Made it to work - first time!
 

Well, after much deliberation, fear, and procrastination, I finally rode my bike to work tonight. It was a beautiful, quiet night to ride. Took me 25 minutes. I'll try to paste a link to the map below.

Tomorrow morning I'm going to try a quieter route, during rush hour.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&sour...&z=13&lci=bike

Seems like a nice straight forward route :) Wish mine was that simple ;)

Keep it up!

Congrats!
 

Congrats to you! It only gets easier.

Thanks guys.

And yes FreddyV, it's very simple and direct. This time of morning it's quite busy though, so I detoured through neighborhoods and added at least a mile on the way home. Made it home safely. The brisk 46 degrees felt great.

Congrats

Adding a mile is nice. Also sometimes heavy traffic has a calming effect on the roads by slowing people down.
But as I say to everyone after their first commute.

"Hooked another one".

Congratulations. It'll only get easier as time goes on and it's a great way to start the day.

Congrats on your new addiction (perhaps). Every time I take my truck to work, I wish I had ridden. I have never ridden in to work and wished that I had driven.

welcome to the dark side, bow before your new master...

http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x...4/SithLord.jpg

....and well done. :thumb:

And the adventure begins... Congratulations!

Congrats, looks like a nice route. except of W Henderson, that's a tad big, no?

Yep, that is how it starts.

Thanks all.

And yes, JPprivate, Henderson Road is busy, and 50 mph. Last night it wasn't so busy, at 10:30, but this morning it was crazy. So this morning I took it the other direction, East, for about a quarter mile, if that. Then took the first light right into the neighborhood. From there I basically meandered until I was about halfway home, then a short little jog on Kenny, then Fishinger, then I was back on North Star again, and pretty much home free.

Thanks everyone for the encouragement that led to this in the first place. Especially the tip I read about baby wipes. The unscented Pampers brand worked great.

My personal opinion would be to do anything you can to stay away from a 50mph road. The price of a minor error by a driver (or you) could be catastrophic. Your commute doesn't seem that long, maybe it's worth it to look at the bike trail that's just east of 315 (but of course, I just look at a map, it might not be feasible).

I don't think I'd ride that trail at night, but in the daytime it might be good. I have thought about it.

Thing is, to get to the bike trail from work, I have to travel Olentangy River Road for a short while, which I believe is 45 mph. Then I have to negotiate the Olentangy/Henderson intersection, which sucks even in a car. At the other end, I can get off near campus, at Woody Hayes Drive (which becomes Carmack Road), and have a pretty safe/easy ride home.

So, the end near home is fine, but the end near work is bad. And probably not the best idea at night. But at some point, I will go that way and give it a shot.

Funny thing though. This morning when I was at the light at Knightsbridge and Henderson, I pulled up next to a little girl on her bike. She says 'Hi biker', so I asked where she was going, and she said to school. I'm pretty shocked at this point that her parents would allow her to ride on Henderson Road. Light turns green, and we take off. I look back and she's not behind me. The only thing I can imagine is that she went straight across Henderson where it dead ends into a storage place, because she did not turn the other way. If so, there must be some sort of shortcut through to the school, which I rode right past on my way home, though I took a much more circuitous route than she to get to the school.

So, I need to investigate that possible shortcut.