Well the day came and went. It started out as a slightly chilly, foggy day. The morning ride was
great! I tried timing it about an hour before the majority of the rush hour. That worked out very
nicely. Also, listening to others worked out very nicely as they provided a path that helped me
avoid the majority of the early morning commuters. Here are some of my thoughts:
Bikes WON'T trip traffic light sensors. Silly me I thought they would, but after sitting through 2
cycles of the lights, I decided to run it. Felt like a goob sitting there waiting for it. Then I
felt like a law-breaking goob, but oh well, gotta get moving.
Enjoy the ride, its the reason you're out there afterall. I found that I was concentrating so hard
on; not getting lost, re-clipping in after every stop, watching out for the various drivers that
aren't looking at me, the time, the distance to go, I forgot to actually ENJOY the ride. I figure
with practice though, I'll actually learn to enjoy it. Just like driving a car.
Allow for plenty of time to change over to "business" mode. True I took a shower when I got to work,
but SOMEONE scheduled an 8am meeting and my body was still ramped up and sweating. I felt like
everyone was just watching me sweat. Give yourself plenty of time to actually cool-down.
Pace yourself, NOT traffic. Don't make a race out of trying to beat that car flying past you. Sure,
some can do it, but for most, you AREN'T going to get to work faster than someone in a car. Don't
let it play that mind game on you.
Think about where to store your bike. I had the luxury of being able to store mine close to me,
otherwise, it's kind of worrisome to leave it somewhere, even under lock and key.
After I got to work, I was STARVED!!! I had a power bar on me, but for the most part, I was hungry
all day long. So don't forget to feed that machine. You want it to get stronger, gotta feed the
machine good quality food to replace what you burned on the ride.
Don't schedule meetings later in the day. Someone actually scheduled a meeting for me AFTER when I
left for the day. Friday afternoon.... Go figure why someone would want a meeting at that time, my
attention span is about " " that long.
On the way home, its ok to be slower. Tailwind = good, Headwind = BAAAD. Seems around here, the wind
picks up in the afternoon. Sucks for me. It's usually going the wrong way.
So my trip distance/time wise went like this: Morning ride = 11.49 mi, 43 min. Afternoon ride =
11.95 mi, 51 min. I have some major hills to contend with and my ave speed wasn't that great, but I
KNOW I will only get better as I do this more. That is my positive mental attitude. But bottom line?
Just get out there and do it. Sounds cliche, but it actually works!
