"How was the commute today?" - My ride in to work last night was great! Although I had a headwind pretty much all the way, it just served to cool me off as it was still pretty warm around 7PM on my ride from the north end of Seattle to Pill Hill. Despite surprisingly heavy traffic for a Wednesday evening, and my enjoying my tobacco pipe on my ride in, I had good luck with the lights and the cars and made record time! In fact, as I was bombing down Roosevelt headed for the University Bridge, I took the left lane to pass a slow moving (circa 30MPH) mini-van. Nothing like blowing the doors off a car as you pedal by! Slight descent + BIG chain ring = minivan dwindling in the rearview mirror after I took his lane (as is proper at the bridge abutment).

I just managed to dodge the rain on my way home. It was overcast but dry as I entered the parking garage to release my steed from the cage. In the couple of minutes it took to get to the cage, unlock her, load her up, get out of the corral and lock the gate it started raining. I had this feeling it was just raining near the top of the hill and so busted to get through the traffic and pedestrians to drop down off the hill. Although my ride is 7 miles each way, I've taken to riding home in my scrubs some days. I can't do it too many days in a row or I'll get chaffed, but it's nice not to spend the extra time changing before going home. But scrubs with a turtleneck underneath isn't exactly ideal rain-gear! Sure enough after I traded some elevation for speed, it was just overcast for the rest of my ride - nice! Heading in to a three week vacation seemed to energize me, so instead of being beat after my work week, I had a strong ride home, staying in much higher gears than I usually do on my return trip, with a nice pit stop at my favorite cafe a couple of miles short of home.