Several of you have commented on my plan to bicycle to work.  This morning I headed off early to bike to the first stoplight.  It felt like it was eight or ten blocks from where we live, but it may have been less.  I didn’t count.  

Mark took off in the truck right behind me.  I was already a few blocks down the road before I saw him pass me at regular speed, and then I lost sight of him.  As I said yesterday, it was mostly downhill today, but at a very gradual slope.  I rode down the sidewalk going the opposite direction from the traffic.  I know that’s not standard practice, but I saw someone else do that last week and it meant I didn’t have to cross to the other side of a busy road, so I did it.  Besides, there were no pedestrians using the sidewalk.  If there had been, I would have moved down to the bike lane facing the traffic as I saw someone else do last week.

In spite of going generally downhill, there were times when I did some pedalling and I could feel a bit of a burn in my legs, but it wasn’t too bad.  I felt okay enough that I probably could have tried for the second stoplight if Mark and I hadn’t agreed to meet at the first one.

As I was approaching the first stoplight, I began looking at all four corners to see where Mark was.  The light was red, and as I was slowing down, I heard Mark’s voice.  He was sitting in the left turn lane waiting for the light to turn green.  He signalled and told me to meet him at the bus stop.  I thought he was pointing up the road a bit, so I went a couple blocks and there was a bus stop.  Apparently, it was not the bus stop Mark had meant.  There was a bit of a delay as he realized I wasn’t coming to meet him at the bus stop around the corner where he had been waiting to turn.  He finally found the bus stop I was waiting at and jumped out of the truck to put my bicycle in the back while I got in.

Here I had been thinking that it was very clever of him to go around the block several times so that he could catch me at the corner and tell me where to meet him.  But when I said this to him, he told me that he hadn’t been around the block at all.  Morning traffic was so bad that he and I got to the stoplight at the same time.  At that rate, I’m thinking maybe riding my bicycle is a really good idea!

Tomorrow, I’m going to go for the second stoplight, and just so there aren’t any mix-ups, Mark pointed out a good meeting place on our way past the light.  As of Day One, I’m feeling pretty positive about the possibility of riding my bike to work.  We’ll see how I feel in the next day or two.