Today I needed to run some errands, so I put the panniers on my commuter bike and rolled out this morning. After accomplishing my tasks I decided to take a slightly different route home with a steep hill on it for a little extra workout.

The hill I am pedaling up has a traffic light close to the top and as I am cranking my butt off up the hill, I am looking forward to catching the red light for a short breather. However, as I am approaching the intersection I see the street department installed a signal loop for cyclist so the light will change for us. This loop is set in a location in which the light has time to cycle through and is green by the time you reach the inspection, so there is no need for you to slow down or stop. Problem is by the time you reach the intersection it would be great to take a brake after pedaling your ass off to get through the steepest part and you still have some grade left on the other side.

So as I huff and puffed my way through the intersection I wondered if there is a traffic engineer sitting in an office somewhere laughing about the timing as he thinks about how some poor winded cyclist like me, looking forward to and needing a break sees the light change and thinks oh sh*t.

So as I pedaled the rest of the way up the hill, I too had a to chuckle.

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