KCBS' Doug Sovern pedaled all the way from the Oakland Hills to downtown San Francisco. He left his house at 7:12 a.m. on what he described as a nice, balmy morning. The temperature was already 80 degrees when he climbed onto his bike.

According to Sovern, one of the toughest parts of his ride was dodging the garbage trucks.

Along the way, he caught up with a fellow cyclist, who was sporting a water bottle iPod boom box, something that cyclist considers part of the joy of getting to work with ones own power. "Instead of being cooped up in your car and dealing with the traffic and getting angry and road rage, you're so free," described Katie Alatalo. "You know, it means that every day you're coming to work happy rather than coming to work aggravated and stressed."

And on Thursday, there was the added bonus of free pancakes outside Oakland City Hall, something Sovern declared tasted even better after riding more than a half-dozen miles.

He dodged a freight train delay and boarded a ferry, for free, because he was riding a bike on this Bike to Work Day.  BART riders were not so lucky.  The transit agency bans bikes on the trains unless they are folding bikes.  BART will allow riders to store their bikes, but that makes it hard to ride all the way to work.

For some, riding to work has become routine, though not often in the heat. "I usually bring a change of clothes, just so I'm not as smelly and stinky when I get there," described Amanda Garbe of her bike to work routine.

KCBS' Doug Sovern reports