Holy Crap, It's 50 Degrees Outside!

Ah, I can't contain my excitement about the fantastic weather that has come to Pittsburgh.  Well, "fantastic weather" might be an overstatement.  You know it had to have been a crappy, long winter for 50 degrees to be warm.  And, it's still Pittsburgh, so it's not like the sun is actually out or anything.  But still, 50 felt warm enough to ride with nothing except an extra jersey layer and some light booties yesterday.  Once I actually started moving, I realized that factoring in the 25 mph speeds and the wind that comes along with it means it's not really 50 anymore.  So arm warmers might have been nice, but I didn't care; I was filled with glee. 

Today I had the pleasure of riding my fixie downtown to the Y to get in a swim.  It was the first time not taking the bus down there, so I was really interested to see what kind of time it would take to get the Y via bike as opposed to taking the bus.

The answer is:  close to a half an hour depending on traffic.  This compares pretty favorably with the bus for the following reasons.

1.  When taking the bus downtown, I have to:

a.  Walk to the busway (for those of you not in the know, the busway in Pittsburgh is an expressway devoted solely to buses that go downtown.  It's a fast, traffic-free way of doing it.  By far the speediest way of getting into town available.).  Time - about five minutes.

b.  Wait for the bus.  The Port Authority buses here are more well-known for not being on time than for being on time, so even if you plan out your trip with the schedule, you could still be waiting a little.  Time - about five minutes.

c.  Ride the bus.  It takes a very short time to get from my stop to the beginning of downtown - maybe five minutes - but the Y is on the far end of downtown, so I take the bus as far as it goes.  The means it gets into a little bit of traffic by the time it gets to my stop.  Time - maybe ten minutes.

d.  Walk to the Y.  Now, for those of you who have been here, you can back me up when I say that the downtown area of Pittsburgh isn't exactly big.  But it's still a good eight or ten blocks from the bus stop to the Y.  Time - another five minutes.

So already, we're at 25 minutes.  And I haven't even factored in the part where you have to schedule the trip to the Y based on the bus schedule.  Saturdays and Sundays, the buses are a lot more few and far between, so you often can't really leave when you want to.

There is then of course, the part where the circa six-mile bike ride there is exactly that; a six-mile bike ride.  Now, I realize that bike rides for me are usually 35-40 miles minimum, going up to around 80, but those miles to the Y add up if for no other reason than I'm doing them on my all-important fixed-gear bike, which, if you have been tuning into super-fun blogtime, you know does wonders for my biking and running.

Conclusion:  The bike is better.  As if we really needed to analyze the situation to know this :)  That is, of course, it's not pouring down rain or below 30 degrees.

I apologize for spending so much time on the happiness that commuting on a bike gives me, it's just that my swim this morning was terrible.

Right, I'm off for a run.

And I'm back.  That was fantastic for not having run in far too long.  Actually it was fantastic even if I had been running all day, everyday.  6:28/mile pace.  I don't know where that came from...fixie.

Well, until next time when I have something constructive to say, enjoy the weather!

P.S.  Yesterday at work, some German guy was ordering a burger with everything on it so he said (cue German accent), "Ze full monty."  I died.