Back in Action

Let me state, for the record, that I actually managed to forget, somehow, how awesome it is to get to ride my bike all day while still earning money.  That's pretty sweet.  This has been a phenomenal week for me thus far, if not as great for our other courier, C, who had a run-in with a car and is laid up with an arm/shoulder injury (he plans to be back soon, even if it means rollin' one-handed: that's what I like about this dude; when he gets knocked down, he just springs back up, usually without even spilling his coffee).

With E on vacation in Ireland and C temporarily out of commission, I've been running my behind off for the past couple of days.  Today QS's bottom bracket started making odd noises, so I decided to run with Hg for the afternoon stuff.  I pulled off a sub-30 minute round trip to American Printing House for the blind, including a blazing outbound run, which actually surprised me.  Apparently, I need to drink tea before taking runs more often.  I am pretty sure I have never actually ridden as fast on the flat as I did on that run, and I am not actually sure I ever will again -- at least, not unless I'm riding with a group, or racing, or something.  Putting out that kind of speed, in my case, apparently requires some serious motivation.  Besides, it feels almost reckless to ride that fast in traffic.

I was surprised to find that Hg makes a really phenomenal couriering bike.  There is no way you could mount a standard rack on him (though one of those seatpost-mounted ones could go), but he's cat-nimble and handles brilliantly at high speed.  I think I'll probably do the same routine tomorrow -- take QS out for the big mail run in the morning, then switch to Hg for the lighter stuff.  And carry an 8-mm allen wrench for those random moments when his left crank gets loose (apparently a 'known issue' with the early SL-K cranksets).

In other news, not long ago, I ran into Dave, the 'Fa(s)t Guy,' on the way home (don't worry, I didn't literally run into him!).  It was nice to get a chance to ride with one of the RCCS guys and chat for a while, especially since it happened totally by chance.  It was also pretty impressive watching him sprint for the light when he peeled off at his corner!

It's funny how that sort of thing happens -- one moment, you're sitting at a stoplight, admiring bike in front of yours; the next minute, you're rolling along in the company of a fellow bike nut, talking shop and so forth.

It's a lot harder, I think, to make that happen in a car.  Plus, it annoys the drivers behind you way more than two bikes rolling along together and still leaving them room to pass.

This Friday is Bike to Work Day proper, and I'm looking forward to the festivities.  Here's hoping that the demiurges in control of weather will favor us!

Does the Future Ride Contra-Flow?

Something occurred to me this morning.

Our Oracles of Darksome Doom (generally known as 'The Media') have taken to predicting $5/gallon gas this summer.

Theoretically, for many who live in range (say, 5 miles or less from work, which seems to be the cut-off for many non-cyclists; I even have cyclist friends who ride a bazillion miles a day but think my 7-mile-each-way commute is nuts), this will represent the tipping point at which they feel themselves forced to transition into bike- or transit-commuters.

For the most part, I think this is a great thing -- it will mean fewer cars and more bikes on the road, and that's good for everyone.  The hordes of new cyclists (yes, I'm an optimist!) will simultaneously help to reduce air pollution and begin to trim America's national waistline, something this country desperately needs.  More importantly, perhaps, they'll be out there actually connecting with life on a very visceral level, and soon they'll discover how much fun it is to roll around under your own power, out in the elements, instead of being trapped in a big, steel isolation chamber and propelled by long-dead plants and animals.

However, as long as there are at least some cars on the road, I am concerned for the squadrons of bike newbies who will emerge, blinking, from their garages on new bikes and old bikes alike.  I am concerned because the vast majority of Americans seem never to have been educated at all about the safer ways of cycling -- with traffic, on the road -- and those safer ways often feel counter-intuitive to newbies who aren't bike-mad and don't spend every free moment reading bike forums on the Innertubes.

I'm worried that we're going to see a lot of new riders tentatively creeping along, going the wrong way down the road, or on the sidewalks.

