Commuting Season Begins in Earnest

Spring has truly sprung, after a trying few days of cold, rain and fog. Today was therefore the perfect day to begin my circuitous bike commute, followed by a longer after-school ride, which is what I did regularly last spring and in the fall.

The day started off on the chilly side, 38 degrees to be precise. You warm up quickly when you climb up Cascadilla Place and up through the Cornell campus to Warren Rd. The only bother with this ride is the campus traffic and poor road conditions in the Northeast.

After school was blissful, a jacket free day in the upper-50s with sunshine and a north wind. Today I took 34 to Lansing, then back via Gulf Rd., which has a very steep and short uphill connecting back to Conlon Rd., a nice little add-on ascent before the long downhill along East Shore (34B). Best avg. speed of the season thus far, 19.8 mph, so all of the cross-training and indoor cycling seems to be paying off.

Today on my morning route, I passed a fellow teacher and district colleague on her bike (with trailer in tow), heading in the other direction toward her school on the hill. I rarely get the chance to chat with her because she's always on the move! Then, on my way back up the hill for my afternoon ride, I passed her yet again on her way back down the hill. I loved the symmetry of our encounters. I so admire and respect this teacher for her great work in the classroom, and also for her incredible athleticism. She is both a very competitive nordic skier and super-strong cyclist and runner, and quite the inspiration.

Today I received the bad news that a friend and colleague was injured in a car accident yesterday in Lansing. He was driving at 55 when someone not very far ahead of him pulled out of an intersection or a driveway, giving him next to no time to react. He ended up in the ditch, beaten and battered, with a totalled car. My thoughts are with him and his family, and I'm so thankful that he wasn't hurt worse. While I have no information about what led the other driver to make their unsafe turn, I can't think about the shocking statistics about distracted driving and texting while driving. A study released by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute found that truck drivers who were texting were 23 times more at risk of a crash or near-crash event than non-distracted driving. Also, the average teen sends close to 3,000 text messages a month, and many of those messages have been sent or received while driving. These are particularly scary things to think about for us cyclists. No matter how safe we ride, we are at the mercy of drivers. I just hope that chronic cellphone users realize that no text is worth a human life.

Random photo time...it was bath night for the boys and for the bike!