One down, 49 to go
My new year’s resolution this year is to ride my bike to work at least 50 times. The first thing that I have learned from this is that I a master of excuse making. Between morning meetings, my employer’s occasional “dress like a banker” days, family scheduling, angst about being drenched with sweat at work and the good old fashioned lazy, I managed to go more than one third of the year without making any progress towards this goal. As of this week, however, I’m on my way.
The ride could not have been more pleasant. It was cool in the morning and not hot in the afternoon. Morning traffic was great. One driver waited at a four way stop and waived me through such that I wouldn’t have to come to a complete halt, which was totally cool of him. None of the cars got all up ons when I took the lane, which I did at every intersection. Exactly one car got within three feet of me. SGV drivers: thanks!
It took me about twice as long to ride — almost exactly an hour each way — as it does to drive on a bad day. (Although not an atypically bad day. Few of my drives in count as “good.”) That said, I got two hours more exercise than I would usually get, so I consider it a big time-saving win.
The home route through Arcadia’s peacock country may or may not be the best way to do things. I’m looking to avoid traveling on Rosemead or Colorado West of Baldwin, and this seemed an easy enough cut through, however I took a couple of wrong turns and ran in to some dead ends. Huntington in the morning was 100% reasonable; I’ll probably give it a go on the way home next time.
I’m planning to ride again next Thursday, and hopefully twice the week after that if all continues to go well.
April 11th, 2008 at 9:39 pm
I’m impressed! 20 miles in an hour. I can barely do 12 miles in an hour. Do you not have many lights to deal with, or am I just a slow poke?
Congratulations on joining the fold! I’ve been noticing a LOT more people biking this summer, often doing longer commutes (I’ve run in to some Silverlake hipsters are commuting to Santa Monica! ;-).
April 12th, 2008 at 12:05 am
Ha! I wish I did 20 miles in an hour. The hour is each way, not both. With the lights I’d guess that I’m pretty close to 12mph as well. The local club ride refers to this as “conversation speed,” which is I think bike hipster for “slow.”
April 12th, 2008 at 12:44 am
Ah, I get it. Actually, I average 12mph including the time I spend waiting at lights, although I’m making a pretty huge effort to pull it off, and certainly conversation can really only happen when I’m at a traffic light. ;-) I think my peak speed is probably close to 20mph (and probably less than that if there is an incline), although I haven’t invested in equipment to measure that kind of thing yet (I figure it might be depressing).
April 12th, 2008 at 10:47 am
Yeah. A useful side effect will hopefully be the ability to ride in a little faster without sweating like a pig. I took it pretty easy last time to avoid as much. (What I wouldn’t do for a shower at work….)
I wonder how useful one of those gps record your route and times and export to gearth things would be in terms of route planning. I have to pick some sort of odd route in on account of foothill having ugly traffic and the arboretum and Santa Anita being smack in the middle of where I’d like to ride. That said, even on what’s likely a pretty suboptimal route (Coming home, at least. The route in what the group from Stan’s takes West, so I assume that it’s pretty good) it was only an hour, which is well within “acceptable.”
April 13th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
Cool beans! Congratulations! I drive on Huntington enough to find it intimidating, let alone to cycle down it. You made good time, to boot.
April 13th, 2008 at 8:12 pm
Woot! I’m so proud of you, sweetie!
April 20th, 2008 at 11:07 am
Yay biking and keeping to resolutions! Paulie has joined the biking-to-work fold too. If I ever get a baby bike trailer maybe we could all go riding sometime. Does The Kid like biking?
April 20th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
He’s kind of in to it, but kids around here certainly don’t seem to ride as much as I did when I was a kid. I remember spending all day, every day in the summer on a bike, riding to school starting in fourth grade, etc. That doesn’t seem to be the norm.
That said, his super-crafty aunt has found a great way to encourage him to ride. She’s said that if he wants to come out to London to visit this summer, he’ll need to be ready to ride all around town. Much more motivating than riding to school.