Stitched together bits and pieces of other routes for a unique southern route this morning, including a new-to-me quarter mile.

I included Memorial Park (Colorado Springs) so I enjoyed sunrise over the Olympic Velodrome and Prospect Lake.

Previously, for nostalgia's sake, I've taken an alley from a route to my old job which deposits me next to a busy highway interchange which holds nostalgic significance, but is a noisy, slightly dangerous mess.

So I chose to ride further west down Las Vegas Street which took me past the city's largest homeless shelter and the associated homeless service centers there. It is just heart-breaking. My wife and I donate funds and cast-offs to the shelter, and support their mission. It is so saddening to see people in need, many without the ability to help themselves, and plagued by addiction and/or mental illness.

This and the second-largest shelter, two miles north in downtown, are both adjacent to the Greenway Trail. And since the city's interconnected trails follow waterways and wooded areas, there are an abundance of homeless camps along the trails including in the dark shelters of underpasses and even darker tunnels which make the occupants invisible to speeding cyclists, especially at night, and even more so to cyclists without headlights.

In fact, on the way home, I took a different route and encountered two dark-clad, unlit cyclists coming at me fast, and no-handed, shooting out from the blackness of an underpass that is often pinched down and sometimes blocked by tents, scavenged junk, sleeping bags, or just people passed out on the pavement...between the shadowy encampments and the unlit cyclists somebody's sure to get injured.

Then, a couple miles after that I crossed the pedestrian bridge over the highway into the park by Colorado College where I encountered two e-bike cyclists, headlights and tail-lights ablaze with reflective clothing and tires. They saw me and signaled their turns. By the way they kept swiveling their heads to look back, so it's possible they had no mirrors, or inadequate mirrors...or just better neck mobility than I do.

The ride in to work was against a stiff breeze, but being mostly downhill it wasn't an issue. For the ride home the wind was calm and my legs felt strong. The '84 Nishiki 12-speed isn't quite as light and quick as the 2006 Felt 2x10, but the Nishiki has such a beautiful ride with its skinny steel frame that seems to flex in rhythm to the road and rider inputs...a rhythm that obviates the need for listening to podcasts or any other distraction. It's a rhythm, and blissful contentment I wish I could donate to the homeless, and to anyone with mental anguish.