Ride to work this morning was great. Heavy enough traffic that I beat my neighbour to work by nearly 20 minutes . I passed him in traffic about a mile into the ride, and didn't see him again until we were at work already. He started asking questions, so I started evangelising about bike commuting. Hopefully he has the crazy lack of sense it takes to commute on bike through winter in the PNW. Wet, windy, & cold... for 4-7 months out of the year. I made it to work in 24 minutes, chugging along at nearly 18MPH. Go me! That really doesn't count for anything, though, because the ride to work is all down hill after the first .25 miles, then I have a short (yet steep) hill or a long, gradual incline (depending on route), and I've started taking the long, gradual incline, and I'm able to keep over 14MPH, which is really good for making it to work on time, not to mention a great aerobic workout!

The ride home was a little odd, too. I take the steep hill home, because I book down at over 30MPH, then it's flat for over a mile before a hill again. Instead of taking the sidewalk to go up the hill/bridge, I stayed in the road. Man, I didn't know how much extra work I was putting in to go over the bumps on the sidewalk! I managed close to 10MPH up the hill, with a 14MPH average on the whole trip. I hit one red light, and while I was stopped a Transit bus was pulling up in the next lane, and he bopped me in the head with his mirror, just barely. He apologized, I laughed, and went on. All in all, a good day. I think 2 days off the bike got me some stamina back, as I'm feeling much better now than I was last week!