Biking My Commute: Day 1

On Friday I mustered my courage and pulled my bike from our dark shed at 6:20 a.m. to pedal the 13.2 miles to school. I’d been hoping to have my bike totally outfitted for the trial, but I’d only lucked out on a headlight and taillight, the duo for $54. The flashing taillight seemed plenty bright for me, and the headlight, I thought, was probably bright enough.

It was really dark, though. Mist shrouded the road, a four-lane with comfortably wide shoulders, and clouded my glasses. I took them off and put them in my backpack (which itself was a last-minute development, as the bike shop that was selling the panniers that I wanted had been unexpectedly closed on Thursday). The oncoming traffic, over across the median, was thick with morning commuter traffic whose bright headlights seemed to diminish the effect of my own, but nearly every last one of the few cars and trucks heading out of town with me gave me a wide berth.

I made it in 50 minutes, only 10 minutes longer than with my brother last weekend. Not bad, considering I was riding my own bike, wearing a backpack, and in low visibility.

In the afternoon, the sun was warm but not hot, and the traffic was again mostly traveling in the opposite direction or else largely considerate. The ride home took only 5-10 minutes longer even though it involves a 400-feet elevation climb. I don’t have the exact time for the return because when I was almost home I dropped in at the bike shop to finish outfitting myself, this time with an additional blinking taillight–it’s a very bright one–an emergency pump, an extra tube, a highly reflective windbreaker, and panniers. And when I got home, I stole the kickstand from M’s bike and put it on mine.

I feel set, except I may decide to go back to the store for a brighter headlight, which, if I’ll buy, will be the item that places the accessory dollar value of my bike above the value of the bike itself.

I do plan to continue riding. It’s immensely exhausting, at least at this stage, but satisfying, too–much more so than jogging ever was, for sure. Plus, I figure that if I ride three times a week (let’s say 100 minutes a day, for 300 minutes total) and drive or carpool the other two days (40 minutes a day, for 80 minutes total), my total commute time will be 380 minutes. That’s a lot, but always driving and having to jog for exercise every day comes out to about 350 minutes. If I can cut my biking time by 10 minutes a day, I will get more and better exercise as well as a gasoline-free commute at no cost to my sense of time.

I’ll also be justifying exorbitant glee, which was the case on Friday when M let me talk her into going out to a Chinese buffet.