The Epic Commute

I know, I know; "epic" is not a word you would typically use to describe commuting to work on a bicycle. But there is no word better suited to my commute this morning.

To understand what happened today you need to know that when I crashed in July I broke the pump bracket on my road bike. I also switched a few weeks ago from my road bike to my winter commuter, an old rigid mountain bike, so I haven't been riding the road bike much lately.

Today when I woke up there was a cold front bearing down on Salt Lake City, with a strong wind out of the west. I rarely get a tailwind on my commute, so when I saw this I was pretty excited. I figured if I used the road bike I could break 40 minutes for my commute.

So - putting 2 and 2 together I am sure you can figure out what happened. About 3 miles from home, cruising along at 25 mph with the fantastic tailwind, I picked up a shank in my tire. That's when I remembered that I didn't have my pump re-mounted. No problem, I'll just use the Ultraflate CO2 inflater I have in my seat bag...the one I left on my mountain bike.

I was a little over a mile from a bus stop, so I hoofed it up there, only to see the bus go by when I was about a block away. That meant a 20 minute wait for the next bus. Then, when I got to the TRAX light rail station the train was already there, so there was no way I could get my bike off the bus and to the train in time. That meant another 15 minute wait.

All in all it took me 2:10 to make it to work when it usually takes about 50-55 minutes by bike, and about 20 minutes by car.

Lesson learned.