This morning's commute and other commuting stories

I think I saw one other rider this morning on the way in.

Good spot - 163 'overtaking' as well as 182/3 'turning left'.

Either way they shouldn't be close enough to cause @doppelkorn to brake, as that means they'll have ignored both rules.

Was wonderful to have Richmond Park to myself this morning. I can't remember the last time I rode through there without seeing another cyclist.

I like the rain - it keeps the fair weather nodders off the road.

I have to say that despite horizontal rain in Bristol this morning there were a good few fluoro-clad, squeaky-chained individuals nodding gamely through it

^good on them.
I found out this morning just how bad my open 4 cd front rim's wet braking performance is. Genuinely might as well be brklz

Well... At least the traffic was good....

Putting my hands up, got the train in this morning. It was absolutely awful when I get up at 6 and couldn't face another sit of the pants ride in this morning. Really need to sort out some decent wet weather tires. My current ones are lethal.

... if there's 2 or 3 cars in front of you, might as well wait behind it.

True. If you're going to get through the lights on this phase anyway, then there's no need to get into the ASL, you may as well wait in the queue of cars. This has the added advantage that, if you're feeling fast, you can stay in the stream of cars until you've overtaken any really slow cyclists and then pull to the left/into the bike lane.

such damp

Ha! Yeah about 10 years ago but not driven much in the last 5 years. I think I'm a pretty decent cyclist (don't we all? :)) barring a couple of silly decisions now and then.

I must swot up on the rules around ASLs and cycle lanes though.

Took a week off bike and rode to work today in pissing rain; some twattery but it was lovely

Bit wet this morning but nice and empty. Only thing is that I have trouble seeing through my glasses with all that spray. Does anyone have a good solution for that or should I switch to contacts?

Hippy suggested Salclear as I suffer from the same issue.

Best commute into work! First time installed a pair of mudguards and was pretty much dry and as the rest said less nodders on the road, though one thing I did notice was that with these new 25mm durano plus I did require A LOT more force to slow the bike down! But overall one of the loveliest commute into work for a while!

Good tip cheers

Pissweak you lot, my missus rode in this morning.
"Crappy commute in, so wet, so much traffic"

While I sit at home enjoying a recovery day mwuahahahahahahahahaaaaaa!

My back is still soaked from riding in, even with mudguards. Urgh.

I seriously need to address my winter riding attire situation soon. Summer clothing is just not going to cut it anymore.

Rode for 25 minutes before having one of those random "Hope none of my bag's pockets are open, because everything would get f**ked!" thoughts. Had in fact failed to zip up the external opening to the laptop compartment, but thankfully Chrome had magically predicted my error and the small, unsecured flap covering the opening kept it completely bone dry. Not looking forward to wet shoes on the way home.

Also the rain seems to reduce my bell to a pathetic sound akin to a glockenspiel being unenthusiastically tapped in a year 7 music lesson...

The most amazing tail wind ever for me. So fast. So strong. So wow. Very road domination.

Also the rain seems to reduce my bell to a pathetic sound akin to a glockenspiel being unenthusiastically tapped in a year 7 music lesson...

Yeah. Can't work out if it's my big fat gloves or what. I wanted to ping the UNISON staff.

I need to go to my office. But my home is so nice and warm and dry. Why did I not do this errand on Friday like I knew I had to?

I went out in light drizzle and returned with a kebab, 99p copy of the Secret Race and 6 tasty tasty beers, 4 of which were only £1 each! I should use this office more often.

I was gloveless so concluded it was rain. Pretty annoying when you're wet through and want to unleash a torrent of shrill pinging death.

I treated myself to overshoes this morning. It seemed silly for 35 minute commute but I've enjoyed having dry feet from the get-go and I'm back on good terms with my colleagues since I didn't have to dry my socks off on the back of my monitor. They were radiating 'cycling odour' into the ether and I was feeling a bit bad about it. It's this fucking perfect office AC - no air movement, slightly cool, no warm objects!...the only kind of safe-ish place I found was the heat vents on my monitor. No cables or metal and I suppose if what ever it is I'm drying out burst into flames at least it's in my line of sight.