Summer Commuting

Now we're getting somewhere: 23-29 degrees Celcius all week (mid-70s to low-80s). Let's hope it lasts. Today was the first single jersey commute of the year. There have been many other nice days, but all a bit chilly in the morning for just one jersey. Everything is so much easier now: no layering, no jacket, no gloves or balaclava, no lights--just the bike, shorts, jersey, and socks. The warm weather makes the legs go good too. On top of all this, there was some fog this morning, which meant virtually no wind. Part of summer commuting is to find a long way to work and back. I used to have wonderful long versions of my commute in Athens, Ohio (some nice quiet extra climbing through town), Los Alamos, New Mexico (riding home from the lab by Bandelier), Pittsburgh (awesome climbs through all kinds of outlying neighborhoods), and even Milwaukee (where I lived really close to campus but on certain mornings got an extra mile or so along Lake Michigan). On my current commute, I don't really need any extra miles. But a couple of weeks ago I was forced to explore alternative routes due to a big construction project along my regular, 16 mile-long route. I've written about the IJburg-Muiden route. Last week, with my regular commuter in the shop, I had an opportunity to do this route on the Klein, meaning with a computer (yes, I took the risk of parking this still very fine bike in downtown Amsterdam for a day, and got away with it). On the way out I followed the Vecht river all the way to the end, at the small city of Muiden, then IJburg, and back to my regular route by way of the Nescio bridge. On the way home I rode East of Muiden to the Keverdijk. It turns out that's a good four miles longer than my usual route (18.4 and 18.2, versus 15.9 and 16.3). Four miles, three or four times a week, that's something. If you went the long way all year, it would add a few hundred miles to the very important annual total. Right now, it's just nice to have a choice, and to have the new route be even more scenic.