I survived! Inventor of the padded bike short, I thank you. Back in January, when I first came up with this idea, I brought it up to my two coworkers, Moon and David, one morning on our carpool to work. Their response, “Sure! When is it? May? Oh yeah, no problem, we have plenty of time to get in shape.” Well, time got away from us and as May 14th loomed closer, I was pretty sure I was going to be riding this route solo. Much to my surprise, we were a trio of bikers to Birmingham.

The two guys live in Lafayette Park which is about three miles south of where I live so we met in New Center at 6am. It was a brisk 39 degrees and we could see our breath for the entire ride and didn’t break the lightest sweat. My fingers and toes didn’t warm up until we got to the office. Our route was quite circuitous as we wanted to avoid the heavily-trafficked roads. We rode through Highland Park, observing the haunting beauty of the abandoned buildings, through Palmer Park with its blanket of fog hovering over the golf course, up Livernois Avenue greeting fellow runners and walkers with smiles and hellos, through a small mid-century development just south of Ferndale, and finally up Pierce where we merged with a daily bike commuter full of energy.

With an average speed of 11mph, we made it to the office around 7:30am. Following an obligatory photo shoot in the parking garage, we loaded the bikes into my car which I had left overnight as I knew we would be too tired to bike the 20+ miles home that night. All of us were freshened up, sitting at our desks, ready for the full day of work by 8am–earlier than I make it to the office on a typical day. In fact, we beat all but one co worker to the office that day. Hot dog! The adrenaline was running high until about 10:30am. From that point on, energy levels dwindled until it was time to go home. I know I was ecstatic to go to bed that night. I still can’t believe we actually did it.

Here is my bike prior to the journey:

Riding through Highland Park on Hamilton Road (early in the ride):

11147009_10153396881640528_4534677214230250754_nAlmost there and the sun feels so nice:

We made it!:

And the bikes made it!:

Load ’em up:

Stay tuned for June’s transit adventure–The Great BUS Ride to Birmingham–complete with 98 stops between my house and the office. Is it possible that the bike ride was quicker? We shall see…