I'm a fairly regular commuter from my home in Redlands to North Rialto, CA. It's a 40 mile round trip. Mostly, it's a good ride, though I go through some tough areas. The streets are fairly decent and the route I take has fairly light traffic.

I don't ride on rainy days. Not on purpose, anyway I do get into a lot of wind this time of year with the Santa Anas. The heat is kind of a thing during the summer months, but it's really just July through mid September.

Commuting is pretty fun sometimes, kind of a drag others.

Mark

When the weather is warm enough, I am also a regular commuter (okay, semi-regular - three or four days a week). It's about 25 miles round trip, through the piney woods and gentle hills of South Carolina. So far, this winter has just been a little too wet for me to ride, and my morning trip has to start at 0400 for me to get to work on time...

I ride three times a week. I carry food and clothes in on Mondays, bring home the dirty laundry on Fridays. I used to commute 4 and 5 times/week and would like to get back to that. Sometimes, though, life gets in the way!

Mark

I know what you mean - in order to start my morning ride at 0400, I have to get up no later than 0330 - meaning I have to hit the hay at seven-thirty at the latest if I'm going to be any good at all at work that day.

I get up at 4:00, have coffee, peruse the Internet, take care of "other business" and try to be on the road by 5:00. 5:20 is my absolute drop dead gotta be out the door time. My ride takes about 1:10- 1:15, plus time to shower, shave and get dressed. There have been a few mornings when I got a flat and ended up skipping the shave.

Not that I would be in trouble for being late on account of a flat. My boss is also a cyclist, so he knows the score. I just have a thing about being punctual.

Mark

My shift starts at 6:30 in the morning, and there are rather strict guidelines regarding lateness - so in order to make sure I get there on time I usually leave in Po-lenty of time just in case of a flat, or I hit a deer or something. And yes, hitting a deer is a definite possibility where I live - I was knocked clean off my motorcycle (Honda 750 Shadow - a fairly hefty 'sickle) last summer by one of those four-footed critters that came out of the woods and broadsided me. I thought the loud pipes would keep the resident fauna away from the road, but Noooo... road rash hurts like the dickens, and I bruised in places I didn't think could GET bruised. At least on a bicycle I'd be traveling at considerably less than the 40 mph I was doing that night.

Saw 2 deer the other day while riding the MUT. I slowed, moved to the far side & kept an eye on them (they also watched me) until I was past.

Knocked off a motorcycle by a deer, and lived to tell the tale? You're lucky. An old, good friend of mine was killed last summer that way, and her husband spent the bulk of the summer in the hospital, and will probably never fully recover. She was on the back of the bike, her husband was driving. She took a direct hit from the side, and died at the scene.

While I was doing my second USA Four Corners Tour I hit a deer on the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia. I was only going 50 MPH. The small deer was killed on the spot. I really feel bad about that. I only came out of it breaking four ribs. I then rode the rest of the way to Madawaska, Maine for the last checkpoint. What can I say Moto Guzzis are tuff! After holding up in Booth Bay Harbor eating lobster and steamers every day for a week. I then rode back home to the NW.

Now days I commute twenty some miles to work on my recumbent. What a change Ay! My so-called friends think I’m nuts going back to ridding bicycles. But then they thought I was nuts doing the far four corners on my motorcycle. So I guess nothing has really changed.

Ciao,
O^o