It's a long light at Dearborn and Rainier. Dearborn is a main route for cyclists to enter downtown, and bicycles often gather here at the light during the morning commute. We then can make a little peleton down Dearborn. From here until I reach the office, I'll be riding on busy urban streets.
Riding through Chinatown is a mixed bag: there are fewer cars, but the traffic is more unpredictable, there's lots of pedestrian traffic, and there's a four-way stop at nearly every intersection. Often I just take Fourth Avenue, which has heavy motor vehicle traffic, but is more reliable.
The picture on the right was taken on a Sunday morning, and Third Avenue, my main route through downtown, looks deserted. On a weekday morning, it's a madhouse of buses, taxis, cars and delivery trucks. At first it was very frightening, but now I am used to its rhythms, and feel very comfortable on it. I need to sprint up its slope to keep up with the main flow of traffic, dominated by Metro buses.
To the left you can see me and my former co-worker, Keven Ruf, another dedicated bicycle commuter. Denise Chan took this picture in front of our building in the fall of 2000, when we were featured as Bicycle Commuter of the Month in November and December of that year.
So, now you've seen it, the entire ride from my driveway to my building. Depending on the route, it's about 15 or 16 miles one way. I often use Metro Transit to shorten the ride time, but even then, I'll ride for at least an hour every day. During the summer, it often stretches out to double that or more. It is the finest way to get to work: exercise, fresh air, reliable even in heavy traffic, and I can go as fast as I want -- bicycle commuting beats any other way to work, hands down.
to page one
to previous page
Index for all my pages
To my website on Bicycle Meditations
Hosted by www.Geocities.ws

1