Bike Commute, part 2
21-Sep-06
And then it was time for the ride home. I went into the bathroom and changed into my ridin’ clothes. I left work at around 4:15 and headed out. Going up Innovation Way was a bit of a hill. I headed east on Socialville-Foster road, and came to the first of 2 parts of my route where I had some concerns. S-F is kind of a windy, hilly narrow road as it heads down to the river. At least it’s a windy, DOWN-hilly narrow road, going in this direction. I couldn’t remember exactly what it was like, and I had considered going a different way, but in the end, just decided to go for it. It actually turned out to be fine. I did have a few cars behind me that couldn’t safely pass me as I approached the river, though with the speed of the hill and pedaling in top gear, I was going about 22-25 mph, so it’s not like they were really hurting. I waved hello to the big bridge, and turned southbound on to the Little Miami Bike trail
The first section of my journey was about 4 miles, and it had taken me about 16 minutes. The second section was also about 4 miles, south on the bike trail, and proved rather uneventful. The weather was beautiful – temperature in the 60s or so, not to mention that nearly all of the trail is under tree cover. One annoying thing is that I was travelling more or less southwest, so I would often get the sun in my face. And yes, I do realize that contradicts the previous sentence (about tree cover). Deal with it.
In any case, I pulled into Loveland a little before 5:00, with 8 miles under my belt. I took a little break, called the mrs. to assure her I wasn’t dead and sipped some of my water. I had a big backpack on, with 2 bottles of water, along with my work clothes and some books that I had read on the bus. All in all it weighed about 15 lbs (I weighed it once I got home). I don’t think that the extra weight itself was that bad, but I think it did affect my riding posture. Thinking about it, due to the fact that the park in Loveland had water fountains, and if I left my work clothes at work (and wore another set the next day), I could probably get away without carrying anything.
After a few minutes, I continued on the bike trail. I had to cross a few intersections, but I found that the cars on the crossroads were very friendly – at least 3 times they stopped and motioned me to cross. Nice! I had about another 4-5 miles on the trail, till I got off at Beech Road. A few turns and I was crossing over the river on OH-126, bringing me to the 2nd of my areas of concern – the intersection of OH-126 and Loveland-Madeira road. I often come home this way while driving, though I am coming southbound on L-M, rather than westbound on 126 as I was today. So I know that this intersection can get a little congested, especially if you’re trying to turn left, as I was today. One thing that I had going for me was the fact that 126 is closed for repairs west of L-M, so there wasn’t much oncoming traffic. On the flip side, the intersection was up a hill, I had to stop at a red light, and the car at the head of the line (I was 3rd) stalled or in some other ways didn’t go right away on the green. I was having trouble getting any momentum going, so even though I was endeavoring to signal left, I was not able to get a good handle on my bike, which kept drifting right. The cars behind me just kind of turned left around me, and I had to go straight through the intersection, stop, and then cross when it was safe.
Coming home on L-M, there were (as usual) tons of cars stacked up going northbound, waiting to get through the intersection. So even though I was as far right as possible, cars were unable to safely pass me, since the oncoming lane was full of cars. I had them backed behind me all the way past Spooky Hollow, which you can see on the map I linked up above. If I were a hard-core cyclist, I’m sure I would love having cars stuck behind me, and would probably revel in getting as many stuck behind me as possible… but I’m not quite there yet. Other than that, the ride on L-M was nothing special, though it was pretty hilly and I was kind of wiped out by then. I may have to rethink my route home – nothing too bad, but some of the cars passed a little closer than I would have liked.
By the time I got into Madeira, I was definitely feeling it. I had a big ol’ Kroger truck stuck behind me for about 100 feet as I turned onto Camargo, again with no room to pass. There are several options for me to turn off of Camargo (Camargo Woods, Longfield, Osceola, or I suppose I could even go up to Sanoma or Thomas. All of those options involve big ol’ hills, none of which I was relishing. I ended up deciding to take the first one (Camargo Woods), because I didn’t feel like riding on the busy road of Camargo any more than I had to. Of course, that’s also probably the biggest hill of any of them, and I ended up walking up. After I got to the top of that hill, I got back on and rode the 1/2 mile or so home.
All in all, a fun experience, and it feels good to do something that I’ve always said I wanted to do. Final totals were 16.78 miles in 1:20:48