Who needs a car anyways? Day 2

Again I left at about 8:20 and for the second day didn’t have time to tell my wife good-bye—the train waits for no one. For this trip I selected my full suspension mt bike because, well, I wanted to go for a mt bike ride with my friend Jason in SLC after work. So instead of biking the 8 miles on my knobby wheels, I jumped on to Trax for my first Trax with bike experience. There didn’t seem to be a place for bikes like on FR so I just tried to lean it against me while trying to read an article out of TETYC. This did not work as Trax stops and jerks a lot more than FR. On one of the stops a seasoned Trax rider got on, stuff his front wheel down the stairs on the opposite side of where the doors open—will do that next time.

Then I rode the three miles to campus; unfortunately I chose the 45^th south stop and rode down 45^th. Very dangerous. Next time I will take the 39^th stop. And after a short 3 mile ride, I arrived safe and sound.

I have to say that I really enjoy being on public transport. It gives me a feeling of connection or something. I know that I have a romantic view of all this as I don’t absolutely have to use public transport—certainly it could be a pain in the ass to always depend on it—but still I can’t yet let go of that romanticism.

After teaching, I headed out thinking I would catch Trax at 39^th about three miles away but the 4:03 train didn’t show and I figured I’d make better time on the bike than sitting around. After almost an hour of riding, and a 5 minute stop for Gatorade at a gas station, I arrived at Jason’s house who lives just off 9^th south on the east hill above 13^th east. We threw the bikes in his Subaru and headed up Millcreek meaning to ride up to Dog Lake but we forgot about the even/odd day thing—personally I think mt bikers should be on odd days. Instead we tried for about .94 miles to ride the steep trail towards Lamb’s canyon. What an unforgiving trail. Wasted we skidded down and went on the much more accommodating Pipeline. I’d been on the lower 2/3s but never the upper part—some of the best, hard packed, fast single track I’ve ever done.

After the ride Jason dropped me off at the central Frontrunner station; again I felt oh so cosmopolitan, loving my look: the dirty, sweat crusted guy reading some sort of academic journal.

So I had a lot of fun but this will never work daily in non-summer mode when I’m actually really busy and need to get places quickly. Never. But twice a week I think I can do.