I found myself in an uncommon situation this morning. Normally I ride for about an hour to work each morning, taking various routes, and ultimately arriving at work between 8:30am and 9:00am. It works out great because I typically don’t have meetings before 10am, which allows plenty of time to cool off, freshen up, change clothes, etc. after the ride. Today, I had an 8:15am meeting at location a few miles from my office. I had to get to my office by 7:30 to catch a shuttle bus to take me where I needed to go. I left the house at 7:00am, took the most direct route to work possible, and went as fast as I could. It ended up taking 27 minutes at an average of 16.6mph. Not too bad given the hilly terrain, and the fact that I’m not race conditioned (or even anything resembling it). It was a pretty nice ride, aided by the perfect mid-May weather. Too bad it can’t be May or October all year long.
The ironic thing is that the site of the meeting was actually closer to my house than my office. It’s actually right along one of my usual routes to work. The problem is, I’m not really set up for commuting to anywhere but my office. I don’t carry a lock regularly, and I store clean clothes and shoes in my office. If I were to go directly to the meeting site, I’d need to carry a full change of clothes and a pair of shoes, find somewhere to change, and find somewhere safe to leave my bike, helmet, etc. The logistics would be somewhat easier if I could commute in street clothes, but that’s kind of a non-starter for me because I just sweat too much. So it ended up being easier to go to the office, change there, leave my bike there, and catch the shuttle bus. It ended up working out OK, but I’m glad I don’t have to do it every day.