This is the first time when my stay in Austria involved cycling from beginning to end - without relying on public transport for any reason. And a curious thing has been happening: everywhere I go, I am always early!
I am a moderately punctual person, but definitely not someone who is obsessed with arriving "on the dot," let alone ahead of time. So why was this suddenly happening? Then it hit me: After living in Vienna on and off for 3 years now, I've developed an internal "estimator" of how long it will take me to get to any given location in the city - based on my experiences with the U-Bahn (subway) and trolley systems here. Even though I cycle now, my internal time estimator has not adjusted yet and still functions based on "public transport time" - making me always early, because it is actually faster to travel in Vienna by bicycle! To me this revelation was a "wow" moment because Vienna is such a large city. Sure, traveling by bicycle is more pleasant, but it never occurred to me that it is also faster. I can honestly say that my days here have been made less hectic by the time I've saved on commuting. I like being in the velo time zone!