The shorter days are requiring drastic action — like leaving work early! I had planned to leave my desk at 3pm but one of my project managers called an emergency stand-up meeting which delayed me slightly. By the time I got changed and read to push off it was just a couple minutes before 4pm. When researching the possibility of today’s ride, I saw that sunset was just before 6pm. Given that the foothills stick higher than the horizon, I knew the sun would actually drop behind the hills earlier than that.<\/p>\n
The conditions were perfect for riding. Almost no wind and cool, but not cold, air temperature. My biggest concern was sun glare. I don’t worry so much when I’m travelling northward with the sun off to my left, but whenever I have to turn into the sun, I know drivers are struggling to see and will be less likely to notice me on the side of the road. I ran with my red blinky light going full force and I added another smaller light (also red blinky) to the back of my backpack. I wore a super-bright orange jacket too — I’m sure I was quite a sight.\u00a0 To increase my chances of arriving home alive, I also altered my route to take CO 287 home instead of E. County Line Rd.\u00a0 CO 287 is a 2-lane divided highway with a huge breakdown lane for a shoulder. E.Cty Line Rd, on the other hand, has either a 3 inch shoulder or none at all.\u00a0 The highway is much louder, but to be honest,\u00a0 I didn’t notice. I just rode along with a big grin on my face. I could hardly believe I was riding home — all the terrain around me had all the signs of fall. Earthy colors on the hill sides and pastures, trees with few or no leaves, and the low, soft sun.<\/p>\n
One stop at Lookout Rd to meet up with a friend to drop off some Nugget’s tickets and then onward towards home. I cut farther west onto 95th Street and up Hover Rd through Longmont. This was a bit tricky. There is no bike lane so I rode to the far right of the right lane — and I rode as predictably as I possibly could! There was one short stretch where the road is rough and cars tend to get bounced around a bit, so I opted for the sidewalk there. I much prefer the road — but safety first.<\/p>\n
It started to get cooler as the sun got closer to the horizon. I was about 10 minutes from home when it dipped behind the foothills.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The shorter days are requiring drastic action — like leaving work early! I had planned to leave my desk at 3pm but one of my project managers called an emergency stand-up meeting which delayed me slightly. By the time I got changed and read to push off it was just a couple minutes before 4pm. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starfirefarm.com\/ride\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starfirefarm.com\/ride\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starfirefarm.com\/ride\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starfirefarm.com\/ride\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starfirefarm.com\/ride\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1634"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.starfirefarm.com\/ride\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1634\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1636,"href":"https:\/\/www.starfirefarm.com\/ride\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1634\/revisions\/1636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starfirefarm.com\/ride\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starfirefarm.com\/ride\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starfirefarm.com\/ride\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}