The long commute.

Amazing it’s been about 20 years this month since I started cycling to/from work.

1991 – Lashed out on some razor thin slicks for my 1989 Apollo Everest, pumped to their max & rode out from St Albans into the CBD. I pre-rode the route the weekend before & opted to avoid Ballarat Rd, taking the back streets: Furlong Rd> Berkshire Rd> Duke St> Cranwell St> Mitchell St> Gordon St> Farnsworth Ave to the river side path , over to Dynon Rd into the city.
Oddly I never recalled having problems with traffic aggro back then, cars mostly either gave me a real wide berth and as the route I used missed most of the traffic snarls I suppose I wasn’t dealing with grumpy motorists anyway. My biggest issue was darkness & the feeble lighting I used to run. There weren’t as many traffic lights on the route back then so the few I encountered gave me a breather I needed. The Maribyrnong river path south to Sims St was the only bike related infrastructure I encountered on my route (or that I knew of).

No shower/locker or bike storage facilities at work back then, but it was OK to bring the rig up into my worksite/office. It was a bit of a novelty with some of my work colleagues, my bike thing. Lots of encouraging words, not like nowadays where bicycle riding seems to be regarded as dangerous activity most warn of fear & misadventure.
I was doing fun runs & racing offroad motorcycles – MX & XC - at the time so the commute supplemented my training.
But after many years, different bikes, jobs & worksites later & it’s only a dark rainy day that takes me away from grunt & freewheel of the acoustic motorbike