The Real Deal: Intermediate Commute

Despite my misgivings yesterday evening about the new route I was testing, today I went for the real deal and my ride was actually pleasant. It helped that I made a slight modification to my route to remove one of the neighborhood cut-throughs. The other cut-through was navigable even with my big front bag on my bike (so much so that a guy on a scooter follow me up the path). Also, I got the worst part of the route out of the way early--there's a stretch as I'm getting off campus where I have to ride on the sidewalk before I can turn into the first neighborhood.

I was surprised that there weren't as many people on bikes during the ride home, not even on the Capital Crescent Trail, but I guess I'm comparing it to a decent weekend when a lot of people tend to be out (I even had a double Brompton sighting yesterday!). There were long stretches in the neighborhoods when I didn't have a lot of cars to contend with, and it was really to nice take my lane and go at an easy pace (though I still made good time).

My morning commute was good too. I took a longer route than usual to get around the problematic areas, but the quality of the ride was much improved. The only sort-of issue was when a work truck came up onto the multi-use path right as I was going down it--that really woke me up!

Anyway, after today's rides I've feeling better about my bike commute options generally. It took me a while to get here this year, but I hope to be able to sustain it.

Total miles: 8.94 (.9 + 3.6 + 4.44)

Observation: When I'm riding on a sidewalk without a treelawn next to it, I feel like I'm riding next to traffic anyway.