I have found the first downfall to this whole “commuting by bike” thing. An endless supply of bad hair days. I don’t think my hair can withstand the 20 minutes or so that the bike helmet is on my head. Oh well! I have to admit it feels great to get that tiny little workout in first thing in the morning – it is definitely invigorating. Claire called me a brave soul to commute into work, but honestly 95% of my ride is on a pathway and I only have to go a couple blocks down a not-too-busy city street to get to my office. And well, I park at a park & ride and my ride in is just over 4 miles long. I have been trying to figure out how to ride in from home to work and that is where things get more complicated. Ideally I’d like to:
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Avoid any major uphills on the way into work. Runner Leana (or maybe it should be Biker Leana for this task?) doesn’t need any more opportunities to work up a sweat before arriving at the office. Because my building does not have showers unless you have a membership to the gym in the basement… And I am not a gym going girl…
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Avoid riding on streets with a lot of traffic.
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Avoid riding on the absolutely worst paved road ever that will likely chew up my tires, yet it is however designated as “on street bikeway.”
I’m not entirely sure that I can meet all of this criteria…
By the way, be sure to hop on over to Claire’s a wish her a happy birthday and good luck in her races this weekend!
Hi. Please join the Bicycle to Work! LinkedIn networking group. Members pledge that they will try to ride their bicycle to work or on an errand at least once a week. Although the benefits should be obvious, let me outline them here.
Right now people in the industrialized world are facing two very grave problems: obesity and a growing scarcity of oil. Compounding this problem is the new food shortage brought about, in part, by the conversion of food cropland to bio-fuel crop production. Most people feel powerless to help, but there is one thing that we can do. Ride our bicycles to work.
If everyone would agree to ride their bikes to work one day per week we could cut oil consumption by as much as 10-15%. No one would argue that riding a bike burns more calories than driving the car. Although popular politically right now, most bio-fuels consume more energy than they produce. We would be much better to eat those bio-crops then use our own energy to transport us around.
So spread the word. Make it a movement! Bicycle to work one day a week and do your part to cut back obesity and the overuse of oil and precious cropland.
Just go to my profile at http://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffreylstevenson and you can click on the group to be included. While you are there, don’t forget to ask to link to my network of more than 9,000,000 like-minded professionals. I accept all invitations and look forward to meeting you.
Jeff
Commuting to work by bike sounds great! Unfortunately it probably isn’t worth the effort for me, as I am probably less than 2 miles from the school…
I’d love to be able to commute to work by bike. I wish they had showers at my work…that’s what’s keeping me from it. Working in business casual office, coming in sweaty just not an option. I’m about 13 miles and would totally do it on occasion otherwise. It would save gas and that would be great!!