The how was your commute thread.

[whistler]

Had to avoid the quintessential SUV-driven-driver-eating-a-sandwich-and-listening-to-a-favorite-tune-and-not-seeing-me-NEXT-to-her on the way home yesterday.  Decides she wants to share my lane while bopping behind the wheel and lost in her own little world.  The level of rampant dumbassery out here is ASTOUNDING...

Beautiful afternoon otherwise.  😁

[1moreroad]

Surprised to see the mileage on my motorcycle catching up to my truck.  Might actually have more mileage on the moto by the end of 2020.  It's a slow race.

Seeing more and more motos on the road now that the weather is consistently good.  I saw 5 bikes yesterday!   I remember how excited we both were when a Hayabusa rider saw me and rolled up to me to talk while I was refueling back in February.

BTW, that's 5 bikes in about 130 miles in the Mississippi Delta.  Back when I lived in Los Angeles, I usually lost count around 2 dozen when counting bikes on a 25 mile commute.

I'm not thrilled by all the rain in the past 6 months, but at least the forecasts have generally been accurate so I can plan on riding the moto or driving the car or truck.

Mesh gear is an absolute must.  Temperatures got up to 91 on my ride home and it was comfortable enough.

[whistler]

Pretty quiet ride in this morning.  Not much traffic and made good time.  The best part was this morning's sky was crystal clear at 4:30 a.m. . . . looked up from my deck and saw nothing but stars everywhere.  It was most impressive.  Lately I've learned to really appreciate this kind of view.  It was an awesome start to my day.

[DavidS]

Sunny and 80 degrees today in Seattle, although still too many cars.

Interestingly enough, in the garage at work where I park my bike, the motorcycle spots are all full these days, so they commandered another 3 car parking places for motorcycles. How cool is that!

[nicksta43]

21 minutes ago, DavidS said:

Sunny and 80 degrees today in Seattle, although still too many cars.

 

Misting rain and in the mid fifties here in central Texas, not too many cars though. 

[Guest]

It's still not really warmed up here in southern Massachusetts but having a brand new bike has had me a little crazed to get out and ride it. This week I rode into work 3 days. My ride has some spectacular views of the ocean going from Massachusetts to my office in Rhode Island and it's a pretty cool 15 minutes or so. Another good part is that 10 minutes of the trip is on a 4 lane highway where for some reason, there's always a multitude of drivers moving at a snails pace in the fast lane. My 16 Tundra is no slug at almost 400 HP but I can't slide in and out of the small windows that I can with my FJ.  $9 in gas is easy to take too.

I've also noticed that a lot of people tend to move over when a bike comes up behind them. Has anyone else noticed this?

Below is a picture of the bay I ride across.

PS: In the top of the picture are 2 cooling towers for a coal fired power plant that they recently decommissioned. Last weekend I took my bike out to watch them blow them up. They were both 500 feet tall and it was way cool watching them fall.  

Edited May 11, 2019 by Guest

[superfist]

17 hours ago, chesterburnet said:

 

I've also noticed that a lot of people tend to move over when a bike comes up behind them. Has anyone else noticed this?

 

Yeah, I see that a lot here in GA as well.  I'll often come up behind a car and just happily cruising along and they will often move right over.  This almost never happens when I'm driving a car, so it's not explained by the GA "Slowpoke" law.  Officers here will write tickets for impeding traffic if you're camping the left lane.

 

 

 

[nicksta43]

Had a closer than necessary experience with a UPS truck a half a block from home. 

He was driving completely in the wrong side of the road, then got over like he saw me but swerved back to the middle of the road about the time of the first snapshot. For no reason. I don't think he even saw me because he slammed the brakes on when I went by his open drivers door. 

And it still didn't occur to me to hit the horn. 

Thought about emailing the video to UPS but I couldn't find any contact info and I doubt it would do any good anyway. 

[Duke]

7 minutes ago, nicksta43 said:

Had a closer than necessary experience with a UPS truck a half a block from home. 

He was driving completely in the wrong side of the road, then got over like he saw me but swerved back to the middle of the road about the time of the first snapshot. For no reason. I don't think he even saw me because he slammed the brakes on when I went by his open drivers door. 

And it still didn't occur to me to hit the horn. 

Thought about emailing the video to UPS but I couldn't find any contact info and I doubt it would do any good anyway. 

If you have a time stamp on the picture and can tell them where you were, they will know exactly which truck it was, who was driving it, and how fast it was going. I would report it. 

[nhchris]

Unfortunate there is no centerline painted on that street.  Looks like a residential loop with a narrower than normal width.

He is well over on your side for sure. Was he trying to avoid a kitten or something?

I have some sympathy for UPS guys who's bosses work them like Mexican mules until 8 PM in many cases. Bad job!

You got the plate number.

cb

Edited May 18, 2019 by nhchris

[cspradlin]

Does it count if it was coming home from the dealership?

Little asian lady in a sedan tried to merge into me.  Looked right at me when I laid on the horn, and kept merging.

[whistler]

1 hour ago, cspradlin said:

Little asian lady in a sedan tried to merge into me.  Looked right at me when I laid on the horn, and kept merging.

Yep, sounds all too familiar.  Happens quite a bit here in the metro DC area.  Glad it didn't get worse for you.

[nicksta43]

1 hour ago, nhchris said:

Unfortunate there is no centerline painted on that street.  Looks like a residential loop with a narrower than normal width.

He is well over on your side for sure. Was he trying to avoid a kitten or something?

I have some sympathy for UPS guys who's bosses work them like Mexican mules until 8 PM in many cases. Bad job!

You got the plate number.

cb

I was a little worked up over it for a couple minutes. I'll admit I turned around and followed him to his next stop which was a block over. But in the end I thought better of it and just shook my head and went home. 

He was driving completely on the wrong side of the road, almost against the curb to my right, until he got about a half block away from me. Then he went all the way over to the left curb, which would have been the correct side. At that point I ASSumed he saw me and change my plan from pulling up behind that pickup truck as I was planning to do prior to him getting over to the correct side, to going ahead down the street. But then he started coming back towards the center of the road and I had already committed and didn't have time to dip in behind the truck. But he just kept getting closer. Which is why I think he never saw me. I was going 27 according to the video and I'd estimate his speed about the same. The speed limit is 30. 

To be clear, I accept all the blame for this because I ASSumed he saw me. I should have just stuck to the original plan of pulling up behind the pickup. 

It was just a little too close for my liking. 

But in the end that's all it was, a close call and a lesson learned. 

[BBB]

5 hours ago, nicksta43 said:

To be clear, I accept all the blame for this because I ASSumed he saw me. I should have just stuck to the original plan of pulling up behind the pickup. 

Well done on thinking back through the situation. It’s always good to check what happened and build it into your skillset.  A thirty second delay to your ride from being cautious is way better than being squished.

[dbezerkeley]

I've started commuting across the Bay Bridge into SF on my 2015 and its a great commuter bike.....nimble and tall enough to be seen by cars, the hard bags are kind of small but narrow for lane splitting.  Commuting mileage for the last few tanks has consistently been 38mpg, given the traffic it rarely gets into 6th gear.