How Was Your Commute Today?

[Tri Girl]

I FINALLY commuted this morning. Of the last 7 weeks of school, I've only commuted a handful of times (too busy training for IM to "waste" 45 minutes commuting).
Ummm... I forgot EVERYTHING! I took most of my commuting stuff home a month ago to clean it/refresh the supply since I wasn't commuting. I forgot to pack it all back in my pannier. I'm definitely out of routine!
"Brushed" my hair with a fork (forgot the comb and brush at home).
"Brushed" my teeth with my finger and toothpaste.
Applied "make-up" using some old lipstick as blush and an old eyeliner pencil I found in a drawer.
Wearing my cycling knickers (with large chamois) as tights since those are sitting on my dresser.

Silly me. I already sent myself an e-mail at home to remind me to PACK EVERYTHING BACK UP and bring it back to work.


And Red- the wind is wicked here today, too. Sustained at 25, gusting to 40.
I just hope it stays out of the south so I can have a tailwind heading home.

[Melalvai]

"Brushed" my hair with a fork (forgot the comb and brush at home).

Didn't the Little Mermaid do that?

We've had an unbelievably long spell of unbelievably beautiful weather. The trees are turning amazing colors, and flowers are still blooming everywhere. Northeast Missouri is not known for mild weather. Summers are hot and humid, winters are bitterly cold, winds are strong and frequent, storms are inconsiderate, floods make basements impractical and tornadoes make them indispensable. The only possible complaint anyone could have about the current weather is that it's been a bit dry.

This lovely weather means that no one has had much of a challenge yet for their Two Mile Challenge. But no one has complained about that! I would love for you all to read & cheer on our Two Milers. Some of you talked about buddying up with them, so feel free to do that, I can put you in touch with specific ones if you pm me. Almost half our registered Two Milers have posted at this point.

[HillSlugger]

I FINALLY commuted this morning. Of the last 7 weeks of school, I've only commuted a handful of times (too busy training for IM to "waste" 45 minutes commuting).
Ummm... I forgot EVERYTHING! I took most of my commuting stuff home a month ago to clean it/refresh the supply since I wasn't commuting. I forgot to pack it all back in my pannier. I'm definitely out of routine!
"Brushed" my hair with a fork (forgot the comb and brush at home).
"Brushed" my teeth with my finger and toothpaste.
Applied "make-up" using some old lipstick as blush and an old eyeliner pencil I found in a drawer.
Wearing my cycling knickers (with large chamois) as tights since those are sitting on my dresser.

Silly me. I already sent myself an e-mail at home to remind me to PACK EVERYTHING BACK UP and bring it back to work.


And Red- the wind is wicked here today, too. Sustained at 25, gusting to 40.
I just hope it stays out of the south so I can have a tailwind heading home.

Very resourceful!

I also gave up most of my commuting to focus on triathlon.

[7rider]

So...I'm riding up the hill about 1.75 miles from my house, approaching a traffic light at the top. Unfortunately, I left late and traffic was busy on this road (one lane each direction, residential, 10' shoulder, recently repaved). A line of traffic is slowly passing me, including a minivan which crossed what should be the white line (dashed line - not yet repainted since the new pavement went down), and passed about 12" from my left shoulder. I yell and give him the back of my hand. Totally uncalled for by the van with such a wide open road.

Well, Mister Pale Blue LTD behind the van apparently didn't like the fact that I was gesturing impolitely to his fellow motorist who was putting my safety at risk by illegally passing me too closely (MD has a 3' rule), so he roars his engine and cuts in front of me, stopping for the light that we are all approaching by completely blocking the shoulder. (Oooooo...he's showing me!!) Thus, he made an illegal move (crossing a solid line (what willbe a solid line when repainted) and driving in the shoulder, specifically to prevent me from doing something completely legal - riding up the shoulder on the right side past a row of cars to a light (yes, that's legal). And bicyclists are the scofflaws?

Unfortunately for him, I'm slow as molasses on that hill on my fully loaded commuter and can practically track stand on the hill, so his little anger stunt had no effect on my forward progress as the light turned green and he crawled away with the line of traffic before I even reached his back bumper.

What an idiot.

[Tri Girl]

He showed YOU. You'll never ride your bike again, now... What are people thinking when they do that? Ugh...
Glad he wasn't more aggressive with you than that. Sometimes you just never know who you'll meet on the road (like the redneck in the pickup with the rebel flag, don't tread on me, and I hate the govt. stickers on his bumper that I encountered recently). Nice...

