Today I tried my first commute to work (not on a work day) just as a test. Things went pretty well, if a bit tiring at times. Once I got on the home stretch and into downtown Lincoln, I left the bike path and joined the street traffic. When approaching a stoplight in the middle of downtown, I applied my brakes a little too hard too early and skidded out on to the ground and slammed into the hubcap of a parked car. I gotta say, while a painful experience (scraped up knee and elbow and a ruined cycling glove), it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. My biggest worry was that I somehow screwed up my brand new bike (Marin San Anselmo). It appears all that happened was the pedal on the right got scraped a bit and the chain jumped to another gear. All in all I think I fared pretty good for my first commute and my first crash!