On the commute today

[Basil]

Rode the SNO bike in today. Bloody hell, it's hard work. Or I'm unfit. Or both.  I'll blame the headwind (and look forward to the tailwind this afternoon).

Someone has more faith in GitWeather than me.

[GothonaBrompton]

Bracing!

Intrigued to see several sets of bare legs and one woman riding along in short sleeves.

Very pleased to see that fewer cyclists than I would have expected had been deterred by the cold.

I just got back from walking down to Victoria station to grab a sandwich (Brompton is locked in office cupboard and I have changed into a skirt and heels).  I was still wearing my padded Gore jacket and scarf, gloves etc though.

As I turned to go up the steps to the office, part way down Grosvenor Place, a guy came flying past wth a t-shirt and shorts on.  I mean short shorts - the sort that Seb Coe used to wear back in the 80s, with the binding at the edge and the curved slit in the sides.

You could even see the bottom of his bum cheeks.  Surprisingly, they weren't blue.

[Steph]

Coming home this morning was nasty. The first part was over cycle paths, and there was an odd crunching on what I can only describe as 'mini wind slab' crusty snow. Then onto the side roads, and some walking where the cars had left slippy-slippy patches of hardpacked clag. The main roads were gritted, which left secondary full of crud. Cue lots of impatient drivers behind me.

[iddu]

Ahhhh - 70's-tastic. Grumble in t'hedgerow

[marcusjb]

It is a lot warmer in central London than I expected. Bit hot cycling amazingly.

The wind is still brutal, but the sunshine is quite nice!

[TimO]

... Breathing was...interesting

Since I was cycling almost directly against a quite strong wind, occasionally the Venturi effect seemed to suck the air from my mouth, making breathing, as you say, interesting.

It was a bit of a drag cycling against that on the way in, but with a bit of luck the homeward commute should be easier.

As marcusjb said, it wasn't too bad from a heat point of view.  I'm just wearing a thin pair of gloves under some mitts, and not that much layering otherwise either.  London City airport is reporting a balmy 4°C at the moment, so it should be a quite comfortable return journey.

[ian]

Working from home, so I took the 2 mile or so ride to the pool. Northbound down a very straight street into a solid unrelenting headwind. I can say that was the toughest ride to the pool ever. Not only did it suck the air out of me every time I tried to breath, it made my eyes stream tears like a busted fire hydrant.

(On the subject of short shorts, when I arrived at the pool there was a young lady outside keeping her friend's kid warm with a stream of B&H's finest warm cigarette fug wearing what were possibly the shortest pair of short shorts ever – and I've worked with a German, a nation that would win the short shorts Olympics gold every time. I mean, we're almost crossing the line into bikini bottoms. I don't think they'd be appropriate for any weather condition, and the last time I saw legs that colour they belonged to the corpse I was dissecting. I must be getting old when I now see an excess of exposed female skin, I'm starting to think less 'whoah' and more 'by god she must be cold'.)

[spindrift]

A week ago I was in shirtsleeves, today was a very dry, Polish cold and the scarf was back on.

[Ashaman42]

Epic 2h50 (for a mere 16 miles) journey into work today including dragging the bike for half a mile through and over chest deep snowdrifts!

Dry road run home (bar a couple sections still snowy and requiring walking) meant I was home in 1h30, which for that bike with those tyres is about average. And that includes stopping for ten minutes to try and help a chap get his car off a snowbank.

Apparently he started daydreaming and not noticed it. Never mind the fact that to get to that bit of road he'd have had to purposefully go round the cones and the road closed signs 

[Redlight]

Rode in in the buff today, which was a mistake.

Probably fortunate that you didn't get either arrested for indecent exposure or sectioned for attempting self-harm

[Jurek]

... Breathing was...interesting

Since I was cycling almost directly against a quite strong wind, occasionally the Venturi effect seemed to suck the air from my mouth, making breathing, as you say, interesting.

It was a bit of a drag cycling against that on the way in, but with a bit of luck the homeward commute should be easier.

