As you may have noticed from the
website, Clean Commute Day will be held on May 16 this year. Within the next day or two I expect to have the Clean Commute Day website available, but by way of preview I wanted to mention Bike to Work Day and the Bike to Work Routes that will be a centerpiece of the CCD effort this year.
Working with the Blue Ridge Bicycle Club and others, we've created a series of routes that criss-cross the valley centered on Downtown Roanoke. We've been test-riding the routes to make sure we've worked out any tricky parts, and yesterday was my morning to test my assigned route: Floodwaters, going from Garden City to Downtown.
First of all, I hadn't touched my bike in over a year. One of the tires had rotted and the tubes needed to be changed. There was some other minor maintenance to be completed as well, none of which I was very good at and none of which I had the proper tools for. After several hours of struggling with tires, overinflating (and rupturing) a brand-new tube, getting covered in grease, and becoming very frustrated, I can attest to the benefit of having a professional spend a little time with your bike before you get on it for the first time. It was also a good thing I spent as much time with it as I did - I found a number of potential safety issues that I would not have otherwise noticed.
I eventually did get the bike in ridable condition and took it downt the Roanoke River Greenway to Garden City. The ride would have been a pleasant one if it weren't for the wind, against which I was riding pretty much the whole time. It made for a chilly ride. I will enjoy the route much more in a couple of weeks when winter has finally released its grip and we're in full-fledged spring mode.