National bike to Work Day

Well, the part of my commute nearest work looks like this:

And that's a shoulder, not a bike lane. Broken glass, beer cans, dead armadillos.

Then you have to cut behind a Kroger to avoid the 6x6 lane intersection with constant-motion yield turning lanes:

And then for a while I haul ass down the sidewalks. Not the best, but safer than the street here, and I'm the only one on them. No one walks in this town. (You're looking up an 8% grade there, BTW, but not a long one. One other section hits 9%.)

But then a lot of it looks like this too, so it's not all bad:

And sometimes I detour to pick up dinner:

Basically, I ride like a punk 12 year old kid part of the time, like a responsible cyclist part of the time, and like a car part of the time. It just depends which is safest given the traffic of the moment and the street architecture.

I can't stand wearing a backpack while riding road, so I use the rack and trunk bag. If I had to haul a laptop I'd be running a single pannier. I may actually pick up the Banjo Brothers convertible pannier backpack just to increase my cargo capacity for store stops on the way home.

I guess I could bring a bike up from the garage and ride it the 10 ft from my bedroom to my office.

I ran over 5 cyclists yesterday... it was glorious

Haha. I occasionally run errands after work on my bike because I have gotten to the point I HATE driving at rush hour anymore around here. I ran some stuff to my Wife after work and was riding home. I passed a neighbor in her car. It's about 15 miles home from where we were at and I beat her home by 20 minutes. It's funny the looks you get when you pass these guys on the shoulder of the road like that.

yeah, in that long hill in the first pic I usually pass 10-15 people sitting at the light that just passed me. They often look unhappy. I think it's probably because they have crappy cars instead of fun cars or bikes, but what do I know...

ultraclyde wrote: yeah, in that long hill in the first pic I usually pass 10-15 people sitting at the light that just passed me. They often look unhappy. I think it's probably because they have crappy cars instead of fun cars or bikes, but what do I know...

Are you in Cali? Everywhere else that's illegal.

( I do it anyway )

I'm in Georgia. I don't think GA law specifically discusses lane splitting on a bicycle, although it does prohibit it on a motorcycle. That may end up being the same thing since bicycles ARE legally classed as 'vehicles' under GA law, though. In the end, none of that matters because I'm riding down the shoulder at that point, and no one will complain about that since I'm not obstructing their vehicular transit times to the next red light where I will pass them again.

I want to, but I own a mountain bike only, it's 32 miles round trip on nasty nasty roads.

So I'll bike while at work.

I used to have a bike. Was attacked by a vicious Camry 1 week into ownership. Fought back with my head and destroyed the windshield. I no longer have that bike.

Tomorrow I plan to drive 100 miles round trip to go on a mountain bike ride.

Bike to work day has been cancelled in San Diego, we are going to get 5/8-1 inch of rain tomorrow and I swear the city is going to float away. The last time we got this much rain the sewers overflowed.

In reply to wearymicrobe:

I got 6" of rain last Sunday after it rained most if Friday and Saturday (tropical storm Ana). No ill effects. One of the times I've been to SD, it had rained a bit the day before and I was confused/bemused that it was such a topic of conversation.

My commute is 78 miles each way, and I carry over 2000 lbs of tools with me.

I don't think so.

David S. Wallens wrote: Biggest obstacle for me is that I bring my laptop home every day and I'd rather not ride with a backpack. Hmmm.

You're welcome to borrow those panniers that you see me carrying my laptop to work in. I won't need them for a few weeks.

I should have. I'm one of the few who rides here, but today was supposed to be rain all day. I've scarcely seen clouds thus far.

I have a one mile commute, no traffic lights. It's pretty easy.