Tuesday, July 03, 2007

Weak Commute

So my commute is totally weak nowdays. After one half mile of street, it's all Class I bike path. Even so, I got to beef it up last week.

Watching houses for relatives can be taxing. Two were out of town last week and one has a dog. I came up with a rough circuit to ride from my place every day that turned out to be about 25 miles. Of course since I work days, this was to be ridden in the hottest part of the day in the worst traffic. I probably could have skipped stop#1 every other day, but they get enough mail to kill a tree every day and an overstuffed mailbox is a bad thing. I bit the bullet and went with it.

By Thursday I was pretty burned out. It didn't matter though because this was the last day there was a timeline involved because I don't work Friday nights. The burnout wasn't particularly due to the miles, but more so the heat and traffic. There was one moment of glory Thursday afternoon at one particular intersection though. Traffic stopped for a signal that I needed to turn left at and I timed the turn lane perfectly with a high speed weave through three lanes of traffic to split, dropping in right behind the last car in the turn lane and then burning through the intersection. I was so pumped, a friend who happened to see me about 1/2 mile down the road said he saw me hauling ass down that street.

When the week ended on Friday, it was an easy spin to both residences, followed by a stop at my favorite coffee shop. A couple of things were learned from last week. One is that my commute is actually quite nice and staring a gift horse in the mouth is pretty lame in that respect. The other is that I'm finally getting used to riding a fixed/brakeless bicycle on the street and doing it with a little panache.

I still prefer riding in the coolness of the night though.