Originally Posted by
Bat Guano
What a great way to start the day! My first commute - ever - and it felt great. I've always been leery of the route I have to take - heavy traffic - and only recently got a suitable bike (the old one was too big for me, long story...). But it turned out to be just fine. Right around 9 miles, about a third of it actually has bike lanes. Weather was great, 65 and overcast. Humid, but this is Texas so I might as well get used to it. I could get used to this.
Nice! Congrats, and welcome.
If you haven't already discovered it, you can use Google Maps
www.maps.google.com to optimize your route for bike compatability.
Once you specify your start and finish points, you can click on the little "by bicycle" box and it will find the most bike friendly route. You can zoom in and tweak it as you see fit. The optimized route might add some distance, but it is amazing to see how much more bikeable some routes may be with a simple adjustment of a few blocks.