Back in the Sadle

Yesterday, I rode my bicycle to work for the first time in about 15 years. The reason for the long hiatus was mostly inertia. It was always: "I really should try riding to work again." Now, the last time I did this, I had a front tire blow-out on the way home and went flying over the handlebars, making a perfect 3-point landing on my knee, hand and head. Fortunately I was wearing a helmet and gloves, so my knee was the only part of me that sustained any damage. I'm firmly convinced that if I hadn't been wearing a helmet, my injuries would have been far worse than a scraped up knee. This little incident is one of the reasons that I'm a strong advocate for bicycle helmets.

But back to the current ride...

Like many Americans, I don't get nearly enough exercise, so I thought that riding my bike to work a couple of times a week might be a good thing to do, now that the weather has gotten nice. At 8.6 miles each way, it's not a bad little ride. It took me about 45 minutes both ways in light traffic. Of course, it wasn't the traffic that made the ride take that long, it was just me.

In my car it takes about 20 minutes to go from home to work, so only taking a little more than twice that for a bike ride was actually pretty good. And the ride itself was very pleasant, despite the fact that most of the ride was along 8 to 12 inch shoulders. Both in the morning and the evening, drivers gave me plenty of room as they passed and it was 68F for my morning ride in and 86F for the afternoon ride home.

The forecast for Monday is 97F, so I don't think riding then will be such a good idea, but Wednesday and Friday look good, so maybe I'll get in 2 rides next week. With any luck, I'll be back in the saddle and the only thing I'll have to worry about is getting saddle sore.

Technorati Tags: Bicycle, Commute, Commuting, Helmet