Sunday, July 26, 2009

Summer Daze

This has been a summer like no other for Kansas City. In fact, it's really been more like a Colorado vacation than anything else. But then, I rely on my memory for such things since I haven't been to Colorado in "near-August" since the late 90's.

The last few weeks of cycling have been incredibly great. Especially for cycling in Kansas City. It seems that nearly every day I walk out to start my morning commute and I'm "almost" cold! Even to the point of starting to watch for Autumnal-clothing and arm-warmers for those especially chilly mornings!

I've now passed my one-year mark for commuting and it now seems hard to imagine that I didn't do it before now! The distance certainly isn't that bad (although that driver-craziness-quotient is certainly higher the later in the morning I start my commute).

I've now worked into a standard path for the commute without the fear of careless drivers that I had early on (although there are just as many now as then). But then, I seem also to be one of the earlier bicycle commuters since I see only a couple at my regular time (5:30-6:15 am) while I see more when I have had to abandon the bike to go in later (read: flat or exhausted).

It seems strange now to imagine my cycling this past winter in near-zero degree temperatures (probably just as much as it seemed strange then to be cycling the previous-summer in over-one-hundred degree temperatures).

I've now also worked into a routine so that I can commute every day instead of the 2-4 days per-week that I had last year (which is probably because of my comfort with the routine, my comfort with the traffic, my figuring out that I could leave my car at work for those times I "really need" it, and realizing that if I get up and bike-to-work, it wakes me up and I get much better work-time in during the day than when I don't do it).

Now, if I can only make myself do what I've been planning ever since I first started re-biking after my multi-year hiatus: an "organized" century.