First rides

My first rides done! It's great to have done my first set of rides today and knocked off 15km already! A set, because it was my ride to work and back, which consists of 4 separate rides, with a stint or two on the tram and a day at work to break them up.

I have mixed feelings about the day. The rides were lovely, with beautiful weather at both ends of the day and lakeviews were amazing. But the bits around it were a bit annoying. Firstly, my ride to work has changed since last year because I'm now at a new location (same job at the Library, just working offsite for a couple of years). It's a lovely new building I'm working in, with lots of great cafes around, the end of trip facilities in the building are not to my liking at all. Access to bike storage is so user unfriendly I ended leaving my bike outside on one of street side back racks, and the change rooms are heaps smaller than at the Library. As well as this, the ride from the city to the Library involves 1 busy road crossing, but the offsite location, though only a few blocks away, requires about 4 of them!

The day did not end well either, when I got to my bike, and was reattaching my removable basket, only to have one of the clamps break! So I had to spend 10 minutes trying to shore it up so it would stay on for my ride home, and I still ended worrying that every bump I went over would send it flying! I was very glad to get home, and not deeply inspired to do another ride to work for a while. I think I will wait until Floriade is over (next weekend) and then ride to the Library, park my bike and change there and either walk or bus it to the other location.

Ride 1 done!