Lifestyle evaluation: Pedaling my hiney to work

With a new job on the horizon that isn't nestled deep in the rumpled interior of New York's Adirondacks, I've decided that next year, most of the year, I will be riding my bike to work.

If the reasons aren't immediately obvious to you, I'll spell them out.

*Gas is up to nearly $4.00 a gallon. As is, I live at work and have no commute and filling up my tank on occasion cuts me deep. If I lived 8 miles away, I'd be spending a lot of money on gas. I'm just not interested.

*Instant work out! If I lived just 8 miles from school I'd be putting in 16 miles a day... that's about an hour or so of cardio built into my schedule.

*None of the headaches of waiting in a car at traffic lights. The thrill of zipping by long lines of frustrated drivers.

*Extending the life of my beloved purpley-blue Toyota Corolla. The longer that things lasts and looks nice the happier I'll be. It's at 70k miles right now, I'd love to have it many more years. Not driving it every day will make it last!

Anyway, those are the main reasons. I haven't thought as far as winter yet, but I could always drive during those times of the year. Or outfit my bike to handle it! I want a bike I can go pick up groceries with.

Here's a really interesting article about bike commuting

I wish bike commuting was better supported, frankly. Bike lanes in more cities and towns. Places to stash your bike. More share the road signs. If more people commuted by bike our nation would be healthier, less congested and polluted.

Once upon a time I lived in northern Belgium where traveling by bike was a way of life. Even in the rainy, icy winters, I would bike about 14 or 15 miles round trip to school. I'd bike to meet up with friends. I'd bike to the train station. That's just the way of things over there. You'd see crazy mofos riding holding umbrellas or coffees. It was so very awesome.

In another life I biked to all my summer jobs. The hotel housekeeping job at Tory Pines. The ice cream scooping job at Kimball Farm. At the very least it offset the calories consumed at the ice cream place.

Anyway, I love bikes and this is clearly no secret.

The history of my bikes:

The Spoiler
Now this is a modern version of a bike I used to have which was white with white knobby tires. It was a BMX styled sucker that came with training wheels when I first had it. I would ride that bike up Crotched Mountain or down our dirt road full tilt only to skid into our drive way. Lots of scrapes from crashing too. It has those velcro things that went around the handlebars that had the name of the bike. No streamers though. I was more hardcore than that. Here I am riding it on the right! Ha, the years before helmets.

The Raleigh Venture I don't know where we got them but we were given some heavy duty steel street bikes. I got the silver one! I rode this sucker to town or to work wherever I wanted. Sometimes to my best friend's house. I can't seem to find an old school picture. It was probably a late 80's model. We still have it hanging in the basement of my mom's house. They should probably consider selling it.

The Mountain Technium At some point my uncle decided that my Raleigh wasn't cutting it anymore and loaned me his Raleigh Mountain Technium that he'd raced on many years earlier. I used it to make it to the ice cream shop mostly as I didn't transition into recreational riding very well. It was a very utilitarian habit for me. I didn't really know how to take care of it though and was soon lured away from it by fast twitch shifters and shiny new parts.












2005: The Gary Fisher Marlin GS!
One summer day my friend Eli and I made a pact. "I'll get a guitar if you get yourself a new bike." And so we went shopping. Within a few hours he had a new Taylor guitar and I had this shiny new Gary Fisher. He sat on the trunk of my car and played songs while I cruised around the bike shop parking lot. I named my bike Super Taylor and covered it with DC Comics hero stickers. This was my first real recreational bike since the Spoiler I had as a kid. I took it off the road. I learned to mountain bike properly. It transported me to work. It still gets me to the school building and back!










2007: Trek Pilot 5.0
The big investment. A carbon frame road bike designed for distance and climbing. Damn do I love this bike. I've had it tailored to my body geometry. I have put hundreds and hundreds of miles on it. On May 25th, I'll ride it 100 miles as part of the Placid Planet century ride. I love this bike. I love it.












The next bike?
Undoubtedly something designed for commuting and lugging stuff. I'm considering the Kona Ute, but ultimately I'll have to test ride a bunch when I get to St. Louis. Woo!