What do you get when you combine temps in the 30's, no heated jacket, glaring sun just above the horizon, unfamiliar gravel roads with deep ruts, large potholes and loose gravel, sleepy commuters, tornado damaged trees and finally lots of deer? One hell of a good morning commute.
It started shortly after Heather pulled out of the driveway. I couldn't find my Gerbing liner and she didn't have her cell phone turned on. She had recently reorganized upstairs and I can't find anything. Oh well, its not THAT cold. And there is no way in hell I am taking the truck today. So I pulled on a fleece, closed the vents on the front of my jacket and headed out.
Sitting at the end of my driveway, waiting to join the herd, I could see that traffic was crawling all the way through town, which meant is was crawling all the way to Leesburg, and probably most of the way down the Greenway. People can't handle that early morning sun and drive like idiots. Well, this just won't do for such a spectacular morning. So I turned right, exactly opposite of the path I should be taking. I figured I would head west for a little while then turn south and hit some good gravel backroads. Just at the edge of town, Hughes street turns south and I had never been more than a mile or two down that road. I knew it connected to some of my fun gravel roads and figured I couldn't get that lost. It turns out that it quickly turns to gravel and roller coasters through the Loudoun County hills. Woohoo. With the sun beside or behind me for the most part, I was making "good time" on the hard packed gravel. Occasionally the road would disintegrate into washboard, potholes, ruts, or deep, loose gravel. Sometimes all of the above at the same time. Then back to full speed and the next set of obstacles. I believe this road was called Sands Rd. I was having to much fun to pay attention.
I caught up to a school bus, but before I could get pissed or pass, he turned onto another road. At the intersection, I turned left to head back in the right direction. I figured I had come far enough south to get away from the clogged feeder roads. Unfortunately now I was headed directly into the sun. The Autumn morning sun was sending shafts of burning light through the trees and completely eliminating all vision. I would go from very dark shadows to complete white out. It was like riding through a dark tunnel with a strobe light going off. The road condition ranged from great to complete crap. Usually the crap came just after I had been completely blinded by a shaft of sun. I used the force and pushed on.
By now the cold has started to work its way through my summer weight gloves (my winter gloves are with my heated jacket... whereever that is). Due to the glare of the sun, I had been riding with my face shield up so my cheeks were getting that tingly feeling too. But the surges of adrenaline that would peak just as I realized I was heading for a rut slightly smaller than the New River Gorge helped to keep blood flowing to the extremeties.
One major concern was the trees down from the recent tornadoes. Many had just been cut off at the road's edge, just wide enough to get the power company trucks through. They haven't been cleared back away from the shoulders yet. While I knew that hitting a deep rut could throw me, the idea of being clothes-lined or impaled by a rogue branch really kept me on my toes.
I continued on, dodging ruts, plowing through deep loose gravel, flying blind half the time, avoiding the limbs that stuck out like so many lances, fighting off the cold. And then there was bambi. Luckily I saw them first. I came to a stop as they lazily hoped the fence and continued through the field. There were 4 does, three of which were nice and big. One was probably a yearling. They trotted off through the field as if to say, "you don't really scare us. We were going this way anyhow." We'll see about that in November, beeeaaatch. One even stopped about 50 yards away to watch me. BLAM. Dinner. But this is October not November, so back into gear and on to work.
The rest of the ride was uneventful. Except for the truck crane that I met in probably the narrowest part of the entire road. He stayed right in the middle, safely away from the ditches and the downed trees. I rode IN the ditch and under the downed trees to avoid becoming a bumper ornament. Yield to tonnage.
Alive and well, sitting here with my hot coffee and avoiding the inbox full of email, I wonder how these people around me make it through their commutes each the morning. How do you go through life caged in climate controlled comfort never experiencing the world raw and in living color? A lot of you may ride more miles than I do, but commuting by bike is one thing that gets me through my days. After all, it's the sMiles, not the miles.