took someone’s advice and left home before 6am to try my 13-mile commute without much traffic.

what a revelation – cut nearly 10 minutes off my time and boosted my average speed by 2 mph.

of course maybe it helped that I was on my road bike and wasn’t carrying the laptop … will have to try this again some morning on the commuter bike, fully loaded

thanks for BikeForums member “Jim from Boston” for suggesting the early-morning strategy!