Bike to Work day, May 14

Yeah, that was today. I rode in after a phone conference. It took about 80 minutes eastbound, and about ... yeah, about 80 minutes westbound. I guess I'm getting slow in my old age. Also I had headwinds. Some random thoughts:

• Why are there headwinds both ways?
  
  
• The sound of cheering and applause... from volunteers at a table on Middlefield near Ellis! They had some giveaways I think. At the Nasa/Bayshore light rail stop, I spied my friend Kerry, part of the sponsoring organization. She was packing up their stuff (it was after 9:30); I grabbed a banana segment and got back on the road.
  
  
• Food! There was free food at the office: registered cyclists received a bag containing
  1. a sports drink (something like Gatorade® but generic?);
  2. a Clif® bar -- mine was "carrot cake";
  3. an apple; and
  4. a bottle of water (crystal geyser® i think)
  I consumed the first three before lunch, then went across the street to Subway® for their foot-long tuna sandwich, which I inhaled in short order.
  
  
• In the morning I took Middlefield Road all the way to Ellis, going over Highway 85 (a mild incline is involved). A friend told me that he avoids that overpass, so I skipped it on the return trip, passing under 85 on Moffett. It was a little easier, but either way Google Maps® reports 14.4 miles.
  
  
• On the way home, I caught up to two other cyclists. Both of them wore unisex cycling tights (I was wearing loose athletic shorts of a kind the lovely Carol detests). One of them looked back, then pulled ahead -- a competitive fellow, or maybe he just decided he'd had enough of a break. I continued behind the other one, who I realized after a while was a woman. Though I enjoyed the slightly slower pace, I didn't want this lady to think I was looking at her backside (which I was). So I went around her when the traffic permitted. I passed the competitive(?) fellow when he detoured into a supermarket.
  
  
• I guess I was in a hurry (I certainly was on the way home) because I realized I hadn't stopped for water the whole way.
  
  
• My bike don't get no respect. One of my colleagues (he of the multi-thousand$ road bike) came over the next day to taunt me about locking up my 35-year-old machine (I bought it when I was a college freshman in 1974). Why would anyone bother locking that thing up, he wondered. "That bicycle carried me to the beach and back many times, and to Big Basin!" I retorted.
  
  "Well, you don't weigh very much," he said. Hurmpf.