Another brief lockdown tredle around the local streets.

A quick 5 minute zip around the local locked down streets to blow the cobwebs away!

A quick wee cruise around the streets here. According to Strava that was still 50 metres in elevation gain over 700 metres or so.

A quick lunchtime cruise down the hill. I am LOVING that there is so little vehicle traffic, I have not felt safer or more relaxed on the bike. It wasn’t a particularly fast ascent, but given how out of practice I was it was not too bad.

While it felt pretty good, today was my slowest climb up the hill. I stopped to check if my helmet had acquired a bug: it hadn’t; but I assume that counted toward the slow time. But overall, a decent couple of rides today.

After what feels like a loooog time I was back in the saddle today. I have been feeling under the weather for 3 weeks. I was not too keen on riding today, but everything felt pretty good once I was on the bike. It was one of the fastest rides down the hill, and strangely, despite feeling average, it was also one of the fastest rides up the hill.

The reason was simple: traffic lights. I had super favorable traffic lights up and down. This never usually happens, and it made all the difference.

Of 13 work days since I did my first commute, I have ridden to work on 9 of them. I’m happy about that and thought I’d missed way more days.

It was reasonably wet this morning. I left about 7am in an attempt to avoid traffic, but it seemed the folks who were driving to avoid the rain also left early. But it was OK overall.

I left work at 4pm, and the ride up was actually pretty nice. I had eaten at 3pm, and I found I had a lot of energy going up the hill – it was the easiest ride up so far. I could be wrong, but it felt quieter than usual, and it really was more pleasant. It was also much cooler than I when had previously ridden up the hill. It all added up to a mostly enjoyable ride, with a few hairy moments of too-close cars.

Down: good. Slow. Many stops.

Up: lovely. Strava didn’t record it. Even though it felt slow, Google seemed to think it was quick. I’ll never know. But who cares. I didn’t get hit by a vehicle, and I enjoyed it for the most part. Yay.

A peaceful ride down the hill, it was quiet and still. I rode up through the park, it was steep and not nearly as easy as the road. I was absolutely stuffed when I got onto the footpath. I nearly ran into Kim Hill on the footpath… she did not look very happy with me, and fair enough too. By the time I arrived on my street, my legs had recovered and I feel I could have ridden much further up the hill.

A nice commute in the morning. The ride down was easy and fast.

The ride up included a near miss, at the corner that freaks me the most. An instinct kicked in and for some reason I slowed before the corner, and a car cut in front. If I’d kept riding at the same speed, I’m not sure what would have happened.

That sucks about being a cyclist in this city.

Strava says…. personal best for the hill climb. By 16 seconds. I’ll take it!