A taste of Fall is in the air!! Today was the first day in many months where the low temp fell into the 50s. I was actuallty even a little chilly when I first started my ride this morning. Even had a little fog - which of course makes my wife nervous and thus I donned many blinking red lights just in case!

So this morning was a beautiful ride once again. The fog actually makes it seem a little more calm and peaceful amid the hustle and bustle of traffic.

No, that's not me

But I think it gives you a good idea of that "peaceful easy feelin'"

Ride ON !

You've gotta have a SHOWER!!

I actually started commuting in the winter and figured I'd try doing so without a shower. The temp was in the 40s or so and I didn't sweat all that much. I of course had a change of clothes, and upon arrival I just went to the bathroom and changed. I brought some sani-wipes to do some minor touch ups along with deodorant and such and it worked out okay - or so I thought.

I did this three or four times before I began to dislike the arrangement. I felt weird about it to say the least. Fortunately, there is a gym literally across the street and I decided to join just for the shower. It has worked out quite well and I actually even use the gym from time to time over lunch. But the shower is key!!

So, not only do I shower myself - I sweat profusely in the hot, humid summer months in Atlanta (I'm sure you wanted to know that) - but I also shower my cycling gear. We'll I'm not riding home in my slacks and dress shoes!! So, I rinse out my cycling clothes and then lay them out to dry in my office. My routing works very well now with the shower option!!

So, if you are thinking about riding to work, even before you try to map out a route, find a shower!! One potentially good idea is that if there is not a shower near you, you could find a "buddy" that would be willing to pick you up from the shower location and get you to work from there. I'm going to consider this as I see if I can get more people to ride into work.

With Monday being a holiday, this is only my second ride this month, but I still hope to get at least 8 rides in and maybe 10.

This morning's ride was excellent. No watch on it, which is nice sometimes. I actually had a record number of honks at my expense for a single ride - two, but so long as they are more like "warning honks" instead of angry, lay-on-the-horn honks then no big deal.

Relevant stats for the morning commute:

13.1 miles
2 honks
1 dog
3 red stop lights
1 school bus
0 near misses (whew!)

Ride ON!!

I can't believe it's a new month, but here we are.

This morning ride went quite well. I didn't fall down for a change and I timed EVERY stop light except for one. I don't know that I've ever done that. As a result, my clock time to get to work was a very fast 44:30. One of these days, taking out the stop times, I will go under 40 minutes. My fastest to date is about 42 minutes, but given the right conditions, I can break 40.

Just to give you some sense of scale, 40 minutes translates to about a 19.6mph average speed. In races of similar distances (with no heavy backpack on my back and no stop lights to get in my way) I can average 22 to 24 mph depending on the course. Tour de France riders could average 30mph or so. When riding with my kids (9 year old being the oldest), we average less then 10mph.

BORING!

Ok, so here's my trusty steed:

I know it's hard to see, but it's a Miyata that is older than the hills - somewhere in the mid 1980s if I had to guess. I bought it from this great guy that I worked with back in the late 90s after I had been out of cycling for years. His sharing of the bike with me and later selling it to me lead to 8 years of triathlons (about 15 to 20 races), an Ironman, and about 20 pounds lighter. I bought it for $150 - an absolute steal I realized later. I have since put no less than $300 into it in terms of wheels, repairs and other stuff, but when I get a new bike, I'll be keeping this one for sure.

I recall a race about 4 years ago where this guy followed me after the race just to ask me about my bike (at the time, I was also racing on this bike, I've since bought a newer bike). He said something to the affect of "isn't that bike a little old?". He went on to wonder how it was that I didn't get last place. It's funny, but I think people put too much stock in the equipment sometimes. Bikes have certainly changed significantly since the mid-80s, but this bike is aluminum and had the best components at the time. I am not significantly faster on my newer, lighter bike even though it's much "prettier"!!

As seasoned bikers always say, instead of spending $100s on buying lighter components for your bike, just lose some weight!