Last week, I discovered - in an effort to avoid the heavy pedestrian traffic on the sidewalk between my bike rack and the street on which I usually start my ride home - a new commuting route between campus and home. About half of the distance runs through the Upper Arb, which is, I think, rather scenic.
Over the weekend, I realized the true implications of my discovery: but for some pavement at each end, I can ride off-road for most of the route between home and work. Mud! Puddles! Dirt! Trees! Animals! Rocks! I can avoid all the nutjob SUV drivers who barrel through the blind curves on my now-former route. I can see deer browsing in the morning light. I can whip around gravel corners on my way home. I can practice bunny-hopping over big roots - and bunnies. I can plummet along some of the same trails I skied all winter. And I can ride underneath at least a half-dozen big old oaks.
All of this makes my life a lot better - and it was already pretty good.
Below is a short tour (mixing photos taken on different days); you can also click here to see an annotated slideshow on Flickr or click here for a Gmaps Pedometer map of (most of) the route, which totals out at 1.96 miles, .78 miles in the Arb proper.
Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.
God, this makes me happy. I feel like going out and riding it right now.