It was lovely, but the City of Portland needs to consider a bike lane on Macadam. I gave a poor pedestrian a heart attack today, which is slightly better than the heart attack AND broken neck he nearly got when I tried to run over him. Due to heavy traffic, for about six blocks I'm forced to ride on the sidewalk. I swear I was going slow, but it was one of those where we came around a corner going opposite directions at the exact same time and I managed to swerve to miss him by milimeters. I apologized profusely, but until I can get off the sidewalk at this unavoidable point in my commute, I'm going to be paranoid.
On the upside, despite having to go slow through this six block stretch, I shaved about 10 minutes off of my usual time. I know progress comes fast early in your commuting career (this is only my 3rd week of doing it), but this doesn't detract from the feelig of accomplishment.