Bike To Work Day

Evidently today is the day that people are supposed to ride their bikes to work. I think the marketing efforts have paid off because I saw a lot more people out this morning. Now, I could attribute that to a number of any of the following:

• I woke up LATE. Would have been one of those days when it would have been nice to make an extra half pot of coffee, and take a leisure ride to work in the car. Maybe stop for a donut. (I woke up craving donuts this morning.) So, as a result, I did not get going out the door until about 6:40 this morning.
• I took the leisure route to work.
• I rode the new bike lane painted on Raymond Ave.
• I looked for more cyclists.
• I wanted to take what I think of as the bicycle super highway to see just how many people I saw. (I had visions in my head of a the Midtown Greenway packed with cyclists and having a difficult time navigating the crowd.)

I did see a handful more people out this morning. Good for those first-timers and the people that might not normally commute by bike. I lolly-gagged around on my bike this morning, totally relaxed and enjoying being outside and on my bike. I didn't worry at all about the fact that I was a good 2 hours behind where I would have liked to have been this morning as far as time goes.

I had thoughts that this morning and today was supposed to be a beautiful day. Riding west on the greenway, the sky was awesome. Dark as can be, lightning... ominous. I had just passed through the uptown area and was coming up on Lake Calhoun when I saw a group of riders ahead of me that I was catching up to pretty quickly. That's when the raindrops started dropping and I pulled over to the side of the pathway to put on my rain jacket and cover my saddle.

I had thought that the group ahead was maybe some sort of organized bike to work day promotional parade or something. As it turned out... it was the boys in all of their matching Flanders jerseys... they had turned around and were now high-tailing it back to the east. Evidently they were not prepared with rain gear and were going to try to beat the storm back? Who knows... For some reason, it just struck me as funny.

I'm glad that I always travel on my Quickbeam with a rain jacket and a bag full of foul weather gear packed. Once the rain started falling, it was a cold rain. The sirens even went off in Minneapolis for some reason? If I would have followed the great weather prognosticators, I would have attempted a ride maybe on my Go-Fast Rivendell this morning... Maybe. But, this morning I was glad to have the fenders. The real reason that I didn't ride the parade bike or Go-Fast bike was that I wanted to, but I didn't want to look like one of those "occasional commuters." Nope, not this morning. Plus, the Quickbeam is always handy, ready to go.

Today marks 3 weeks of having not driven to work. I've been primarily commuting on my bike and working from home on the days that I don't. To be honest, I really like working from home, but I miss the bike ride.

Today, got to work, wet... somewhat cold about 24 miles in just over 1 hour 30 minutes. Late to work for a conference call... Picked up the phone and made it all the way through the call for an hour...shivering in my wet cycling clothes.