Convergence

The Road Bike's About Done Commuting, at Least for 2010

I began keeping track of my commute mileage in May 2008. Tomorrow, that log will tick past 10,000 miles when I'm about half way to work. I have no idea how many recreational miles I rode during that time. Tomorrow will also be the last day I ride the road bike to Fort Worth Alliance Airport, as the days grow shorter, and the weather less reliable. I’ll take the lights and commute items off it, and it’ll enjoy a day as a pure recreation road runner at the Hotter ‘N Hell 100 on Saturday.

2009 HH100 Finish Pin

I don’t know if we’ll bother to do the whole hundred – the forecast high is only 95F, which isn’t really any hotter than last year, and which is a full ten degrees cooler than the typical homeward August commute. I’ll probably make a final determination at Hell’s Gate, but riding down the Sheppard AFB flight line looks like a real appealing alternate at the moment, unless it turns out to get much hotter than the forecast. I’ve already ridden one “Milder ‘N Hell 100” and doing a second one holds no special appeal. I’ll wait and do the 100 again when the weather makes it a challenge.

Next week, it’ll be back to Buddy for the commute, at least for a few more weeks. You can see much through the various posts in this blog, but the big influences that have changed me since 2008 are the various blogs you can see off to the right in the sidebar, and the qualitative changes that the commute to Fort Worth Alliance Airport drove. In cycling terms, reading those blogs have polished off many rough edges and fuzzy cycling thinking, and I came of age through that commute, though I cycled for nearly 50 years before that commute began.

The commute mileage has been hard, but rewarding. I’m glad I did it. It’ll be interesting to see what comes next. Maybe I’ll even try riding around White Rock Lake!