I imagine I'll backdate all of the South America triplogs once they're written, up, and pictures added. But that will be a while yet. For now, this is a temporary interruption to say that I have successfully conquered the Watson Road hill. By "successful" I mean that I have ridden it two consecutive times without falling over. I have also detoured around the hill in fear. Now, one week into this cycling to work thing, I think I've settled on my route.
It's just over 25 km each way to work. I'm averaging 26-28km/hr. My bike is a mountain bike with slicks on it, so the fastest I can make it go using just the pedals is just over 40km/hr - to speed up beyond that, I need a gravity assist, and my feet are just spinning without resistance.
Getting up earlier in the morning has not been a problem yet. Motivation in the morning is, however, hard to come by if, like today, it's cold and gloomy and the weather forecast predicts headwind on the way home. I procrastinated for 40 minutes before deciding to suck it up, only to discover I'd forgotten my keys when I got to work and thus had no way of locking up the bike. Lucky for me, Tristan shared the combination of his cable lock with me, so now my bike is cosied up to his.
Mostly, though, I'm still surprised how much I like bike commuting. I have a pretty route - it's nothing like this. There are only a few sections where I'm battling traffic, and even that is not bad (though I taste fear every time a transport truck passes me on the one section where that is common, I don't like seeing those big wheels spinning 2-3 feet to my left). So far, the cars have been far better behaved than I expected for morning and afternoon busy times. Nothing like this has come close to happening (over 10 years ago, my brother and I got hit on Highway 6 north of Guelph. My brother's bike was damaged, as was his body, and my rear tire ended up shredded and the wheel bent. But the driver did stop and the police did come, and the guy got a serious charge - and he was civil enough that he then drove me home - Matthias got taken away for medical attention - so I could get my car and fetch the non-operative bikes. So I'm not saying it can't happen here...)
I like coming home before 7 p.m. and feeling like the exercise part of the day is done. I like that I feel a lot stronger on the bike than I did three years ago when I did this ride. (I should add that I'm nowhere near as strong as I was five years ago.)
But I'm still driving to work if it's raining (and I imagine the list of excuses will grow as time goes on...)
Posted by Johanna at May 14, 2007 04:47 PM