Ride to Work

Thighs flash morning gloom
Frozen cheek bones, eyes water
Pedal gamely on

Oh jeeze, now I'm writing haiku ::rolls eyes::

It took most of the night but I managed to pack the incredible amount of CRAP I need to function as an adult into two embarrassing large panniers and a bike trunk. My bike now weighs more than I do. I drove my wife crazy trying to find things and make sure they were all in the right place and nothing was forgotten.

I stick the Garmin on the bike, light myself up like some Close Encounters of the Third Kind spaceship, noting my original front headlight has gone dim - its days are numbered but the Flea is plenty bright and I head off into the dark.

It was 51 degrees when I headed out and I'm wearing my bright traffic yellow windbreaker, bike gloves and my helmet. Within minutes my hands are cold and snot is flowing freely down over my lip, delightful I know. Unthinking I wipe my face with my bicycle glove, ewwww! At 4:45am the roads are remarkably free of cars, who knew?

It takes me forever to figure out how to best unpack the panniers, speed will come with time and repetition. It needs to become routine. I then change from my bike clothes to my gym clothes and start to work. Just so you all breath a sigh of relief I don't wear spandex (lack of confidence in my appearance) but have these mountain bike shorts that have that additional padding found in the regular bike shorts.

I pound out a fairly hard interval workout for me at thirty minutes, trying to keep the RPMs above 100 on the 'hills.' I hop of the recombinant and do Bubbles ABS for Girly Men routine. I didn't jaw too much and stuff so I'm mystified that it's 6:45am when I'm ready to head to work. I don't think it matters what time I go in, 3am, 4am I'll still head for work at 6:45am!

As I was showing Bubbles and Kojak my bike under full load I felt a little embarrassed due to the mountian of stuff I'm lugging around. Still I enjoyed the ride and hope I do the same for the ride home.