The obvious solution, to my mind, is to offer bike education classes for free and get really friendly people to teach them.  LBC already hosts a series of League of American Cyclists classes for free -- but I wonder, will folks attend them in anticipation of rising gas prices?  We Americans don't have a great track record for planning ahead (with the exception of a few small groups that are extremely, extremely well-prepared for The End of the World, but possibly not for having to ride a bike in traffic).

If you had to think of a creative way to get folks learning to ride safely, what would you do?

Oh, Right.

One more thing 'Fall' means:

FENDERS.

Yes, it's time again for 'filth prophylactics,' mudguards, fred blades, whatever you want to call them. The humid but rainless summer is over at last, and the Season of the Rooster Tail is upon us (Alleluia!).

Fortunately, I already have fenders for Swift. Quicksilver could probably wear a set of SKS Raceblades but, even with a potential shop discount (I'm not sure we carry them, so it's hard to say), the cost of the Raceblades would still be prohibitive right now, because I am borked (which is also why I'm probably not racing any more this year, unless a miracle occurs).

So it looks like Swift will be doing the honors, which is fine, because Swift will also be doing the (God help us) Winter Bike honors this year, unless I can convince my Mom that an aluminum 'cross frame would be the perfect early Christmas present. The only problem is that after several months pretty much riding Quicksilver all the time, riding Swift feels ... um ... weird.

Like, 'epic stem' weird, actually. I have grown rather unused to sitting up straight while riding a bike. It doesn't mean Swift handles badly or anything — just that I feel really strange.

So much so, in fact, that I'm partway inclined to cannibalize some poor old road bike from the garage and steal its stem, bars, and other such bits.

Of course, then I'll have to get one of those fancy dooflitchets that let you use road levers with v-brakes (sidebar: does anyone know why they're called v-brakes? ...because mine are distinctly square, not v-shaped at all, when seen from the front never mind; I have apparently lost my mind; I was thinking of the brakes on my black Schwinn, not Swift's brakes, which do definitely resemble Vs). Dooflitchets cost money, however, and money is the one thing I don't have right now, so I may just have to suck it up and get used to riding 'upright' again.

Basically, I had no idea how enormous Swift's stem was. The thing is like half a foot tall (Quicksilver's has that whole 'negative rise' thing going on). Not that this is a big problem, but some part of me feels really weird all dolled up in my 'I'm a Real Cyclist' togs while rolling around on a bike with a stem that makes me sit up like a Puritan on Sunday morning (or afternoon ... or evening).

Speaking of which, a couple of weeks ago, I was chatting outside a CVS with a fellow who rides a nice Schwinn Traveler, and he referred to me as a 'real cyclist' (apparently, putting in a lot of miles on an old Allez is a good way to convince others that you're one of those).

That both made me smile and struck me as funny — it wasn't so long ago that I thought of 'those people' with the lycra and the road bikes and the hair (okay, some of them are bald) as 'Real Cyclists (TM),' and myself as just some kind of half-ASPed dweeb on a bike.

Not to say I think I'm all that with extra 'All That' sauce now — but I no longer think of the roadies and 'cross racers and people-who-actually-ride-mountain-bikes-off-road of the world as 'Them' (as in the 'Us and Them' dichotomy).

These days, I think of cyclists in general as 'Us,' excepting perhaps those who insist on operating bicycles in the roadways at 2.3 MPH against the flow of traffic. Those chucklebunnies, I think of as 'bike salmon,' as BikesnobNYC has so aptly defined them.

This transition seems to have happened slowly and gently enough that I never even really noticed it was happening. At some point, without realizing it, I started thinking of myself as a 'Real Cyclist.' Not that I think I know everything — heck, there are days I'm pretty sure I know absolutely nothing — and not that I think I'm hot stuff (okay, sometimes I do), because I can think of at least a hundred people in the city of Louisville alone who could drop me like a bad habit under just about any conditions, and most of them are like twice my age or more.

