On the commute today

[her_welshness]

My commute in today shall be labelled as 'The Great Ride of Irritability'. The wonderful A202 has now succumbed to a series of roadworks which stretches from New Cross to Peckham. Not a big distance but it means more irritable drivers, delays to the journey and an increasing lessening of the zen factor. Then once you enter into Southwark, the lollipop men and women of doom who stop the traffic every frigging 3 seconds so that one person can cross the road and then that builds up a huge traffic jam of buses which block the junction. At the moment I am really not liking my commute. 

[Nuncio]

All these other people having great commutes, looks like you and I are in a minority hrer_welshness.

As I wheeled my bike out of the garage I noticed that my rear wheel was fairly flat, so I took my track pump out and topped it up.  It was noticeably milder than of late so I took my hat and long-fingered gloves back inside and put on some mitts and a cap. 

4 miles in to the 8-mile commute, through Clydach, and there were some blue flashing lights round a corner and cars were turning round in the road.  There were a couple of fireman and I asked if I could go through.  Hesitation – then “Probably not, sorry mate” and a pat on the shoulder.  Room for persuasion but never mind, the alternative is a little shorter but a lot steeper (back road from Clydach to Morriston hospital for those who know it) and I could do with some hill practise for Saturday’s Gospel Pass Audax.

Get to the bike shed at work by 7:10 to discover that I don’t have my keys with me; the keys to lock up my bike, open my locker in the changing room, and open the locker at work with my laptop inside.  Phone home.  Yes, they are still in the garage door.  My routine had been thrown out slightly, and that was the result.  Turn tail and get home again.  Check rear tyre.  Still solid, but front is now spongy, so top that up and head back towards work.  No detour this time - the fire tenders have been replaced by police cars and there’s a burnt-out Range Rover with incident-scene tape surrounding it.  Front tyre getting spongy again so remove tube to discover the valve coming away from the rest of the tube.  Replace it.  Get to the changing room to discover both showers occupied.  I rarely see anyone else in the changing rooms so having to wait feels like adding insult to injury.

Eventually get to my desk at 9, nearly 2 hours later than usual.  Discover the sandwiches I made last night are not in the Carradice so are probably still in the fridge at home.  I should probably request that my access to the production database be suspended for the rest of the day, just in case.

[matthew]

I had to laugh yesterday on my commute, well travels to a site meeting, someone had tried to take a double decker bus onto the tube.

Or rather had tried to get down the steps into monument station at the north end of London Bridge. Fortunately the huge kerbs and the railings had done their job but the front of the bus was a bit battered.

Thanks to the friendly policemen and fire brigade I was directed round past the Monument itself to get back to the bridge which was then blessedly free of traffic.

Regards

Matthew

[Lycra Man]

My commute is 15 miles from Waddesdon to Leighton Buzzard. I go across country and there is a decent rise, a dip in the middle, and another climb. Same coming back.

Before Christmas I was doing it in 54-57 minutes, but then held off to avoid the ice in December and snow in January. Feeling like I had lost a lot of fitness, I started again 3 weeks ago, and got my time down from 64 minutes to 56 minutes 44 seconds today. 

Hopefully next week I will start to use my newly acquired Genesis Day 06, when it will have been fitted with a new dyno hub front wheel, B&M Cyo front light, and Carradice Nelson Longflap.

I'll be disappointed if I'm not faster.

Lycra Man

[GruB]

Nuncio,

Those days are the worst 

My commute today was okay going in due to the electrolyte tablet but coming home was very windy, wet and cold.

[SteveC]

Best thing about my commute today was actually being on the bike.
For a variety of reasons I've been car bound since last Friday.
So I didn't really care about the damp, the s**t all over the road, or the cars.

And we went out at lunch time for a 10 miler.
Started to rain heavily at the highest point of the route which is about 1.8 miles from work, but all down hill.
Exhilarating rather than anything else.
 

S

[Pingu]

Karma:

While stopped at traffic lights this evening, I looked down & saw a cable lock on the road. I picked it up and put it in my pocket, as you do  Further down the road I passed a geezer on a mountain bike & asked him if he'd lost a lock. It turned out to be his and he seemed quite please to get it back  (complimented me on my Pomp too).

[Andrij]

Wind, wind, and wind. 

Cycling West — headwind.  Cycling South — headwind. Cycling West — headwind. Cycling North — crosswind, hurrah!  Cycling West — headwind.

In spite of the wind, I was slightly quicker this morning.  It was good to be on the Ribble again.  Just hope the ride home is not as wet.

