The Art of the Bus Chase - Part 1

Since the time change my bike commuting mileage has declined drastically. I'm still riding pretty much everyday but been a slave to the bus. It's too cold in the morning to ride the whole way and too dark at night to ride over the notch. Gone are the weeks where I could click off 131 miles. I'm down to about 60 miles per week.

The funny thing is I'm more sore now at the lower mileage than the high mileage. I've never been one to ride slow, typically I ride the 13.1 mile ride home in 52 minutes. That's an average speed of 15.1 mph and I have a big hill ("The Notch") that drops my speed to 6 mph for five minutes or so. Yes, typically my speedo reads high teens and low twenties.

My morning commute is all of 4.1 miles when riding the bus everyday. I need to be out of the house by 7:15 in the morning to catch it at the college and I get off at the center of town. I don't pace myself too hard to get into work, it is work after all.

At night I need to get out of work right at 5:00 or I run the risk of missing the bus at a college just before the Notch. Here's where I push it a bit, I cover the 7.9 miles in 25 minutes or less (18.9mph avg). The bus leaves @5:30 so I need to be on my game and get moving to ensure I get to the stop in time.

It's not unlike some bizarre art form. Blasting through busy college and downtown areas, passing scores of buses and slowly moving cars only to catch and/or race bus because it's too dark for one section of road.

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