Day 3 wrap-up: Bike officers, red bull, and loads of fun

Today, I set off on my journey at about 4:30PM. It's AMAZING the difference a half-hour in departure time makes. Instead of doing the usual cyclist thing of finding little back alley shortcuts, I sat there, in traffic, biding my time like everyone else. It kinda sucked. But it's okay.

I experimented a bit on the way home, and I felt pretty strong the whole way. I kept well-hydrated and maintained good speed and road position. I really felt like everything was coming together. Having this much seat time today (almost 4 hours worth, if you count times I wasn't moving) I really started to feel at one with my steed. I no longer feel like I'm controlling it. I feel like it's going where I want to go. It sounds cheesy, but it's the only way I can describe it. I just got in from putting 27 more miles on my bike, and I'm not really all that worn out. It was a great ride.

Photo: I stopped to talk with Ed (left) and Doug (right) at JCCC. This week, there are several graduation ceremonies happening at the college, for various schools and college degree programs. Doug and Ed patrol on bike. As I worked for JCCC for almost 9 years and my wife currently works in their department, I know both of these guys pretty well. We sat around, talked about bikes, commuting, and all that jazz.
Then the Red Bull street team showed up, offering us free Red Bull. So I continued chatting it up with the officers while I polished off my carbonated, caffeinated nectar from the gods above.

Then it was off to the bike shop to figure out why I kept dropping my chain off the granny ring. I think they fixed the problem (I could have but if they will do it for free...)

Anyhow. I'm home, relaxing, and planning on another day of wonderful riding.