Sure, I do have my cocky moments (more than I care to admit) and occasionally even stupid moments (I AM SPRINTING THIS YELLOW LIGHT IF IT KILLS ME — HOLY CARP IT TURNED RED AND I DON'T HAVE TIME TO STOP! — I GUESS I'M SPRINTING THIS RED LIGHT IF IT KILLS ME...), though I try to keep those to a bare minimum.

Speaking of cocky, stupid moments, since I don't have to bring *anything* to class tonight except for myself, I think I'm going to be both cocky and stupid and ride the whole distance from here to school. It has been a couple of weeks since I rode more than eleven miles in one stretch, so it's about time. Now that I'm finally on top of the housework again (I let it slide while I was looking after DD following his surgery), I think I'm going to try to start getting out and doing long rides on class days, since I do nothing but housework and school on those days. As such, I plan to take Quicksilver (the roads should be dry, or at least, dry enough) and head out around two-thirty or three o'clock, ride north-west to the MUP, then ride the MUP to the bridge, where I'll invade Indiana.

Oh, right. Assuming my clothes are dry by three.

See what I mean? Stupid and cocky, heh.

Ride Report: Republic Plaza to Indiana University Southeast

A while ago, I learned that saying 'never' is not an option for me.

Any time I say, 'I'll never x,' I condemn myself immediately to doing the very thing I've just said I'll never do. For example, not that long ago, as I'm sure I've mentioned, I was one of those people who insist that they will never, ever wear Lycra (at least, not without something on top of it).

Now, I pretty much live in my lycra cycling shorts, and I'm okay with that. Whether or not everyone else is — well, that's another story, but nobody's complained yet. I get to occasional perplexed look, and once got a very strange smile in the grocery store (hmmm...), but for the most part, nobody bats an eye (probably because Louisville is full of roadies). Indeed, one of the very best things about being a cyclist is the fact that not only can you go out for lunch more or less in your underwear (or pajamas, if that analogy is more comfortable for you), but once you arrive at the restaurant in question, you can eat as much as you want. Unless it's so hot you can't eat, but that's another problem entirely.

So when I say, 'I never ride my bike on the sidwalk,' what I mean, more accurately speaking, is that I never ride my bike on the sidewalk, except when I do.

Take Wednesday night's trek out to school, for instance.

Now, Louisville has, historically, not been known for its gridlock — but as our downtown business district grows denser, it draws more cars — and more cars mean it's more likely that somebody's going to misjudge the available space across the intersection, or just decide to be a self-important schmuck.

Imagine, if you will, three or for such unfortunate souls and/or self-important schmucks clogging up the core of a small city with small 19th-century blocks.

Now imagine me, already 15 minutes behind schedule, confidently riding out into the fray*.

As I roll merrily down Market Street, I soon realize that traffic is moving at a snail's pace — and I'm not talking about a carbon-fiber-shelled Road Snail with STI (that's Slime Trail Integration, for those of you not in the know), either. The snail I'm picturing is more like one of those swoopy, brightly-colored single-speed ones you see cruising down the boardwalk in Florida.** Also, the snail I'm picturing is often not moving at all, and when he is moving, he's often busy trying to make his shell occupy the same space as somebody else's shell while talking on his shell phone (forgive me), causing the other snails to honk at him as they drop their shell phones in their coffee.

Perhaps I've now hyper-extended my metaphor? I may need to see someone about that.

Anyway.

After about 10 minutes sitting within 3.5 blocks of my office, I realize there is absolutely no way I am ever going to get to school at this rate — so I zip down the turn lane on between Fourth and Third Streets (don't worry, I do know which way the counting numbers go — it's west, of course, and I was headed east) and hop on the super-wide sidewalk underneath the Convention Center (which straddles Third Street).

A quick right at Jefferson — well, technically, a really slow right, because riding on the sidewalk makes me paranoid — takes me to Second Street, where I cross pedestrian-stylie, then find a good spot to merge back into the traffic headed for the Clark Memorial Bridge into Indiana.

There, I also find that road construction is exacerbating the traffic problem — so the drivers aren't entirely to blame.

