Ho Hum
I haven’t been writing much the last week or so. I have been busy, but I think it’s more that I’ve finally made the commute such a habit that I don’t need to write notes to myself online to try to convince myself to get up at 5 a.m. It’s not that nothing interesting has happened. For some reason I’ve encountered a few more jerks on the road but I’ve also encountered a lot of very aware conscientious drivers that slow down to let you merge when you need to or just seem to understand that you’re not riding a bike just to irritate them.
At first when I started finally commuting regularly after five years of ‘meaning to’ commute regularly, I was really excited. I thought my daily 13 mile ride was something amazing. Then I changed my route a bit and changed it to a daily 14 miles, and from there a 15 mile ride that I didn’t think I could have done in the allotted time (due to bus schedules). Now I’m riding 22 miles a day and it’s not a big deal. I have some time constraints but I barely think about them any more. I have about 1 hour and 10 minutes to the 15 mile leg of my journey and so far it hasn’t been a problem. I don’t have time to stop at the donut shop though, no matter how many delicious smells they waft at me as I pass. It’s not that I’m not excited anymore now I’m just having fun, relaxing, and getting exercise not conquering some new formidable challenge. It’s just that it’s part of my routine.
It’s been darker and darker as I leave home each morning. I’ve got three bright blinky lights on my bike. One red, one white, and a green spoke light. I think I look like a runaway xmas decoration flying down the road at 6 a.m. It was about 50 degrees this morning and zipping down a hill at 25 mph I was sort of wondering where I had put my gloves back when it started warming up this spring. Feeling the season change coming on is causing my thoughts to turn to the next formidable challenge.
What am I going to do in the winter? My current plan is to try to outfit my bike with winter tires and extra lights and cut my daily round trip commute to 7 miles. I found a great site called icebike.com that’s all about riding in winter. It sounds do-able but I want to do it without spending a jillion dollars on equipment. I’m not buying another bike, just to have one to run with studded tires and one to run with fat low pressure tires. Besides, what if the weather changes while I’m out? I’ve got some very steep (but short) hills to contend with and I’m a little concerned about how it’s all going to work. I guess at first if I manage to start pulling it off I’ll be really excited. By the time March rolls around hopefully I’ll be thinking it’s something anyone can do.