Thursday, October 13, 2005

Winter Route & Bikes Everywhere?

As I begin to anticipate snow and the likelihood that my normal route to work will go unplowed I’ve begun to consider alternative routes to work. Today I pretty much settled on a new route, entirely on road, to get to work. It’s a half-mile longer than my preferred route. It’s has an advantage over my preferred route because instead of facing a 10-minute exposed leg directly into an artic wind, I get to vary north and west directions and be amongst the relative coverage of homes, trees and buildings. Additionally, I get 2 or so miles at the end of the ride with that north wind on my back.

I reversed the route at the end of the day for the trip home and found it much less enjoyable. At one point I braced for what sounded and felt like a truck about to drive up my back. It’s a fast road…well it has a reasonable but ignored speed limit.

The highlight of the trip home was passing three cyclists. I’m not talking about seeing three cyclists I’m talking about actual, “on your left,” passing. And I’m not talking about the local bike path; I’m talking about on the road. Quite cool. Two of the three were local cycling personalities: GGGGarth and a guy with a trailer with a traffic control barrel overturned for carrying goods.

Did you know? “More bicycles than cars were sold in the United States over the past 12 months.”

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