I’m planning on riding the RCCS ride in a few hours. I’ve been up since 2:45am. Ugh.
I also had a quick errand to run. I don’t mind a quick, early-morning errand on the bicycle. It helps get the blood flowing. My concern today was that I had to ride to the airport.
The airport is about the same distance from my house as work is (3.6 miles). I don’t normally consider the roads there very bike friendly. There’s a main loop around the parking areas and up to the terminal, but they are much like freeway ramps. The speed limit is 35 on most of it, down to 15 near the terminal, but I’ve seen drivers doing 70 through there.
I left home on this errand at 4:15am, assuming traffic would be light. I was right until I got to the airport itself. The loop was a little busy. People were exiting I-264 unto the loop at high speed. In fairness, everyone seemed to slow down when they say a guy on a bike (with lights and reflective vest) taking a lane. Maybe they wondered what had been slipped into their morning coffee.
The entire errand took 30 minutes (7.3 mile round-trip) and used zero gas.
I used to work over at the UPS worldport bit of the airport, and I hear you about the roads around the airport as a whole. I’m glad you made it in and out okay!
I had a similar experience today riding to school in the pouring rain. All the drivers deported themselves admirably. I assumed they were giving me a wide berth because they figured I was probably insane 🙂