A great day for a bike ride

I work for GSG from my home office in Accordion Bay, an arrangement that gives me enough flex to carve out time for mid-morning or mid-afternoon exercise sessions. It was a lovely Florida spring day at 24C/75F, and there was just enough time to squeeze in a quick half-hour ride before an afternoon teleconference. My neck of the woods in Tampa offers some lovely views…

…and as you can see, I’m always happy to break away from the desk and ride, even if only for a little bit:

I never used a ride-tracking app until I moved here and got T-Mobile’s all-you-can-eat super-unlimited mobile data plan. I’m enjoying MapMyRide:

I had to keep today’s ride down to a half-hour, but managed to cover just shy of 6 miles, averaging 12 mph, which is slow for road biking, but speedy for sidewalk biking. It’s the complete opposite of what you should be doing, but this is the near-suburbs of Tampa: biking on the road in most places is asking to be turned into chunky salsa. Luckily (?), the sidewalks here are all but deserted, and many cyclists here have adopted them as bike paths. It makes for slower going, but in this neck of the woods,it’s the only non-suicidal approach.