Today I rode this…

My Trek 7.3 FX

…around the city following this course. It was hot and the seaport, Battery, and west side bike path were way too crowded which I expected but it was still a pain dodging around all the pedestrians.

This is my new bike, a Trek 7.3 FX, that I’ve been commuting on for the past six weeks or so. I’m new to bicycle commuting and my goal is to do it five days a week but I’m only up to three so far. The commute is a little over 6 miles one way and takes me from Greenpoint in Brooklyn, over to Long Island City in Queens, across the Queensboro Bridge, up the East River Greenway, and then over to Central Park.

It’s a fairly pleasant course that keeps me out of traffic as much as possible and only takes about 45 minutes. That’s about the same amount of time an ideal subway commute takes and ideal commutes are the exception not the rule.

The bane of my commute though is the bridge, I don’t know what the change in elevation is exactly but I can tell you that on my scale it s*cks, a lot. And not only do I have to deal with the elevation change but the DOT is doing repair work so I have to dodge construction trucks and men on the bike path plus the noise and fumes from their work. Not much fun and I suspect they’re secretly lengthening the bridge or making it taller.

If the bridge is the bad then pretty much all the rest is the good. There’s something very satisfying about getting to/from work under your own power. It reconnects me to my youth when I was an avid bike rider. I’m also saving money since I’m taking the subway a lot less. And probably the greatest benefit is I’m getting 90 minutes of fairly strenuous aerobic exercise every day that I bike to work that I wasn’t getting before which has lots of positive implications for my health.

So to sum up, yayyy bicycle commuting. As for you Queensboro Bridge, watch your back because I will beat you. Oh yes, I’ll reduce you to a speed bump by summer’s end and have the rock hard calves to prove it.

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