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Monday, September 9, 2013

ground work

This weekend the plan was to scout out my commuting route options.  What I thought would be a "quick" ride turned into a 3 hour tour.... literally.

Going out to school I took the more direct route... which was about 13.5 miles.  This morning I'm going to drive the route to see how busy it might get on a weekday morning.  There is one section of construction that might get a little ugly if traffic is heavy.  Other than that, there were either bike lanes, or the lanes themselves were wide enough that I felt like I had plenty of room.  Plus, it is a bus route and I always feel that cars are prepared for bikes a little better when traveling on a bike route - they are used to slowing/moving over to pass because of stopping buses.

When I got to the school I also looked into shower options.  The boys locker room is tiny - and smells horribly.  There is another locker room attached labeled "Refs Only" which has a shower.  I'll have to make sure that it is cool for me to use those facilities, I might even be able to grab a locker in there, which would make things even easier in leaving clothes/shower stuff.

I tried out a different route on the way home.  I didn't pay attention to mileage when I planned it out, I was just looking for the most bike friendly route (according to google maps).  Although a nice route, it was a round-a-bout way home... taking me all the way over to portions of my typical road loop.  The ride home was about 33 miles... not what one is looking for in a commute!


Overall it was a longer than expected day on the bike and my legs felt it for sure!

I might use the route home on days that I want mileage and there is still plenty of daylight to burn... but for commuting purposes it's going to be the more direct route, depending on how it looks this morning. Of course, if all goes as planned, I'd already be en route at 5:20 am.

If all looks good this morning, and I get the thumbs up on the shower situation, my plan is to drive to work Thursday with the bike and clothes for the next day, ride home from work, and ride into work on Friday.  Figure that would provide a nice test run.

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