Commuting Whatnots

Had a couple commuting thoughts...

For one, I got a  much better route that sends me around instead of through downtown Lexington to reach my secondary work location. I wrote about my poor route choices and white knuckle experience a couple weeks ago. So a local reader of this here blog sent me a great map that led me through more residential streets and bike lanes. Thanks, Brian!

New route has a couple great little cut-throughs and much easier riding. It's actually a bit more mileage but a quicker ride. The direct downtown route had me at a lot of stop lights. This map got me there with much fewer stops.

In other news, I got to play with a new computing toy at work. Part of my job oversees the technology for our organization. We recently picked up a Chrome Book to test the potential as a user device. At it's size and with a $200 price tag, I would say this would be a great bike commuter's device. For my work, it could never replace my MacBook Pro. But for most folks it would be great.

I pedaled home with this little guy in my pannier and it was noticeable lighter than my MacBook. It'll do most of what we use computers for, but not everything. But for the price, it'd be worth it to have only as your "take-home" computer. I have to take my laptop home every night... and I can feel it back there. This thing barely changes the load. And there's something to say about a low-cost option when you're pedaling through sleet and rain. If something did happen to it, you could replace it with little investment. I thought it was a noteworthy piece of commuting gear.

Get out there.