Actually, it’s bike day #5, if you include last Saturday when I rode it downtown for my writing day, & then along the Coastal Trail to Westchester Lagoon & back home again. But this count is of days biking to/from work.
Today I took to the Chester Creek bike trail instead of to the streets, thanks to the meltwater overflow along the trail having gone away. (I noticed this on my way home Tuesday.) Thus, I didn’t have to worry about ice on the trail even in the morning, except for the small remnant in the culvert/tunnel under the Seward Highway, which is maybe a foot wide & easy to go over. It was a lot more pleasant ride in terms of road noise: I could hear traffic as a hum in the background, but mostly I could hear birdsong in the woods along the trail, robins mostly I think. But several times I heard my very favorite bird call, that of the ruby-crowned kinglet, which always sounds like a version of a trumpet call for a cavalry charge to me. Though with a much different tonality & volume, of course.
Pleasant in terms of road noise, I say; but not pleasant in terms of the work it put my legs to. As I get more in shape, I’m sure it will improve, but meanwhile it was a lot of hard work. The trail is fairly flat, but it does have a very slight rise to it most of the way eastward — hardly as steep as the climb up C Street from the Chester Creek valley, but enough to exert an extra resistance to the legs. Then, when I turned off the trail to go up Maplewood for the street portion of the trip, there is a hill, steep as C Street though thankfully much shorter. However, I messed up when I shifted gears & the chain came off. So with no momentum, I walked up that hill, & of course restored my chain to rights.
I was damn tired by the time I got to work. And sweaty. But stubbornly still took the stairs up the two floors to my office. Now, at lunchtime, my legs still feel tired. But at least the sweat has dried.
