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Today I decided to ride to work and back, just to test out the route. There are basically two routes I can take, but one involves riding in rather busy, shoulderless, 45 MPH roads. I took the other route, which I’ll call the “safe” route, which is a mix of sidewalks, paved paths, and rail trails. Also, before anyone gets too upset about my saying sidewalks, know that most of these are as wide as a typical cycling path, and have very few driveways or roads crossing them. They are also generally situated between fences or berms bordering what I call “island-neighborhoods” and major roads. That is, neighborhoods which have a single entrance/exit to the main road and do not connect each other, and thus don’t provide good residential streets for riding through.
The ride there was a bit more difficult than the return, as there was an almost-constant headwind, and it’s mostly uphill the whole way. The route is 15.4 miles one way and has total of ~1144 ft (~349m) of climbing, with much of that being in the last few miles. The route itself is quite nice, with the middle part going through Rochester, MI, under a nifty looking concrete bridge, and through some nicely wooded wetlands. There’s only a few areas which are actually unpleasant to ride, most of which involving crossing larger local roads.
Hopefully I’ll actually ride to work in a week and a half or so, possibly on the 15th of the month. I figure that I’ll bring a change of clothes and food to work the day before, and leave my laptop there. Then I’ll be able to ride both to work and back home with only cycling supplies.
If you’d like to see it, here is a KML of the route from my house to work. Note that it works just fine in Google Earth doesn’t currently work in Maps: 03-May-2009_TestRouteToWorkSafe.kml
Here’s three photos from the ride, too:
· Sitting on a grassy hill outside of one of the buildings I work in, eating some almonds and taking a break before heading home.
· Beneath Rochester Road, looking south, just south of Downtown Rochester, off of the Clinton River Trail, while on the way home from a test ride to work.
· Looking north along the underside of Rochester Road towards the Croskey Lanni building.
