Riding in today was in shorts and short sleeves, about 66 degrees, with a good tailwind. I dripped a nice sweat and still got in to the train station with well over 15 minutes to spare. I just cut out a about 1/4 mile of the route where a busy street crossing and a curb-hop has been necessary and replaced it with a 70 step stairclimb, carrying my bike and backpack, to the top of a bridge.

Going home, this change also removes the necessity for riding wrong-way down a one way park road (never any traffic there, but my fates are suckers for temptation, so why push it?).

It knocks that leg of my commute down to a hair under 10 miles, but I've added a monster climb to the other end to balance it out, which also avoids a section that's consistently wet from overnight sprinklers. On the left turn at the bottom of that climb, there's always a ton of sand and leaves in the road, so I have to scrub my speed way down, or risk sliding out. This morning I had to to a motocross style power dab on that corner to stay up. As a result, the climb is all leg, no momentum.

I've discovered why stem shifters suck : my knees hit them on stand-up climbs and screw up my gear choice.

Poll: Barcons or downtube shifters - which is better?
The frame is set up for an odd sort of downtube shifter. I'm sure I can find a set, but it seems like barcons would be more easily reached.

The wind is shifting today, going home, I'll have a tailwind, too, with gusts of 40+mph. And tonight we're expecting a solid freeze. Makes me sort of glad that I"m out of clean clothes at work, and I"ll have to drive some more in...