On the commute today

[rogerzilla]

BBC News has footage of a 4x4 on its side 

[David Martin]

And it was a bit norty to stop to do this on the way home..


I c u by davidmamartin, on Flickr

[zigzag]

roads were just wet (=good) at 6pm in central london, so no dramas coming home. however when locking up my bike at home secure car park i felt someone's watching me

(click to show/hide)

cheeky sod, not sure how it got in, but it has certainly got a fine taste in cars beds!

[JBB]

I've only been commuting by bike since the beginning of the month. Only 7.5 miles each way - Redlynch to Odstock for those that know the area. Really quiet this morning - well rugged up on the MTB - and aren't Rainlegs marvellous when you REALLY need them!
Went down the middle of the road (A338) to overtake the Salisbury bound queue then through the lanes to Odstock.
Then sent home for the day!
Cross-country ride in the snow - only fell off once but had to walk a bit as the light was very flat and I couldn't see the bumps very well ( being under 10cm of snow didn't help much either).

Home by 10:30 to have a hot shower and light the log-burner (sequentially NOT simultaneously).
Perfect day and have the photos as an aide-memoire.....

Julia

[tonycollinet]

I have a mathcyclical formula for you:

Snow + Trike = (Epic)³


However, passed an overturned car on the A34 just south of Congleton. Police and Ambulance in attendance - hope occupants OK.

[TimO]

I'm not sure if there was much ice on my commute home, shiny ice and wet roads are going to look much the same, but with the Marathon Winters any icy went by unnoticed!

That was probably one of the quietest Friday night commutes ever, even though most of the roads were pretty much clear of any snow, still with quite a lot of the salt that has been put on them recently, I would imagine.  I'm not going to tell the normal Friday lunatics though.   There were a few small bits of snow I had to traverse, across Clapham Common, and at the Croydon end, a few of the local roads, but that wasn't a problem, with a bit of care.

[geoff]

I commuted the bridleway after being sent home on Friday...



..why is this picture sooo tiny?

[TimO]

..why is this picture sooo tiny?

... because that was what you asked the server to provide?

A little experimentation with the URL produced a larger image.  The webserver will only produce what you asked it to, if you took the URL from a thumbnailed image, that's what you get.  You should have probably taken it from a full sized image.

I removed the "h120" from it, which looked like it was a mechanism to thumbnail the image to one that's 120 pixels high. ie from this:

 https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-0ep ... s0g/h120/20130118_160809+%28Small%29.jpg

to this:

 https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-0ep ... s0g/20130118_160809.jpg

(I also removed the "Small" from the filename as well, but that didn't seem to make any difference).
 

[mcshroom]

Tim beat me to it

[Tim Hall]

I commuted the bridleway after being sent home on Friday...



..why is this picture sooo tiny?

<mode=father ted>
Because you're a long way away.
</mode>

[her_welshness]

Is anybody else feeling a little bit nervous about the commute tomorrow? 

[Redlight]

Is anybody else feeling a little bit nervous about the commute tomorrow? 

Main roads in London should be fine, albeit a bit mucky. I'll be wheeling the bike down to Lee High Road though - seen enough cars sliding around on the road outside the house today not to want to chance the hill.

[her_welshness]

Is anybody else feeling a little bit nervous about the commute tomorrow? 

Main roads in London should be fine, albeit a bit mucky. I'll be wheeling the bike down to Lee High Road though - seen enough cars sliding around on the road outside the house today not to want to chance the hill.

That's what I was thinking just wheeling the bike onto Hither Green Lane, and factoring in an extra 30 minutes. I would rather do this than get on that bloody train.

[Ray 6701]

Is anybody else feeling a little bit nervous about the commute tomorrow? 

Yes!  I'll be setting off half an hour early & sticking to main roads.  Not looking forward to it to be honest.

[her_welshness]

Is anybody else feeling a little bit nervous about the commute tomorrow? 

Yes!  I'll be setting off half an hour early & sticking to main roads.  Not looking forward to it to be honest.

Am definitely cycling in tomorrow, southeastern trains have already started cancelling services and its going to be chaos!

[davelodwig]

Is anybody else feeling a little bit nervous about the commute tomorrow? 

Having almost lost the wheel from under myself today, I'm giving serious thought to walking into work.

[mcshroom]

Not me, but then again the roads are dry and there's no snow up here. I'm deciding whether to take the bike with snow studs or just use normal marathons.

[Jurek]

Train(s) for me tomorrow, methinks.
Meh! 

As a curiosity.... where does all the muck come from when it snows?
How is it that rainwater puddles do not contain as much filth as snow meltwater ones do?

Aside from that, it was quite pretty out there today

[clarion]

I'm not worried about ice or snow tomorrow, though the Lower Lea Crossing was a challenge heading East, and a nusance heading West later, when there was more snow on it.  Oh - and the bike went down (I didn't) when I met an obscured kerb at an acute angle.

No, what bothers me and gives me serious clenching moments is the idiots in motor cars who:

i. Won't have cleared their windows
ii. Won't have woken up properly
iii. Won't have fitted winter tyres
iv. Won't adapt their driving to the circumstances
v. Will try to push me into the gutter where there's rutted ice and potholes and disguised crap and stuff.

etc etc etc.

[Kim]

As a curiosity.... where does all the muck come from when it snows?

Bikes.

I came home on Friday with a previously mucky bike nicely caked with snow.  Tactically left it on a granny-mat to catch the drips, and returned some hours later to find a large muddy puddle (that had, alas, partially escaped the granny-mat and stained the carpet) and a splendidly clean bike.

[David Martin]

I'm not worried about ice or snow tomorrow, though the Lower Lea Crossing was a challenge heading East, and a nusance heading West later, when there was more snow on it.  Oh - and the bike went down (I didn't) when I met an obscured kerb at an acute angle.

No, what bothers me and gives me serious clenching moments is the idiots in motor cars who:

i. Won't have cleared their windows
ii. Won't have woken up properly
iii. Won't have fitted winter tyres
iv. Won't adapt their driving to the circumstances
v. Will try to push me into the gutter where there's rutted ice and potholes and disguised crap and stuff.

etc etc etc.

+1

[TimO]

I'm planning on waking up at stupid o'clock tomorrow, and cycling in before the cars have made too much of a mess of the roads, and also hopefully missing most of them.  This will end up with me being in work three hours (or more) before I normally turn up, and I won't be able to leave early because that would drop me into the middle of the evening rush hour(s)!

Most of the snow I'll have to contend with, will be on the first 2/3 mile from my house to a mainish road, the bits across the commons (Tooting Bec and Clapham), and possibly a little around work.  From Friday, none of it was problematic, so long as I remember where the kerbs are!

[Basil]

Whereas I have plotted an A road only route and intend to leave later than normal in the hope that the traffic will clear the roads.

[Adrian]

Whereas I have plotted an A road only route and intend to leave later than normal in the hope that the traffic will clear the roads.

Good thinking, I hope

[Pickled Onion]

The forecast seems to change by the hour... It was saying rain overnight which would mean it was warm enough to melt the snow that's been snowing all day. Now it's looking like it'll stay below zero, so I reckon I'll have to take the bus to the station in the morning.