My commute the last two days has been so nice. I love the dark, cool mornings when nobody is about. I'm sad when we have to change the clocks back because then the mornings are light- and I prefer to commute in the dark in the morning. Sigh... it will be totally dark both ways before too long.

[MojoGrrl]

Last commute of the year and I was about to toss in the towel...so sick of areshole drivers. Some punk-arse little sh*t stuck his fat, pasty-white, hairy arse out the window at us. I'm going to become a gun-toting, postal cyclist...

[Melalvai]

I got new tires & chain yesterday, my mechanic found the cause of the sticky rear brake cable (a kink), and new rear brake pads. Sadly, my front rim is worn badly and I need to build a wheel (I have a generator hub so it's not as simple as buying a new wheel). But with the tires, my bike has a new spring in her step and twinkle in her eye. She just wants to fly! I took the heavy basket off for the trip to the bike shop (which is 90 miles away), and since I am traveling with her again tomorrow to BikeMO, I didn't bother putting the basket back on, but carried what I needed in a bag. I guess after this weekend I'll find out how much of her energy is new tires and how much is losing that weight.

My daughter is in the marching band and there's a game tonight. On game nights she walks to school, because if she bikes she has to wait an eternity for traffic to clear out. She asked me to walk with her so that she could tell me about her day. As we were walking down the sidewalk, we heard a funny "honk honk" and we both turned around to see a cyclist barreling toward us. I stood where I was and she headed to grass on the right. The cyclist also swerved to the right to pass us and ended up riding straight into her!!

She's ok. I was not going to tell him that he was in the wrong...until he started griping that she shouldn't have moved toward the right. Of course I immediately tore into him all the mistakes he made.
1. Riding on the sidewalk.
2. Riding on the sidewalk at anything above a walking pace.
3. Passing on the right.

The only thing he did correctly was sound a warning. But it did no good because we didn't know what the warning was about and we didn't have time to react.

Other than that it's fairly irritating, there are actually so many things funny about this. A year ago she was on her bicycle and got hit by a truck. (She's fine now.) Then today she's walking and gets hit by a cyclist. Does that mean next year she'll be driving and get taken out by a hoard of marchers, like rock-paper-scissors?

Just before the incident she was telling me how she'd pricked her finger with a pin during Drama-- "Like Sleeping Beauty," she said. Then she took her left shoe off and walked without it, because it gave her a blister. The blister had burst and bled in her shoe. "Like Cinderella's stepsister," I said. Hopefully getting run over by a bicyclist is the end of her minor adventures today! (What fairy tale could this last incident be?)

Poor kid! I will have to do something extra nice for her tonight after the game.

[laura*]

This tale starts last week. My once a week multi-modal commute starts with a ride from town A, through town B, and to town C where I catch a bus at the start of its run. I was almost through town B when I spotted an orphaned woman's running shoe by the side of the road. It's not worth worrying about onesie shoes so I kept going. Fifty feet later, I spotted the other shoe: It was cowering between two traffic lanes like a scared bunny. I stopped, waited for a break in the traffic, retrieved the shoe, and walked back to get the other one. I then noticed I was 100 feet beyond the parking lot exit for a health/fitness club/gym. Aha! Someone must have placed her shoes on the roof of her car, forgotten them, and driven off. So - I biked back to the gym, asked if they had a lost&found, and left the shoes on their front counter.

Problem 1:
As I left the gym, my bike was acting funny - the chain didn't want to freewheel backwards smoothly. I limped the bike downhill to town C where luckily I'm a keyholding volunteer mechanic at a bike co-op. I was able to let myself into the shop, put the bike up in a work stand, and pull out oodles of weeds that had wrapped themselves around the derailleur pulleys.

Problem 2:
Yesterday, my front brakes started grinding as I passed the gym. Limp to the co-op, and spend an hour picking metal shards out of the brake pads. This was supposed to be quick ride to the grocery store and back home.

Problem 3:
Today, as I'm approaching the gym, my back tire goes flat. I roll the bike into the gym's parking lot, and discover there's a huge honking nail in the tire! The nail was through the tire, into the tube, and was poking zillions of holes in the rim side of the tube. 15 minutes, a medium patch on the tread side of the tube, and a monster patch on the other side, and I'm back on the road. I got to the transit center in time to catch the bus I wanted! (Last week I also did.)

So what's next? Why did returning the shoes earn me so much bad karma?