The old broom sweeps clean

I decided to ride my bike to work again as the heat came down a bit. It wasn't too bad this morning even though I was sweaty when I got to work. I had a ton of stuff in my backpack including my new white adidas that are now kind of old and dirty.

The nicest part of my ride that is on the bike trail at the foot of a mountain was kind of a mess. It is in the pine trees, but it is the place where I can't get good NPR reception on FM. But I can get Fox News loud and clear. So I was riding along and listening to a commentary about how we should turn more to nuclear power as it is so safe and clean now. I was thinking to myself, "tell that to the people in Ukraine." I was thinking as I looked at all of the traffic on the freeway, "why don't you tell more people to try riding a bike to work?" As again I didn't see anyone on the bike path.

But what really made my commute to work disapointing was that someone had gone along and kicked gravel out onto the trail for about a half mile. It was a deliberate act . The gravel on the shoulder of the trail consists of really sharp little rocks. And there was no way to avoid these hazards on my road bike. Easy to get a flat on the skinny little tires we run that have so much air pressure in them. It was either done by kicking rocks out onto the trail by foot, or it was done with a mountain bike spinning them onto the trail. The more I think about it them more the Mountain bike scenario makes sense.

Once or twice a year they sweep the trails clean, but I realized that this wasn't going to happen anytime soon. So I took it upon myself to go out there with my old broom and sweep the trail clean. After all, it is like I'm the only one using it for going to work, so I took ownership. Tonight I rode along with my broom and swept the rocks off of the trail when I came to them. I got some smiles from other road bike riders as I did ths, but it ended up being a bigger job that I had thought. I should have gone to work and gotten a big push broom.