It takes maybe another ten minutes to make it to the bridge, sitting through a couple of cycles at each of the two intervening lights — and then I'm upon it, the Bridge of Doom widely feared and reviled by Kentuckiana cyclists of all calibres and classes.

On the bridge, however, I find that the drivers play nicely. I find myself wondering if it's the sharrows, with their riderless phantom bikes, or if it's just a good day. Moreover, about a third of the way across, I come upon a police officer sitting in the right-hand lane. A nice lady in a truck lets me in so I can go around him, and then I have the whole right-hand lane entirely to myself for the rest of the crossing — woooohooooooooooo! The sweeping descent into Injianer sure is fun when you have a whole lane to yourself.

Once across the river, of course, my troubles begin. I realize that I have read my directions as far as "Turn right on Court Ave." Since I know where that is, there is little point in having read them that far. I also realize I can't remember the name of the street where I'm supposed to turn. Is it Spring Street? Kentucky? 10th Street? Wait, I'm on 10th Street.

So I spot Kentucky Ave, panic, and turn left.

I then proceed to make a giant, ridiculous loop that brings me back almost the the point where I turned left, only to pause and realize that I made said left turn approximately one half block before reaching the street I should be on. D'oh!

So, there it is, Spring Street. This time, I have the sense to read more than one turn ahead: in fact, I read two whole turns ahead — but I totally misread the distances.

After tooling up Spring Street past the hospital, I come to Eastern Avenue. This, I think to myself, Is a piece of cake! I head onto Eastern, confident that I can find my way to Triangle, even though I have never so much as heard of Triangle Drive before today. How hard can it be, right? It's just a right-hand turn off of Eastern. No biggie.

Riiiight.

So I descend a steepish little hill through a double railway underpass (in the mini-tunnel, I realize that my taillight is off -- D'oh again!), climb a steepish little hill back up to the Interstate-64, wait patiently for the green light, stop at the red light halfway across the overpass, wait politely for the green light ... and then I sail back down into a mostly-commercial area that I know from previous journeys.

This little stretch should be fun — but it's riddled with terrible pavement, randomly narrowing-and-widening road surface, giant and terrifying potholes, and really poor lane markings. Oh, and the double stoplight at the top of the second climb isn't so hot, either. Instead of a fun stretch, it's stressful and irritating.

By now, my water is roughly the temperature of the earth's molten core, and I've been going for a while. I realize I'm hungry and that, between my late start, traffic, and my directional SNAFU, I might not make it before the cafeteria closes (I'm not sure when quittin' time is for them, but they were already trying to close the last time I was there, right around 6:00). I pull off and lock up outside a little convenience store, which provides me with water, chocolate milk (recovery drink of champions!), and whatever snack I can find that I think won't be wholly incompatible with a half-numb mouth leftover from the afternoon's dental work.

As I chug my chocolate milk, I pause to check my my cue sheet: surely Triangle Drive can't be too far from here!

And then, alarmingly, I realize that my cue sheet appears to be telling me that Triangle Drive is only 0.2 miles from where I turned on to Eastern. Rats!

...So I down the milk, a cold Smartwater, and a couple sips of regular water and head back up the road: no sign of triangle. Up the little climb to the overpass. Wait for both red lights. Down the little climb. Up the other side (my tail light is now on, so I feel much better). Still no sign of Triangle. Then at last, at the top of the road, in the distance I see...

...

...The spot where I turned onto Eastern from Spring. What the heck?

Determined not to ride that same little stretch yet again, I decide I'll try a side street: but it turns out that the side streets are arranged in a square that feeds onto a road that connects to Spring at one end and dies at the other. This, I will later surmise, is because of the rail line that lies between me and the rest of Indiana — but at the time, it just seems kind of arbitrary.

Thoroughly irritated, I decide to pull over and re-read the directions (the fact that I read them at all is a minor miracle, by the way, and can be attributed solely to my need to get to class by 7:30 — normally, I just rely on my sense of direction, which is generally excellent, and explore 'til I find a connecting road). Then, an epiphany: that doesn't mean I go 0.2 miles to Triangle Drive — it means I go 0.2 miles ON Triangle Drive***.

