I’ve started biking to work! 22km and 65 minutes later, I had cold toes (from not wearing booties), rosy cheeks, and an attitude of superiority.
It was extremely fresh when I left this morning, -3C outside and -8 with the wind, which as always was in my face the entire ride. My usual route is still under a bit of snow, so I decided to stay on the road the entire trip. I should have, but didn’t end up doing any route finding before I left, and ended up taking a bit of a roundabout way of getting to Baseline. I’ve now looked it up, and I will be cutting about 1.5 km from my return leg. I’m hoping that unlike later in the year, the wind doesn’t change direction in the afternoon, as I would like a nice push home.
Another thing that I did differently on this ride is ditch my headphones. I don’t mind wearing them on the paths, but I do not feel comfortable with them in on Baseline. My solution? A handy battery-powered speaker that plugs into my player’s headphone jack. I could listen to my music and still be situationally aware.
Note to Dan: I also solved the scarf problem. I have a beard.
Congrats! I used to brag about the bicycle super-highway that goes straight to my work but they’ve not yet plowed it. Taking the roads to get downtown wouldn’t be as nice as Baseline.
I’m still going to wait for this weekend’s rain to wash away all of the salt before I ride my new bike for any real distance.