from Coastin' November 2004 ...
Cycling on I-485: A New AdventureAfter unsuccessfully trying to find some folks to go out and ride that stretch on bikes, I opted to do it solo after church today. Since my office is so close by I just parked there and rode down to 485 on Wilkinson Blvd. For such a short little ride, I had as much fun as I've had in quite some time. I not only rode on the main road, I tried to do every ramp I could, including the ones that will join I-85. I've got to admit I got some really funny looks as the vehicles traveling on I-85 thought I might be coming over to merge with them on the interstate.
The way I figured it, it's the only time I'm ever going to have my own road, much less an interstate type road to travel on so why not really enjoy it. I rode the right direction and then rode west-bound in the east-bound lanes. I crisscrossed across lanes just because I could. I even pretended like l was slaloming and crisscrossed around the white stripes between the lanes. While I was riding there was a female cyclists that was also out there and was going the opposite direction as I was. There was also one green pickup truck that used that illegally used that stretch as a shortcut.
The funniest thing I saw while I was out there was someone coming at me on rollerblades. The closer he got, the more it looked like 2 people rollerblading. Sure enough there were 2 guys rollerblading with the one in back inches behind the one in front. They were perfectly synchronized and moving along at a pretty good clip. Obviously a lot of thoughts ran through my mind. I had seen synchronized swimming in the Olympics-was there such a thing as synchronized roller blading?? I also wondered since we draft while cycling, do they do the same on roller blades? If so, why was they shorter dude in front? I also noticed it looked like they were wearing cycling shirts. Seeing those guys really made my day-I'll take riding a bike over the way that looked any day!! Other observations:The vegetation they had planted along the road looked pretty mature-I guess with the road being opened so late it gave everything a chance to grow. The road was devoid of any litter which was nice-no tire treads, paper or anything. Wonder how long that will last? The grooves they put in the concrete go perpendicular to the road and are not that deep-just about 1/16 th of an inch. Every so often there was a patch where the grooves go 90 degrees from that-I guess the groove maker got bored and wanted to do something mischievous?? The white lines separating the lanes are not painted-they are strips of rubber that have raised dimples and have black on the outside edges. The reflectors in between the lanes are seated in an iron holder that is epoxied to the cement. I tried messing with the epoxy and that stuff is really tough!! They have imprinted the survey numbers in the edges of the concrete. Like 400+00. They must have had some foreigners working on the project-I could not decipher some of the writings that had been spray painted on the road. It was really, really quiet-I heard more birds than that I could recall in quite some time. There was nothing but trees along the edges of the roadway-I wonder how long it will take for those to come down for houses.As hard as I tried I could not get up to 65 mph as indicated on the speed limit signs.
All told I only rode about 20 miles which is nothing for a cycling trip. My heart rate never got up very high and after the winds of Friday and Saturday, even if there was any wind I never noticed it. Overall though it was a terrific way to spend an hour and made me really thankful for being on a bike on such a beautiful day.