7-22-10

All of the excitement of my commute happened on the way home today. It started right away, as soon as I climbed on my bike. As I left the parking garage with my bike, there was a large panel truck blocking the view of oncoming traffic. I slowly started out when a bus came into view from behind the panel truck. I guess that is one way to get the adrenaline going early. I cruised down Lloyd Blvd and only one car buzzed me. It was looking like a good ride home. I crossed the Steel Bridge and picked up a nice tailwind to head down Naito Parkway. I waited at the stoplight by Skidmore fountain. Once the light changed, I felt turbo charged. Cruising down the bike lane, one car rolled through the crosswalk to give me a bit of a rush, then one asshole comes so far through the crosswalk that I had to swerve into the lane of traffic. I loudly exclaimed that he had crainial rectal inversion (aka head up his .....). At the time I was cruising about 25-30 mph. Just after that intersection, there is a weird jog in the bike lane. I was going too fast to cut over from the vehicle lane to the bike lane and make the jog, so I just stayed in the vehicle lane. There was a lady coming down the off ramp from the bridge in a green Mini, and refused to either speed up or slow down. I then had to step on it to get around her to get back on the bike lane. At this point I decided that I should just get on the train, I seemed to be pushing my luck. On the way up to Pioneer Square to get on, three different pedestrians decided to cross against the light right in front of me. Ugh! I follow the rules, what is the deal?!? I got on the train and it was stopped for about 10 minutes while paramedics attended to someone on the sidewalk and blocked the train. Jammed in the train, people still tried to get on at each stop. The driver would announce over the PA that there were trains stacked up behind him, but the kept getting on. It was like a train in Japan. I was glad to get off and enjoy the tailwind some more on the way home.