Typical Commute--And Commuter?

Sometimes I'm happy to have an early a.m. class.  Those sometimes are almost always on days when I pedal to work.  Now I'm on my bike just before sunrise; soon I will be getting in the saddle in the dark.  Until then, I can enjoy sights like this:

I saw tree from the corner of my eye as I turned from the cinderblock sprawl of Lefrak City onto a side street in Corona.  Yes, as in "the Queen of Corona," which Paul Simon immortalized in "Me and Julio Down By The Schoolyard."

A student told me that the ride to work brings out my "glow."  Another student--who's not in one of my classes now--captured me as I was ready to start riding home:

The parked bike is the Pinarello cyclo-cross bike I've mentioned in a previous post.  I've seen it every time I've ridden to my second job.  

It has Mavic Cosmic wheels, Paul cantilever brakes and an XTR crankset and derailleurs:  not what one normally sees in a college's bike rack.


Then again, some would argue that I'm not the typical commuter who parks in a rack like that one.