August 30th Ride

[Geonz]

My ride in was delightfully uneventful, except that it seemed there was 5 times the normal traffic! Why today? Somebody else coming from an entirely different direction had the same experience. My last light where there are usually 4-5 cars... nope, backed up 20 deep! I had the pleasure of (not my usual practice but because of how this intersection is, it makes sense) streaking to the front of the line knowing the back of the line would take three cycles to get through.
I'd also had to wait two and a half minutes at a street that, the eight other times I've crossed it (it's a new route), I waited no mroe than 10 seconds for a HUGE gap between the light cycles (the roads to the north and the south each have a traffic light).
But... the gastrointestinal system was its old sweet self in the morning, oh happy day!!!!

[DDH]

DH and I took my 11.1 mile route this morning. We tried to go out and push a little harder to get our speeds up. I wanted to do a long route like 20 or more miles with him this morning but we just didn't have time because of other things that needed to be done.
Anyway, I have been getting around 10 or 11 mph on my speeds and today was 12.3 so I did do some better.

[7rider]

My morning commute was uneventful. My riding partner suffered from his all-too-common bout of insomnia, so I got to hear all about it on the way in.
This afternoon, as I was shutting down my p.c. at work, I heard a steady stream of emergency vehicles coming from the road below. I'd come to tune them out. I'm in downtown Silver Spring - a pretty big city - and sirens are a pretty routine noise.
So I got dressed and headed for the elevators down to my bike to meet up with my riding parter.
"Be careful" a friend said. "Someone just got killed out there."
Apparently, the sirens I heard were in response to a pedestrian fatality at the corner of East West Hwy and Colesville Rd. That intersection is horrible...pedestrians racing against the walk sign, cars taking the corner much too fast, buses blocking everyone's sight-line. It's a terrible place and unfortunately, someone paid the ultimate price. It was very sad.
My coworker and I had to take a roundabout route out of the city.
"You know," he said, as we finally reached a quiet neighborhood just outside the downtown area. "I was going to complain about how tired I was, but really, I have nothing to complain about."
"Yeah," I responded. "We both still alive."
Be careful out there, folks! There is rarely any place you need to get to so quickly that you can't afford to take care and watch out for others.