Many people who know me know that I regularly commute to work via bicycle.  I also keep a blog, where I occasionally chronicle my experiences riding a bike to work (among other topics).  In writing about bike commuting, I’ve always focused on positive things.  That’s because bike commuting is, almost overwhelmingly, a positive experience.  Sure,…

…is that it’s only 28 days long.  February is historically my least-prolific bike commuting month, as I haven’t been able to top 7 rides in February in my entire 2-year winter bike commuting history.  This month I’ll be thrilled if I can reach 8 rides, and ecstatic if I can hit 10 rides.  It all…

First ride today following Tuesday night’s snow, which dumped around 8 inches of stuff roughly the texture, consistency and weight of liquid cement.  I took the Rockhopper, which is looking like it’s going to become my go-to snow bike.  Just need to pick up a set of studded tires, which I’ll do next winter.  In…

New record low temperature for my morning commute today:  11°F.  That tops my previous record of 14, set on February 5, 2009.  However, we had no wind to speak of this morning, vs. a brutal 20-plus mph headwind for most of the 2009 ride.  That made today’s ride quite a bit more enjoyable.  For posterity,…

At long last, I took my rebuilt ’93 Specialized Rockhopper out for its first commute this morning.  I took it for a brief off-road excursion a couple of months ago, so this technically wasn’t its maiden voyage, but it was my first time commuting on it, and I was able to get a good “feel”…

Looks like this is going to be one of those “ice storm” winters, where we get more ice storms and light dustings of snow than real snowstorms.  Anyhow, we got freezing rain most of Monday night, and today I got back on the bike.  Main roads were all fine, but the roads through Patapsco State…

I’ve ridden to work 7 times so far this January, the same total I had this time in 2010.  In the news media, everyone has been complaining that this winter has been colder than usual.  That may be true on average, but it seems like the mornings haven’t been as cold as last year’s.  I…

Here we are in 2011, another year of bike commuting.  I spent most of the Holidaze doing things other than riding.  As a result, I was a little out of shape for my first ride of the year today.  Hopefully, that’ll be short-lived. I rode to work 174 times in 2010, eclipsing 2009’s total, which…

Perfect biking weather lately.  20° with a wind chill of 10..  pitch dark at 5:00pm..  wind advisory until 10:00pm..  what’s not to like?  As long as there’s no snow or ice, I’ll take this over hot and humid any day. I’m still figuring out the optimum layering strategy for comfort in these conditions.  I think…

Typical winter day at the office.  I spent an hour riding in sub-freezing weather, and was perfectly comfortable and warm for the entire ride.  Now I’m freezing cold sitting here in my 70° office.  Never underestimate the power of moving around to keep blood circulating, I guess. This was my coldest ride into work of…