Bizarrely, some part of my brain decides at this point that if only we were using the metric system, this whole episode could have been avoided. Some other part of my brain realizes this is terribly irrational. However, I am now too relieved at the resolution of the Great Triangle Drive Mystery to waste time being annoyed about riding that same little segment of road again.

You know the drill: down the hill. Under the rail bridges. Up the hill. Wait for the light. Ride fifty feet. Wait for the light. Over the highway. Down the hill.

This time I proceed straight ahead, hoping against hope that the mystical Triangle Drive will appear — and, eventually, it does.

And I ride 0.2 miles on Triangle Drive, because that is the whole length of Triangle Drive. Then it's on to Blackiston Mill, which starts out commercial, then suddenly becomes Rainbow Drive and decidedly residential in character.

Rainbow drive offers up the unexpected reward of a beautiful waterfall crossing at Silver Creek. Next time, I'll stop and get a picture — that is, after all, why I paid 80 whole dollars for a snazzy new phone with a 2 megapixel camera, after all****.

The rest of the ride is pretty: shaded Rainbow winds through quiet, rolling hills. Soon, I turn onto Klerner, and then I'm pretty much there. A quick shot across Grant Line, and I'm on University Drive, headed towards the Life Sciences building.

I arrive at school at 6:30, with an hour to spare — good time, all things (traffic, snack break, riding the same freaking stretch back and forth a couple of times) considered.

Next time I ride this route, I plan to carry less crap (I forgot to take all the unnecessary stuff out of my backpack), and I won't need a cue sheet. I'll also find a different route to the Second Street Bridge — probably down 8th to the MUP, then back up the little road that runs parallel to the bridge. That will save me a lot of headaches, though it will also mean I start my climb onto the bridge at roughly 0 MPH.

I realized a GPS device would come in handy on this kind of ride — it woudn't misread the distances, and would tell me when to turn, so I wouldn't worry that I'd missed something. Then again, I usually pre-ride routes in areas I don't know very well, if I'm planning to use them as transit. I just didn't get around to it this time. But I still think a GPS device might be fun (and make tracking my rides waaaaay easier).

Tonight I plan on a longish road ride followed by some off-road fun. I think I'm going to go play in Iroquois Park, and I will try to remember that I now have an awesome phone that lets me take pictures. I'm going to leave my backpack at work and retrieve it on the way back.

On Monday, both work and school are closed for Labor Day, and there's a gigantic group ride called 'The Mayor's Healthy Hometown Subway Fresh Fit Hike and Bike.' I'm going to take part. I think it's cool that Subway sponsors our giant biannual everybody-and-their-Uncle-Fred ride, but there is a part of me that believes a ride name that overwrought could only happen in the same state that plays host to the Rough River Lake Dam State Resort Park, which sounds more like a second-grade spelling test than an actual state park.

Notes

*I didn't get a round of applause last night, but I did on Monday, which was really weird! I was sprinting to catch a bus, and a crowd waiting to cross the street at the corner of Sixth and Jefferson randomly started cheering. For the record, I do think I know the guy who started them off, though -- maybe that explains it? Anyway, it's possible they were just being ironic, but still, it was kind of cool.)

**Touring snails are highly variable in speed, and a topic for another time.

***Next time I need a cue sheet, I'm going to make a large-print cue sheet with pictures. Maybe that will work better...

****Well, okay. That and the fact that I lost my old phone.

Also, Evidence That I Do Occasionally Think About Something Other Than Bikes...

...if not something other than transportation:

From RandomStuff

I know my handwriting is hard to read, so here's the captions:
---------------Title---------------
"Tur-bo-tile: Scourge of the Woodland"

---------------Image (right to left)---------------
Swan: "I say! Do watch out, sir!"
Rabbit 1: "That's jest un-nat'rul."
Rabbit 2: "WTF?"
Tur-bo-tile: (whistling)
Loon-esque-thing: "EH?"

