happy birthday america, you're good enough for me

I hit a small milestone today: I biked into work for the first time since I've been at this job. It was a feeling I've missed. In grad school, I rode my bike to the lab all the time, and even afterwards when I was doing consulting for Ford I would bike to their research labs*. But since I took this job four+ years ago, I've not tried it. See, my house (note: not my home) is in Dearborn, twenty-six miles away. That's a pretty hefty ride one-way, and I can't imagine making the trip home at the end of the day. But from Katie's place in the center of Ann Arbor, it's less than ten miles to work.

So today I tried it. I put my work clothes and shoes in my backpack, threw on my jacket and some pants I could tie off (to prevent chain grease on the pantlegs), and hit the road. It was cool this morning, low forties, cloudy and rain-threatened. It felt good. My fingertips were a little numb at first, but warmed up along the way. Traffic was fairly light. A few miles in, I opened up my jacket a bit to let some cooling air in. See, that's the trickiest part: keeping your pace and staying cool enough so that you're not a sweaty mess when you get to work. It's a fine balance point. Nine-point-six miles and thirty-seven minutes later I pulled up to our loading bay and dropped off my bike, went to the visitor's bathroom to change (where I can lock the door), and all was well.

a successful morning, and I've hardly done anything yet. here's hoping the afternoon ride goes just as well.


*this was particularly fun and ironic: riding my bike to go work for a car manufacturer. I felt mildly subversive, in a good way.