Scenic Route

I slept like shit last night. Trying to make up for I, I stayed in bed until 11 this morning. It’s not a catastrophe since Monday is part of my weekend. Still, being such a nice day and all, I was a bit disappointed.

It was nearly two before I was ready to roll out. I’d spent most of my time thinking about where to ride. The old standbys were great yesterday, but I something new and different sounded nice.

The mailman brought the winter cycling beanie and Lava Sox that I ordered last week from dowrap.com. This reminded me that I wanted to stop at Park Ave Bike Shop, the local Cannondale dealer, to see if they had the Cannodale Windfront Gloves that Al raved about in his blog a week or so ago.

Park Ave Bike Shop hasn’t been on Park Ave for years. They’re in a strip plaza at an incredibly busy intersection in Pittsford. A cyclist was killed there earlier this year riding home from work. The safest approach by bike would be to avoid Monroe Ave (especially since I’d have to make a left) come in from the Clover St side.

Ah ha! That ride I’m supposed to lead next season has an alternate return route on Clover St labeled, “Great route in a South to Southwest wind”. Just the direction today’s winds were coming from. I printed the map and stuffed it in my pocket.

As I reached for the door, the phone rang. A client where we’ve been having some troupble with their office server. I wasn’t able to fix it. Everything I’ve tried should work, but doesn’t, so I told them to call the vendor. The guy had showed up and they wondered if I could stop by.

Rats!

Still, I it was right on the ride map I was going to use and if things worked out, I could still make most of the ride before rush-hour. It didn’t work out that way. The guy had the same troubles I’d had, which made me feel better about my troubleshooting skills. We spent three hours together on it. Got it to a functional state, but it’s still not right.

Of course, by this time it was dark and rush-hour traffic. I rode straight home. And it was amazing. Fully lit (but without my Ankle-Biter reflectives) traffic was super respectful at all the choke points on the ride home. That same route during rush hour when it’s daylight is frustrating enough that I avoid it. Tonight, it was as safe and enjoyable as you can reasonably expect riding in bumper-to-bumper traffic to be. Very strange.

Anyway, since I usually spend Tuesdays at that client’s office and I was there today, I can skip them tomorrow, take my ride and stop by to get those gloves.. There’s a bit of rain forecast for overnight, but other than clouds replacing the sun, tomorrow’s forecast is still for upper 50s with southerly winds.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 27th, 2006 at 10:52 pm EST and is filed under Bike. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.