I rode to work this morning, a steady 70 mile effort straight through the Silicon Valley corridor. I left around 5am, geared up with my lights, and pedaled my way into the dark for the first couple of hours. The route I take isn't that exciting. It's a straight shot all the way down El Camino Real before cutting onto the long stretch of Monterey Highway. For some reason I kept hitting all of the stop lights as I made my way through the Stanford area. Very annoying. It cut into my moving speed quite a bit, not to mention the quick accelerating is taxing on my legs when I should be conserving my energy by steady pulls.
The worst part of the commute has to be the long stretch from Morgan Hill back into San Jose later in the day, where I face the dreaded headwind that seams to persist every single day of the week. It builds character, but makes an otherwise easy ride home not so pleasant. Normally I'm completely spent and unable to push a high gear at the end of the day, but with proper pacing earlier in the morning I was able to find some power, especially as I approached downtown San Jose and into the Diridon Caltrain station. I hit rush hour as I saw the bike car fill up, but it was nice to sit back and watch the same road from this morning unfold.