Sweet Summer Air

Riding my bicycle to Crossfit Sua Sponte has become one of my daily rituals since I've been back in Raleigh. Until this morning, the weather has been mostly rainy, but today the sun has come forth and with it, the smells of summer. These are smells that cannot penetrate the confines of a car, even when cruising with the windows down. The flowers have burst forth, grass is getting cut, and even at 0920, there is a strong smell of BBQ wafting across the parking lot near the box. I wish I could actually ride with Dwight more often, so I could ask him about all the trees and test his memory on all the plant identification he's done years ago. I imagine the summer is easier when every tree has leaves and many of the flowers are at their fullest. Usually a cyclist is moving at a speed that allows for a good guess of the source of a particular smell. If I had my phone on me, I'd take a picture and later identify the source of the fragrance. I invite any of our readers who have found a particularly inviting smell to take a picture and post it to the page, to share a moment of their ride with the rest of us.

Even Susie likes to smell the flowers. These are gardenias.

Commuting Challenge

I've been a slacker - my bicycle riding has fallen off and my writing has been non-existent. I am going to attempt to remedy this. I feel good about myself the more I pedal where I'm going and I feel like I know myself better when I write regularly.

Therefore, I set the following goals for myself:

• Make the bicycle my primary form of transportation. Commute to the job at least 3 days a week, run all errands less than 10 miles from home with bicycle*
• Write about bike commuting at least twice a week.

In that spirit, here's a look at my commute from yesterday morning.

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It's about a 15 mile ride, and when I push hard, I can do it in under an hour. Barely. There are a couple of rough spots; the stretch of Edwards Mill that runs under the Wade Avenue Extension and crossing Wake Forest from out of the Quail Hollow neighborhood. Nothing too hair-raising, though.

We'll have to see how I do with my new self-challenge now that the temperature is rising. However, at the hour I'm leaving in the morning, its not been too hot.