Preparation - Finding the Best Route

My commuting challenge begins along with my internship on September 1st. In the meantime, I've been busy preparing to meet this challenge head-on!

First of all, what kind of academic would I be without conducting some research? I have spent some time over the past few weeks mapping out different routes I can take to get to school. The first route, a 6 km scenic jaunt through the river valley, was the shortest I found. Once I found a suitable bike (which I'll comment further on later), and once my daughter started daycare, I tried this route out for the first time last week. I wanted to see how long it would take me, how difficult it would be, etc.

The river valley route was absolutely beautiful, and remarkably difficult for me. The first 3 km there is either flat or downhill, which lends itself to easy coasting up to 40 km an hour depending on the grade of the decline. The remaining 3 km alternates between flat and ascending steep hills. There is a particularly brutal hill going up to the university from the river valley that kills me, and I have to get off the bike and walk up, panting so hard I feel like I'm going to vomit. I know it sounds really fun, but it's actually not. On the way back, going down that brutal hill doesn't lend itself to high-speed coasting because it's curvy and is a multi-use path for bikes, rollerbladers, pedestrians, etc., so one can't just barrel down the hill without being a massive liability. The 3 km that was an easy coast on the way to school is now a low-grade but constant uphill battle. Having done this route round-trip twice, I can say that it is a great physical challenge and gets me to school in about 31-33 minutes, but I dread the hills and I arrive at school looking and feeling like a complete mess. I also feel the need to collapse in bed at around 9 pm, exhausted.

The second route I tried out last week was through the city, riding along major streets, going over a bridge across the river (no in and out of the valley for me!), and landing at school approximately 8.5 km later. What it lacks in scenery it well makes up for in scariness for having to bike so close to fast-moving cars. The good news is that it's pretty flat the whole way! Despite being a longer route, I biked it in 29-31 minutes, making it more time-economical (a meaningful consideration since my daughter's in daycare that much longer every time I take a longer route). I also don't feel like I'm dying a horrible death when I do it, though wth the proximity to traffic I fear I may very well meet with a horrible end anyway! I definitely need to gain confidence as a street rider, stop worrying whether the people in the cars are judging me as they go by, and perhaps take a course on street riding to learn how to properly change lanes and signal with my arms and all that. When I'm riding right beside cars, I don't feel confident enough to take my hands off the handlebars long enough to make a proper signal! I suspect this will be my route of choice, particularly because I can ride it in the winter (as the river valley route will not be plowed but rather used instead for cross-country skiing).

I've done the city route a couple of times now and have experimented with different variations on the route, taking as many side-streets as possible and avoiding the major roads as much as I can. Though I will indeed have to ride on the busy streets for part of the journey, I can still take side-streets for much of it, leading to a less stressful, more scenic ride. I must say, though, I now understand why street-cyclists sometimes ride in the middle of the road - the closer I got to the curb, the more gravel, pot-holes, and ashphalt cracks I came across, some being quite dangerous to run into. I imagine this will be especially treacherous in the spring when pot-holes grow to super-villain proportions and are covered by melting snow and puddles. I also wonder what I'll do about riding on the side of the road when snowplows leave massive heaps of snow along the sides of roads precisely where I plan to ride. Hmm. This will definitely not be easy.

I must say, after only a few days of practice-commuting, I'm already feeling the difference in my thighs, which are getting noticeably more muscular. Not thinner, mind you - muscular. I'm perfectly happy with that now because just about any physical change aside from gaining more fat around the mid-section is welcome! I do wonder, though, how I'll feel about having a cyclist's thick, muscular thighs when I've lost a significant amount of weight. I've always been quite curvy - wide hips, large breasts, and the lot - so I imagine thick thighs will fit in with my body type just fine. I am most certainly not built to ever look like a model, but it would be nice to eventually say good-bye to friction burns on my thighs!

Well, one can dream, anyway . . .