[vorsprung]

i set off on time but felt a little under powered.  So I took the short(er) route to work.  Unfortunately as I rode along I felt better and so arrived at work 10 or 15 minutes early....

[Jacomus]

Felt underpowered and struggled into the headwind all the way to work. Glad I rode though, I nearly didn't as I came home with an achey knee last night but it didn't cause any trouble this morning.

[TimO]

Yes, I struggled cycling against a headwind on the way home yesterday, and struggled cycling against a headwind on the way to work today.

On the plus side, that should mean the wind will be behind us for the FNRttC tonight.

[Fluffy]

Man what a ride today, to start with I almost took at a pedestrian crossing the road (she didnt look once and was bloody texting too) It was also monsoon rain, lucky I got my new set of mudguards yesterday. Towards the end a dumb bitch woman almost took me out pulling out at a junction, she pointed out the lights past the junction were on red but I still had right of way and could easily queue up at the front. She also didnt look before pulling out and had the cheek to beep her horn.

[clarion]

Just been out for a wee ride to the bank.  Northwards to Borough was into the wind.  Excellent.  That means I will have a tailwind tonight.

Except I won't.  On my way back south, I still had a headwind.

[GruB]

Massive slog into a headwind all the way.  But it is still blowing a gale out there so going home will be ace.

Two drivers in Devizes didn't like me being in front of them and did moronic overtakes.  Luckily they both turned left at the next roundabout as I was about to get my pointy finger out, and my flashy bit of tin.

[PaulF]

Coming out of Richmond Park there's a mini roundabout (Roehampton Gate for the locals ) with a right turn into a cul-de-sac where there's a school. It being drop off time so a woman going the other way stopped just as she cleared the roundabout opened doors and stared letting her kids out. When someone remonstrated her reply was "I've got to get the kids to school"  Fortunately the ensuing gridlock meant that I could procedd easily between the lines of cars 

Later filtering slowly outside a line of stationery traffic Mr BMW decided he was above looking for oncoming traffic and pulled straight out in my path. My first emergency stop since I've had the disc brake fitted and it did the job perfectly. 

[recumbentim]

Tail wind form Finavon A90 to Blairgowrie.Cold 3 degrees but did my first over 20 av  --20.3 YES.          22.5 miles in total to Tescos to buy Gin

[GruB]

It was cold coming home, even with a tail wind and sunshine.  Managed an average of 17.8 mph for my 24.2 miles with 958 ft of climbing.  Average HR was 74% of max too.  I was really flying 

[CrinklyLion]

Yesterday, rather than today.  I got to stop alongside a Sky van, knock on the window and indicate 'please can you roll down the window'.

So that I could say to the driver 'Thank you.  It's really nice when there are van drivers who properly ook out for cyclists and it really made my day that you did."

Good (albeit short, windy and very very wet) ride

[Wendy]

Some absolutely lovely drivers out there today, lots of friendly cabbies and bus drivers.  I did get a couple of close overtakes, and saw one blatantly red light jumping cyclist.  Hopefully I got some good footage of that.

[dasmoth]

What a beautiful morning!  One might almost think it was spring.

The faeries are still out and about though, but at least they only struck 1/2 mile from work -- so didn't spoil the great ride.

[GruB]

What a lovely morning for me too.  It was so sunny and blue skied at home that I broke out the 3/4 leggings for the first day of spring.  There was still loads of ice about in the shade though.

At the 12 mile mark I descended into a thick gloom of fog.  Very thick.  I was thankful that I had not taken my Joystick MaX2 off my helmet as the extra flasher gave me peace of mind.

[clarion]

Grand, grand ride!  Only marred by Butterfly being the recipient of an aerial excremental bombardment from a passing bird.

But nicely cold, no wind, no rain, and not much ice.

[PaulF]

Lovely morning but  lots of black ice in Richmond Park. Saw about 5 cyclists go down and heard reports of several others. One poor chap was taken away by ambulance: concussion and broken collar bone according to the paramedics.

[Regulator]

Lovely ride in this morning - all the idiots were coming the other way so were easy to see.

No ice, lots of sunshine and I'm back in shorts 

[clarion]

Re: All  the idiots.  There were a phenomenal number of fools queueing in their motor vehicles.  No idea why.  And I passed at least two unscheduled vehicle interfaces - fortunately no one seemed to be hurt, and the low sunlight was unlikely to be a factor.

But there were lots and lots and lots of bicyclists