Freeway Conditions

When my mind drifts, as it often does, it drifts to cycling. Specifically, to being far and afield, and going up a monster climb. Unfortunately, the reality of my current fitness precludes me from realizing my mind's drift. Still, North San Diego County's a pretty hilly place, as is evidenced by the Queen Stage of the 2009 Tour of California, and hills are a way of life for the local cyclist.

So, I do get to go up a climb on my truncated commute, but it's this one:



Yep, the I-5 shoulder. The collection place of the debris spewed from a zillion cars which is given to us cyclists to get from here to there. It is very satisfying, on the verge of smugness, to climb past all the stuck-in-traffic vehicles, particularly if one of them is the shuttle bus I would be riding on if I weren't cycling. However, the climb is relentless, and there's a merge to deal with at the top of the Genesee off-ramp. Then, the route to and across campus still keeps going up and up. If I ride the 30 miles from home, there's about 1000 feet of climbing, but this 3.5 mile ride has 500 feet of it!

Also, you may note that this picture shows the ride to be in shade, and since the climb starts right from the train station with no warm-up, and since being a Southern Californian means I have no tolerance to cold, this is a real challenge (but not really an existential one, thank goodness. If it was, I'd miss a lot of work). Despite the near-Arctic conditions, however, I've been able to endure and even thrive on this. It bodes well for future endeavors, but I still gotta figure out how to take a picture on the downhill side of the day to show you what that looks like. I can assure you that zipping away from work at 40mph in the sunny late afternoon looks a lot better than the above!

Resuming

A six-month break from cycle commuting has ended. A multitude of reasons exist for the break, but let me sum by saying I was not ready to resume cycling as a daily grind, while at the same time the break inspired me to do what it took to resume that "grind".

Prior to resuming my minimal cycle commute, I took the opportunity to walk to my train station from work. The highlight of this walk is a very steep descent from the Pfizer complex to the station itself. In this pic you can kinda get a sense of the steepness (that's a mountain biker walking down in front of me) of the trail and also a birds-eye view of the Sorrento Valley Coaster Station.

However, cycling to the station is much more time efficient, even when including the time to change into silly bike clothes. The route profile reveals the reason for this efficiency.

Of course, the opposite profile greets the morning ride, but isn't that how it should be? A struggle to arrive at work, but a gravity-fueled release when the work day is over?

And when it is, the bike has to be secured for the evening, and I secure it in locker #17 on most evenings (I have a thing for prime numbers). During my hiatus, I got a new electronic locker card since my four-year old one was worn out, and I have more confidence leaving my bikes in these lockers--and being able to retrieve them! These are BIKELINK lockers, which operate differently in the Bay Area than in San Diego, but are superior to the eLockers that they replaced.

As for my bike, well, after years of racing and trying to ride fast, I've left that behind me. Now, I try to ride a bike that inspires youngsters to call me "sir" and wannabes to cross their AT to catch the old guy on the bike with fenders...not that I think about competitive things like that anymore...