Originally Posted by
Noobtastic
Fall semester has begun and I want to keep on riding to school. My first class is always around 11am so I have a lot of time to sleep, eat breakfast, ride to school and change out of cycling gear. My classes generally end before 3pm too but I prefer to stay on campus to finish the harder work that I'm sure I won't be doing at home with all the distractions. Because of this I don't leave school till about 4pm to 5pm and my ride home is roughly an hour long.
My planned route has hills all over the place (can't be avoided in Tally) and two one-way roads on which I prefer to take a whole lane, on some uphill parts of the one-ways I'm going really really slow. Though no road I'll be riding has a limit above 35mph, the city explodes with cars at 5pm; the police are out and about but there are still traffic jams all over town and aggressive drivers trying to get home asap.
I'd prefer to go home as soon as I'm done because I'm tense, hungry and ready to lie down where I feel comfortable but I don't want to risk my life to get home early. I'd appreciate some input from big city riders here because you guys get traffic during all daylight hours. Is there any technique to riding among many cars? Will all the drivers be stacked behind me going at 5mph and honking like crazy? Should I just stop at a cafe or something to wait until 6pm?
How much effort have you put into route finding? Sometimes, if you do some Sunday morning riding, you can find interesting routes that beat a lot of the traffic. If that doesn't work, try using Google Maps to see if you can locate some interesting series of side streets and alleys.
I realize this is sometimes next to impossible to find, depending on your city and where you live in it, but I'm amazed at how often I find new routes I never thought existed.
One idea would be to throw up a Google Map with your current route and let us see what we can find.