Throwing The Switch

The Ti Muk 2 has been the commuter of choice so far.

Bike Season- It comes and it goes. After having been around the bicycle industry for nearly a quarter of a century now I can honestly say I'm used to it. The coming and the going. The feast and the famine. What seems jarring though, some years when it goes this way, is when 'The Switch' gets thrown.

The times of a shop mechanic in Winter Season are slow, and maybe there is no work to be had at all. Usually the season starts in fits and grows from that slow nothingness to full blown, elbows up, frantic work by Spring. But sometimes it doesn't happen like that, and this year is a perfect example, at least around here it is. 

There was nothing going on for a couple months or three. Like.....nothing. Then in a blink of an eye it's elbows up, running around like crazy. I sometimes have a harder time with the season when it goes like that because I need a minute to 'get up to speed' again and pump out work like I can when I've been doing it every day for weeks on end. But I always get the hang of it, and I bet this year will be no different. 

One thing I do like is my commute. It takes about 40-50 minutes, depending upon the weather and the bike I choose. It's almost double the length of my old commute, so I get more time on my bikes, and I like that. Plus, a lot of my route is off-pavement, which is even better. I've got about 14 city blocks worth of dirt or alleyway gravel, another city block through an unpaved cemetery, about a third of a mile of dirt/grass in an open area along a highway, and probably a half mile of dirt on the Trolley Car Trail's Western end. Oh! And I cut across a trucking terminal's lot which is unpaved as well. Besides that I have a fair chunk of paved recreational trail in three sections I ride. The rest is on city streets. That part might be the shortest part! 

So, now I will be working more, dinking around less, and so that means my riding in the country time will go down to the 'usual' amounts. Which isn't bad, it's just not the crazy amount of time I had available during the late Fall and Winter months. I'll still be getting in plenty of riding as it is. Besides, with the recent snow and now melting of that snow, the gravel roads are a mess. I'd rather wait a bit to have some better conditions for riding out in the country.