It was back to the bike for my daily commute today. I took last week off from biking to work in order to give my legs some rest and to see if I missed driving to work - in case you are wondering, I didn't miss it.I also re-converted my "commuter" bike back to it's original status as a mountain bike so I could get out and ride some trails last week (see left - that is essentially my backyard). I never got around to swapping my knobbies out for the street tires, so I decided to take my road bike today. Aside from having to quietly sneak past a "domestically challenged" fella sleeping inside the Hwy 51 pedestrian overpass, my morning commute was quite standard. It felt great to get back to riding down Oak St. on my bike, the cool only 85 degrees at 6 a.m.) morning air streaming past me.
But it was the ride home that saw quite a bit of action (compared to what I've experienced so far). I got my very first chance to smoke a car off the line at a red light. I was sitting at a red light, two cars back, on a 4-lane road - so I had cars next to me. A Ford F-250 Super Duty pickup was in the lane to my left, and actually a car ahead of me. About five seconds into my track stand, the light turned green and the cars bolt off in front of me. The Ford truck and I cross the intersection at the same time. I could tell by the unnecessary roar of his engine that he wasn't accelerating like a grandma, and was actually putting his gas pedal down pretty hard. I dropped into a harder gear and did a little sprint - and much to my surprise, flew away from the truck. I looked back and he was coming along, but I still out sprinted him for about 150 yards.
It just goes to show that you don't have to drive an automobile to be a speed junky.
Secondly, I got yelled at for the first time in my brief bike commuting life. At an area where I make a left turn, there is a traffic circle in the middle of a 4-way intersection. Each direction only has a yield sign (which seems odd to me) - but also states "Yield to your left." I have gone through this intersection at least 47 times without a problem. As I pull into the circle and stop, with clear intentions of making a left turn AFTER all oncoming cars have passed, a early 30-something guy in a white civic comes to a screeching stop. His windows were down, but I look up and see the guy with his hands in the air, screaming - and the poor wife and kid in the back seat just sitting there, looking a tad embarrassed. I still don't understand what his problem was, because I was clearly out of his way, and had been stopped for the 4 cars before him. I'm sure he made his family very proud. I just watched him as he accelerated away.
Oh - I did forget to bring an undershirt with me today. This was the first time I have forgotten a piece of clothing, and thankfully it was nothing more.
All in all, it was great to get back to biking to work. A handful of people in my office commented when they saw my bike in it's spot this morning. "Hey, the bike's back!" They all seemed as excited as I did. It makes me think that I will soon, hopefully, be known as "the Bike Guy" at work.
The Velorution lives on.
1 comment:
Those "Yield to your left" signs always seem kind of strange to me, but I think they're posted because there aren't a whole lot of traffic circles around here. From what I understand, they basically mean you should yield to anyone who is already in the circle.
I'm kind of surprised by your first crazy driver yelling incident, as it doesn't sound like there was much logic to the yelling. But perhaps there never is, if you're the person on the bike and are obeying traffic laws. On the other hand, I almost yelled at another biker the other day because he was biking on the sidewalk, going the wrong way, and tried to bike from sidewalk to road without really paying attention to road traffic (me).
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