Fall is even more here...

This morning was the first sub-50 degree morning ride of the season. Beautiful! I love the cool weather... allows me to ride at a normal pace without getting all nasty.

It occurs to me that I have been riding my bike to work for several months now and I haven't written anything about my routine. O.k., admittedly I haven't written much about anything for the last few months, but nevermind that. So here's how it works:

I aim to arrive at work at around 7:30 in the morning. This requires me to leave the house at around 7:15, roughly. I keep my bike, the SST (which I plan to rename "Sexual Intercourse: The bike" Dinosaur Comics), at the bottom of the stairs in my apartment so I don't have to deal with carrying it up and down the stairs every day. So, I wake up, eat, pack my bag, and hop on the bike. Newly installed fenders means I don't have to worry about wet roads...

The ride takes me on a route designed to be as flat as possible. It's all about preserving one's elevation as much as possible... and this also keeps me off of busy streets for about half the ride. There's no way around the left turn by the McDonald's at Doyle and North Main, though. Take the lane! This intersection presents an opportunity for a challenging downhill track stand. I'm pretty good on an uphill or level, but downhill is tough. Some mornings I have it, others, well, not so much. If I'm lucky the light is green when I get there.

On to North Main, watch out for the buses. Rear engine vehicles, like RIPTA buses, are scary because it's hard to hear them coming and they occupy a lot of road width. Traffic in general depends on the exact time I'm riding. It's amazing how ten minutes earlier or later can make a huge difference in the number of cars on the road.

Sketchy intersection and merge onto Water St., then up onto Smith Hill. I like riding my bike past the RIDOT building, as though I'm showing them that there is, in fact, another way...

A left towards the Foundry, sometimes sketchy, sometimes not, again depending on the traffic. And we're here! I keep my bike in my cubicle because it's more convenient and I like my coworkers seeing a bike at the office. Maybe it'll make them think about riding. Or maybe not. Anyway, I start unpacking and begin my day before I change into work clothes. A few minutes of cool-down keeps me from feeling nasty all day.

Work, work, work.

At the end of the day, I change back into my grubby commuting clothes and hit the road. The ride home is uphill, so I'm grateful to have a lighter bag (lunch has been eaten, water consumed or dumped on plants). Ride home is a reverse of the route in and I do my best for zero-dabs. Once again, some days my balance is on, some days not so much...

And that's it. Door to door it doesn't really take any longer to ride, and it makes my day.

I saw only one other bicyclist this morning. Over the past couple of weeks I've been seeing at least a couple other cyclists, but I'd expect that to end as the weather gets colder. Too bad, but to each their own, I guess. I almost never see other riders on the way home.