SBR Utopia ~~~~ Permanently OPEN!! (Page 93)

My bike came with Schwalbe Sammy Slicks.  I think they are more meant as an all around tire for commuting.

Looking for something more like these.

You are an evil man for making me aware of this....

You'll want a modern machine but it won't need to be a top end gaming setup.  The Zwift recommended specs are pretty reasonable, and should be fine for most other media center uses:

Edit, just an example -

I picked up an Asus Zenbook (UX51vz) not too long ago, refurbished on eBay for under $1000.  It's one of the nicer Windows laptops out there.  I can dig up other options if you want.

You know this "all-in-one" describes an iMac, right?

Yeah, I had seen that in the earlier posts. Just thought it amusing that the PC side didn't seem to have coined a term for it when Mac has had this for about 15 years now. Obviously I have a Mac at home now, but am for whatever works.

So yesterday I almost get T-Boned by some lady in a mini van who thinks it's okay to rip through a right turn on red by only looking left for oncoming cross traffice instead of me...right in front of her in the cross walk.  Luckily I have good 1 second power as all I had time for was 1.5 pedal strokes, then throwing my handlebars forward (as if lunging for the line) to avoid my back wheel getting clipped.  I then proceeded to bunny hop the curb and keep it upright into a grassy area.  Driver didn't hit the brakes till after she was past me...and she only knew I was there once I gave the "Oh $hit" yell.  At least she pulled over and was extremely apologetic.

10 miles later, I'm riding with traffic...keeping up with the flow as it was a slight downhill/tailwind.  I'm going 25ish mph (in a 25 zone) and some idiot pickup truck decides to fly past me as we are approaching a red light.  His right mirror clips my left tricep and he proceeds to head towards the red light like nothing happened.  Of course I confront him, give him the WTF...and to my shock...he says it's my fault because I'm going too fast and I'm supposedly "racing" him.  It was some older guy...probably in his 60's and I was just beside myself at his reaction.  Never said sorry, once while I stood next to his mirror that was bent in.  If it wasn't a fold in mirror, I likely go down very hard.  And it's not like he was trying to squeeze past me while I was on the shoulder...I was taking the lane because there was no shoulder.  It was two lanes going our direction, and we were actually going faster than the left lane.

I'm fortunate I'm not in a hospital today, but geez...the ignorance and stupidity of people will never cease to amaze me.

The last 5 miles I rode home I thought about Fred and you folks who are forced to stay off the road during this time of year...I quickly dismissed that idea.  There are idiot people all over the place, and you can't always hide from them even if you aren't on a bike.  If I were a mom pushing a stroller in the first situation with the minivan (there are a lot of joggers and stroller pushers in that area) then it likely ends up extremely bad.  

Contrary to popular belief, it's not the rain that bothers riders in the northwest.  It's how early it gets dark out during the offseason.  I've had enough close calls in full daylight, so I have no desire to ride at night.

The one redeeming thing in my area is that we have lots of bike lanes and paved trails.  When I'm doing IM training I can ride a good 4 hour loop containing only about 30 minutes on an actual road with cars.

Nor is it necessarily light for us so cal'ers (although having done it, not a huge fan of riding in the dark).

I actually [gasp] enjoy the trainer during the week.  I catch up on tv series(,,,, es? what is the plural of series??) I'd missed, get a quality workout in an hour with a lot less stress than dealing with commuter traffic, stoplights, etc.

Yeah...I don't commute to work necessarily for the training aspect.  Most of the route is on a bike path where I'll go hard if there aren't any walkers, but generally my commute is pretty mellow for safety reasons.  The main reason I still commute by bike is traffic is absolutely miserable now for cars.  We are doing a ton of construction, including building a rail system above our busiest roads that will take another 3-4 years to complete.  My 16.5 mile commute generally takes me around 60-65 minutes including stoppage time.  My coworkers who have a similar commute distance are averaging around 80-90 minutes...bad days get have been known to go over 2 hours.  It's freaking horrible to drive these days and it will only get worse as construction enters higher traffic areas.  They just announced that one of the most congested parts of our freeway...which is 5 lanes in each direction, will be limited to 3 lanes (if not less) each way every evening as they build the rail guideway over that section of the freeway.

You're not the only one who kinda likes the trainer.  In fact, I honestly don't even want to ride Sufferfest videos or "race" with various software because I enjoy my guilty pleasure tv shows that I only watch on the trainer.  

Glad you came out okay in both instances, Jason.  Be safe out there!

It's just effin' cold here.

Glad you are ok Jason, pretty scary that they actually made contact!