Inspired by OSG's runaway tortoise.

Edit: For the record, these are notes from a meeting. As you can probably tell, it was one that kind of meeting which require the attendance of everyone in the department, but is actually relevant to maybe two people.

Otherwise, there would be actual notes along with random drawings.

Stop. And. Go.

I left late this morning, but I was feeling quite zippy (two weeks off the bike will apparently do that to you — that and make you fatter, if you're not careful). Quicksilver seemed happy to be out and about (perhaps I'm projecting a bit?), and the weather was highly cooperative — about 70 and sunny. All told, it looked like a perfect morning for a nice, fast ride.

Except. For. The. Fact. That. I. Hit. EVERY. Stoplight. I. Could. Find.

Man! Because I was running late, I wanted to go fast, so I spent much of the ride doing what amounted to a stop-and-go interval workout. That strategy was less than successful — it still took me five minutes longer than my best time to make it to work. I did make it to work on time, though.

Likewise, I managed in several instances to time my arrival at the lights so the moment I slipped free of my toe clip, it was time to cram my foot back in ._. I can't really blame anyone but myself, though. I know how it works. Drop the hammer when the light turns green, and all you get for your trouble is another red light.

Perhaps I should revise my attitude and look at this as an opportunity to perfect my toe-clip skillz?

Late in my ride, I encountered a med student (I assume he was a med student anyway — could, for all that, have been a nurse or something) in scrubs on a fixie. He was quite fast. He got away from me at a stoplight, but that was okay. I do wish I'd taken a picture, though. I keep forgetting that I now have a phone with a real camera (OMG, 2.1 WHOLE MEGAPIXELS! lol).

Weather.com is predicting much better conditions over the next ten days than we've had for quite some time. I'm pretty excited about that, since it's been blisteringly hot and ... um ... drowningly humid lately.

In other news, I discovered some neat websites today:
APTA.com: the American Public Transportation Association (self-explanatory)

APTA's 'Telling Our Story' campaign: APTA is collecting stories — videos, pictures, and Word- or PDF-formatted texts — from public transit users. I think this is a great idea, and if anything will improve America's willingness to 'get on the bus,' stories from real transit riders are it.

Public Transportation Takes Us There: Another part of the transit industry's initiative to increase adoption and ridership. This site is devoted to helping Americans get more involved in transit advocacy.

[soapbox]
I'm a big fan of public transit. Not only does it decrease the environmental impact of our daily commutes (at least, at certain levels of adoption), it drastically increases the economic opportunities available to those who, for whatever reason, can't drive.

There's a weird misconception out there that the adoption of better public transit means people are going to be forced to give up their cars. This kind of spin and rhetoric is pretty common right now — e.g., universal health care is equated with the eradication of free choice; closer regulation of businesses that have demonstrated themselves to operate unfavorably without it it is associated, by some kind of magical thinking, with the redistribution of wealth; etc (and before anyone assumes I'm solely a left-wing wingnut, I should also state that I am strictly opposed to any increase in gun control and also to most [probably all] hate crimes legislation — IMO, a crime is a crime is a crime, and they should all be considered as such — so I assure you, while I'm definitely a wingnut, I do try to be a bipartisan, nonsectarian wingnut).

Perhaps if enough of us offer up our transit-going stories, the good people of the United States will realize that those of us who would like to see more buses and trains and so forth aren't interested in the least in taking away their cars (or guns, or Bibles). In fact, most of the people I know who ride bikes and buses and trains everywhere almost all the time like having the option of driving if they want or need to.

