On the commute today

[clarion]

I really enjoyed my ride in this morning.  Fabulous.  Even the numpties and the potholes seemed insignificant compared to the joy of just riding.

Riding home last night was fun, too.  I didn't go directly - we went to a party with the nieces & nephews & Superstoker & Our Kid of course.  Then three of us (Our Kid remains, I'm sad to say, avelopic ) rode to Balham station to get a train home.  Superstoker's enjoying his riding a lot at the moment, and it's really good riding through the dark, quiet backstreets in the warm(ish) night, the three of us enjoying a shared activity and being very together.

[Basil]

V unusually I drove in today.
I know I've said it before, but I get treated a hell of a lot better by other drivers when I'm on my bike.

[TheLurker]

Track mitts! Kepi!  Summer (well mebbe spring) is here!
Still wearing longs mind you.

[hatler]

Shorts today !!   First time on the commute this year.

[TimO]

Track mitts! Kepi!  Summer (well mebbe spring) is here!
Still wearing longs mind you.

I've been wearing mitts all this week.  I haven't quite shifted into shorts yet, mainly because I generally come home after dark, and it's got a little cooler by then.

I was seriously considering only cycling in a jersey today, since with the thin fleece over the top it was rather too warm.

[vorsprung]

Track mitts! Kepi!  Summer (well mebbe spring) is here!
Still wearing longs mind you.

Same here, first day for mitts in the morning. Still wearing longs

[TheLurker]

Track mitts! Kepi!  Summer (well mebbe spring) is here!
Still wearing longs mind you.

I've been wearing mitts all this week. <snip>

On Tuesday morning (0630) I wore gloves and glove liners.   It took over an hour after I got to work for feeling to return to my thumbs.  Painful.

[Hot Flatus]

Shorts this afternoon and rain too

[Paul D]

Yep, lovely sunny morning ride over to Portland. Horrible, sopping wet evening ride back. Even my headphones packed in, full of water.

I preferred cold & icy commuting. I like to save the warm, windy & wet weather for 200k+ audaxing.

[CrinklyLion]

...the Very Lovely Valencia found top gear, for the first time.  I had a very very big grin.

I was riding home from the bike rescue, along the river path and just at the bottom of the bridge (on the side of the river I was coming along) side' there was a fairly large gang of fairly large teenagers.  Not particularly doing anything, just hanging around smoking with a couple of them mucking about on bike.  But a while back there were a few reports of people getting hassle on that path - stuff thrown, a couple of thumpings and so on.  So, whilst I wasn't exactly worried I was fairly 'aware' of them, and went past and up the bridge probably rather faster  than my usual pootling-along speed.  Which meant that I went down the other side with a bit more of a head of steam than usual, and for the first time ever there were no other bikes/pedestrians/suicidal dogs around and I didn't have to slow down at all so I just kept pedalling away and clicking up through the gears and suddenly there were no more gears and I realised that, my my standards, I was going really rather fast.

I quite liked it 

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

No sofas, no pipers, one Christmas tree and a bpoab today.

[TimO]

...I was going really rather fast.

I quite liked it 

Danged lycra clad speeding cyclists.

[teethgrinder]

No sofas, no pipers, one Christmas tree and a bpoab today.

BagPuss on a brompton?

[her_welshness]

Gahhh, after leaving work at 8pm it was a rather rapid ride home. Hit the A20 from the A205 and breezed past another lass and worked like a bastard hitting the hill before the beautiful downhill into Loampit Vale. It was when I hit the cycle path into Cornmill Gardens that I realised that the p*ncture faerie had hit on the back wheel. Bahhhh 

[CrinklyLion]

...I was going really rather fast.

I quite liked it 

Danged lycra clad speeding cyclists.

Well, my M&S socks are possibly 5% lycra.  And I imagine there's some lycra in knicker elastic.... but me in lycra is NOT a good thought!

[hatler]

Overtaken stupidly by a white van today, stationary traffic in front, I'm slightly beyond secondary (primary side), on a narrow uphill stretch (by Hampton waterworks for those who know it) doing about 14mph. He gets half way past, then tries to bully me into the gutter. Contact made with wing mirror as I hold my position and he brakes.

Driver of GX09 AOY be very ashamed of youself, especially as the badge on your arm said 'Metropolitan Police'.

[clarion]

No sofas, no pipers, one Christmas tree and a bpoab today.

That last would brighten the day.  Good spot


I'm digging out the mitts this weekend.  My gloves are getting too damp every ride now.  I'll wear them when we go to the track on Sunday because there's a lot of cold standing around, but I do think it's mitt weather

Lovely lovely ride in this morning.  My only spoken words were:

'Shit for brains!'
'Learn to drive!'
and
'Look, you incompetent' followed by a surprisingly teenage 'wha'eva' when the passenger in the car that had pulled out in front of me on E&C gave me some incomprehensible verbal.  What did I care?  I'd had a good ride, and I was soon to have a shower.

After I'd disposed of the dead rat.

[Wascally Weasel]

Fastest commute of the year so far, 16.9mph average, only 47 minutes door to door.  Probably a rubbish time if I was out in the country but not bad for London in rush hour.

[andygates]

Sadly rush hour and dawn silflay are coincident again, so it's chunks of wildlife a-go-go.  Today: be thankful for mudguards when dodging badger giblets.

[Gandalf]

For the second time in a matter of weeks my rear mech hanger has sheared off.  I tried to do an emergency single speed conversion but I couldn't get the chain to stick to one rear sprocket.

Bike currently residing at a friends house near to where it happened.   

[rower40]

I caught up a BSO on a path in Derby this morning.  I was very concerned that the back wheel was about to come loose, as the QR lever was wide open.  So I told the rider; we stopped, and it transpired that he (or the mechanic of the house) had used the QR lever as a spanner, and just tightened it as far as it would go in a rotating direction.

[DrMekon]

Got home to find I'd hit an average of 17.0mph. First time in the 17s this year. Love the sunny weather.

[tiermat]

On the way in this morning nearly killed by two different Firstbuses.

The first (LK05FCO) was a bendy bus who passed me and nearly took skin off my right shin, it was that close!

The second (W919VLN) was a double decker, and to the driver's credit he stopped, put his hazards on, waved me past and apologised for passing so close.  He said it was because a car had come out of nowhere coming towards him and he had instinctively moved left.  Fair play to him, I thanked him for stopping and apologising.

Other than that a good ride in, no wind, sunshine and a 16.5mph ave.

[hulver]

I took the longer route to work this morning, a very nice ride. Didn't need my top covering or buff today, it's certainly warmed up a lot in the last week.

Saw a very fat, very dead pheasant.

A huge tractor and trailer tried to bully me off the road, which was a bit scary. The top of his front wheel was higher than my head. He eventually realised that I wasn't going to move off the road, and sat behind me for another 10 seconds before the junction 

[clarion]

Lovely warm morning.  It's mitts weather.  It has to be - my favourite gloves (BG Radiant (old style)), having split last year, have only just survived another, and my newer gloves have been adopted by Superstoker.

Fun ride in.  Felt fast & smooth.  Not quite as fast as I thought, but it's still pulling my monthly and annual averages up

Hundreds - I do not exaggerate at all - hundreds of cyclists on the road, especially near Stockwell.  Phenomenal sight.