Memorial Day ride
I felt great when I got up this morning. I’d planned to NOT ride today. I have plenty of chores around home and some work to crank out. But the weather is approaching summer temps and humidity and need some training in that.
And looking out the kitchen door at the bike locked to the fire escape, it seemed to say, “Ride me baby.” So I did. Fifteen and three-quarters miles before breakfast. One water break about two miles from home, and only two red lights. Just overa shade an hour riding time.
I took a circuit to downtown (via Monroe since East was barricaded for the parade) down the Riverway Trail then east across the Canalway Trail. I hadn’t done that part before and was delighted for find it’s paved all the way. Someone even painted a yellow line down the middle for a couple of miles.
Then it was back on Winton, rejoining my regular commuting rounte home from Presbytery. Two exceptions: The ride had been pretty flat, so I detoured over to Cobbs Hill Dr and hammered up it. That felt good.
The only other time I’ve done the hill by that route (the tallest and steepest part, BTW), I had to do it in the lowest of low gears, (28-32 or 1:0.88) and even then I nearly hopped-off to walk. Today, I arrived at the top in the middle chainring and third gear on the cogs (38-21 or 1:1.81)—the same gears I use to start from a stoplight—with my cadence in the 70s at around 8 mph. The downhill side is marred, as they all seem to be, by a stop sign right at the end of the grade.
The other exception to my commuting route is that I cruised the whole of Park Ave to see who was having brunch. I’ve been taking side streets to avoid Culver and coming out on Park at Berkeley by Jine’s.
Nearly home, coming up Goodman at East Ave, a police car was in the left turn lane talking to the driver of a Lincoln Navigator in the right lane. I briefly entertained the idea of passing between the SUV and the curb, but I held my place. Good thing too. The cop car turned right from the left lane in front of the SUV, and the SUV turned left from the right lane.
Frustrated that the light was now yellow, I sprinted through it, aware of a car trailing me. Parade watchers were parked in the lane on Goodman and I had to cross the double-yellow to get by them. Still sprinting.
Nearly to the end of the block, the light changed red at University. Blast! I braked and stopped. Only to find I’d been sprinting away, through a yellow light, from another cop car!
Since I hadn’t gone around the block on a cool-down yesterday, I did today, turning right on University, bearing left at Atlantic and turning left on to Anderson, which swings back around to deliver me right to my building’s parking lot.