I'm hoping that seeing transit riders' stories might help discourage the mistaken belief that 'only poor/disabled/unemployed/underemployed/black/Latino/Asian/urban/young/old/those/other people ride the bus/train' — most people I've known who don't ride transit imagine that all transit-riders are utterly unlike themselves. In fact, public transit in Louisville, at least, is like a bird's-eye view of the community at large: on one bus ride, you can encounter a CEO, a gaggle of high-school freshmen, a disabled veteran, a doctor, a young family, some grandparents... Essentially, people from all walks of life ride TARC (our bus system). The only people who don't realize this are those who've never ridden the bus. Unfortunately, that's a lot of people.
[/soapbox]

In other, other news, my life is about to become ridiculously busy. I have Orientation on Friday, then school starts on Monday. I'm planning to get a cycling club together at IUS — the life sciences department has several bike-happy faculty, some of whom commute by bike, so I don't think I should have any trouble finding a faculty advisor. Choir rehearsal picks up again on the 26th, and of course there's cyclocross... Plus work. Work starts to get busy this time of year.

I'm really glad that I live in a place where I can get everywhere by bike (though I guess, for me, that's a lot of places — I like riding my bike enough to be willing to trek 10 or 15 miles back and forth). It makes finding time to ride pretty easy.

The Ideal Commute

It's probably fair to start by saying that the ideal bike commute probably varies widely from one individual to another. One cyclist might prefer to ride alone; the next might prefer to ride with a group. Some of us love the idea of a long, scenic rural commute; others want it short and urban. There are those who prefer to ride on the roads and those who embrace the idea of a bike path from the front door all the way to the office.

This morning, I rode in from PT Guy's house out near Iroquois Park. I had originally intended to take the bus, but by the time I reached the place where I would normally have picked it up, I was feeling pretty good, and didn't want to wait around, so I just rolled on.

The trip from there to here is 7.4 miles — very pleasant, mostly roomy, level, tree-shaded routes through turn-of-the-20th century residential neighborhoods (normally, I would like things a little hillier, but my knee still has a little way to go before I get back to riding real hills, so it's all good). Once I got onto Southern Parkway, I was on open four-lane roads with very little traffic most of the way. As I approached downtown, there were a few more cars, but as early as it was (I made it to work by about 7:20), the rush-hour crowd hadn't really hit yet.

On second street, I failed to change lanes at the right time, and a nice paramedic-looking fellow in a pretty convertible waved me in. I thought that was really cool. I made sure to smile as I waved back to him. I hope it didn't look like I was baring my teeth!

Only one driver passed me closely in my lane — someone turning right at the next intersection who apparently couldn't be bothered to wait a minute or so. It was a closer-than-legal pass (under 3 feet) but not too close for my comfort at the speed we were moving. I probably would've been uncomfortable with it a year or so ago, though, and would definitely have been uncomfortable with it if I was riding with a less-experienced cyclist.

The only thing I found at all trying about this commute was the air quality — Louisville's air gets hairy in summer. I think I may indeed want to invest in a filter mask of some variety.

In many ways, the trip from PT Guy's house resembles my ideal commute — more than five miles, plenty of room on the roads, not too much traffic, pleasant scenery. I really like riding open roads through rural and semi-rural areas, but since my commute from well within the 'city limits' into down town doesn't seem to take me through any of those (wonder why? LOL), it'll do. Since I like hills, there's a hillier option I can take once my leg feels better — I'm looking forward to exploring that one.

Surprisingly, I must admit that I actually like this commute more than the one from my place on Willow Ave (though I do miss blasting up the MUP like a rocket early in the morning when there's nobody else using it!). It's a more relaxing ride (and longer — woohoo! An excuse to spend more time on the bike!). It's also pretty, and when the leaves change in the fall, it's going to be really pretty.

Depending on how my leg feels tonight, I might do a 17-mile group ride tomorrow morning (there's also a 35-mile options, but I will not succumb to temptation). It's one of LBC's Yellow Lot rides, so I guess I'll need to figure out where the heck in Waterfront Park the famed Yellow Lot is.

In other news, the Great Chain of Bloggery has led me to perhaps the awesomest racing group ever conceived:
Pirate Cycling League

Screw coffee rides. These guys do BACON rides*. That's my kind of cycling league.

w00t w00t!




*No offense to those who may keep kosher or halal or be vegetarian or vegan.