As marcusjb said, it wasn't too bad from a heat point of view.  I'm just wearing a thin pair of gloves under some mitts, and not that much layering otherwise either.  London City airport is reporting a balmy 4°C at the moment, so it should be a quite comfortable return journey.

On such occasions if you turn your mouth at 90° to the airflow and form your lips into as perfect an 'O' as you can manage, with a little buccal manipulation it is possible to achieve a sound effect similar to the one when you blow across the top of a beer bottle.
Wide mouthed frogs need not apply.
DAHIKT

[Arno]

inaudible grumble grumble grumble D*ck Head grumble Light grumble grumble

Were the precise words that came out of the mouth of a fellow cyclist who was blinded by my cyo.
It happened I think because my bike plus light were angled up as I climbed a ramp near one of the locks (edit: along regent's canal). Unlucky for him. tough luck.

[Basil]

*is on the side of the inaudible grumble grumble grumble D*ck Head grumble Light grumble grumbler*

[Nuncio]

You need to go to the opposite side where it's not so bright.

[Basil]

Oh, right Ok.   Errm. 

[Kim]

Hard not to get blinded occasionally on a towpath.  Cyos and their ilk do a much better than usual job of keeping the light at ground level, but with steep ramps, that sort of thing is going to happen.  And it's not reasonable to ride on a towpath without decent lights, on account of the high risk of Nothing Happening.  While I'd try not to dazzle people, I certainly wouldn't call someone a dickhead if their lights dazzled me in that situation.

[Riggers]

Only when I got to work did I realise I'd left my rucksack at home. Doh. Cycle back. Get rucksack. Shout up at wife upstairs, "It's only me, forgot my bag." "How can you forget your bag!!?" she says.

A good point. That slightly lighter feeling, and a little more chill on the back gave me no idea.

Cycle back to work.

Must have covered at least 2 miles already today.

[clarion]

Although still unwilling to go jousting with motons, I rejoined the crowds on CS7.  Although I was deliberately not pushing hard (Upper Tooting Road aside), I managed a 23kph average, which was surprising. 

I appreciated the headwind having dropped.

[clarion]

Hey, I just met you/ And this is crazy/ But that's your mirror/ So use it, maybe...

[Riggers]

What are you going on about yer great lump? Either: lay off the medication or, up the dosage.

[mrcharly-YHT]

Yesterday was momentous for four reasons:

1) I rode the ribble (it's been in retirement waiting for new drivechain bits since summer 2011)
2) I rode to and from work in the same day.
3) It is daylight to and from work.
4) '3' means I can now see the size of the potholes

My *ukcing life, the potholes are deep now. I spotted 4 that were more than 4" deep and at least one that was over 6" deep! The really deep one is a trench-repair breakdown, so it's about 4" wide and so so deep.

[Ham]

Unless it was a forumite in a car attracting my attention, a strange car appeared to be tooting at me, and the driver was gesticulating as if to say that I should be going underneath, not over the Bow flyover. That isn't and of itself interesting, neither is the fact that I very quickly overtook him in the jam coming up to the roadworks where they are frigging around with the bike path/cycle hire. Neither - ordinarily - would the fact that he didn't appear to have a VED disc, although I can't be sure about that. What I can be sure of was, 100 yards up the road the Police had set up an ANPR camera, and a little furhter on there were thousands of scurrying police, pretend police and VED people and many cars were being pulled over.

Carma, pure carma.

[tiermat]

 

I assume the mis-spelling is deliberate?

[TimO]

... the Police had set up an ANPR camera, and a little furhter on there were thousands of scurrying police, pretend police and VED people ...

It must be the day for this, there was a similar arrangement on Ambleside Avenue, which now seems to be the favourite location for doing this, presumably because of all the building work going on around Streatham High Road, where they used to use the nice wide double width bus lanes to park up their transporter, and the mass of vehicles and police officers.

[Vince]

Stupid diversions for bicycles! Not only were all the streets herringbone bricked with a nice layer of snow on them, but you MISSED the sign on the critical junction!

Also forgot my computer glasses