I decided to add a couple of extra miles on to the
ride, just to make the best of the weather.

I tried out my new cebe shades today, with photochromic lenses. So much better than the
£3 ones from Aldi. Warming up now for the ride home.

 

[tallliman]

Extended 50k ride to work after which I went for some breakfast....a colleague admitted to wondering where I was and checking strava first to check I'd finished my ride in!

 

[I like Skol]

Brrrrr…. very chilly this morning for the ride in to work, frosty in places!
Forecast for this afternoon is for 14-15°C, scochio
Shame Mrs Skol is picking me up in the car and the bike will have to stay at work.

 

[RoubaixCube]

Slightly cold and breezy ride to work, some guy on what i think was an contend sl disc decided to give tubby over here on his carbon a race up a slight incline. I smoked him but stopped at a set of lights which he shot across ignoring the red light.

I turned to the cabbie who was leaning out of his window and said to him "we're not all like that you know" and both shook our heads in unison as we watched him ride away

 

[Arjimlad]

Interesting day to ride in, given that it was 6 degrees on the way in & will be 15 on the way home !

There's a woman in a red Mercedes estate who drives her daughter to school along a lane I use, which has plenty of safe passing places, but she regularly overtakes me around blind bends. She's done it at least three times and tried it on many other occasions too. Taking primary would have made little difference as the road is wide where she overtook me today.

She passed me on a blind bend today on a wide bit of the road leaving plenty of space & going nice and slow. Any oncoming car would have stood zero chance of avoiding her, though. I tried to explain the problem last time but she didn't want to talk.

 

[rivers]

A bit chilly on the way in today, will be sweltering on the way home. Not too many numpties on the road, except the guy who overtook me on a corner. Pleasant ride in.

 

[smiler1207]

Very cold, wish I had worn proper gloves! All in all a nice ride, glad the wind has subsided from last week where it seemed to be against me both to and from work.

 

[biking_fox]

Smashed my PB with a 19.1 average mph. Glorious ride, newly fettled bike running smoothly, sunshine, flowers, and little traffic. Only 2 red lights against me too. (this is probably the main reason).

 

[Supersuperleeds]

I really don't like the commute the day after the clocks change. After it getting lighter and lighter in the mornings over the last few weeks and to be plunged back into darkness is annoying. At least I shouldn't need the lights tonight.