Commuting

My School and Work

This past week, I rode more than I’ve ever ridden in one day and it felt really good. I definitely can do more than 26 miles. On Thursday I rode to work and back, then to school and back, and then to school again. I didn’t ride it back home because we had an art show to go to as a family and my wife needed help with the kids after that so we just carried the bike bake on the trunk. Anyway I ended up riding about 16 or 17 miles. So although it wasn’t consecutive, it was a great workout and I had a lot of fun. It would have been more fun had it not been just for commuting purposes, but I still enjoyed it.

Cactus

After nearly 20 years of experience biking I’ve acquired a little bit of wisdom in regards to what you should and shouldn’t do. I’ll take this opportunity to impart some of that hard earned wisdom to you.

Don’t ride on cactus…or cacti for that matter. In case you haven’t noticed, they’re not tire friendly. Of course, this comes with a story.

Many years ago when I was a young teen I went biking with the scouts on some trails at Two Moon Park in Billings, MT. I have never enjoyed biking on trails very much because I always seem to fall or somehow get hurt. Call me weird for not wanting to get hurt or for not enjoying pain but it just isn’t much fun. Anyhow, we were riding I followed the whole troupe off the trail and I somehow managed to be the only one to hit the small clump of cacti. I couldn’t really ride my bike much further which is understandable considering I had a total of 12 thorns in my tires. The funny thing is that I didn’t know how much inner tubes cost so I patched every hole. For future reference, just replace the tube.

New Bike, New Goals

So this post is a bit more boring than most will be. I will normally try to have pictures and stories but I decided to let you all in on my bike life. I ride my bike quite a bit. I've been commuting with my bike to work and school since we got married 3 1/2 years ago. It hasn't been a constant thing, but I've definitely saved us a lot of gas by riding my bike. I had been commuting with the bike I bought when I was 12 (or maybe 14, I can't remember which) but unfortunately it was stolen 2 years ago one night when I neglected to lock it up. I was pretty frustrated about that, especially since I had just fixed it up the week before. Anyway... I found a full suspension mountain bike for $15 that was in decent shape and I fixed it up as nice as I could without putting any money into it and I rode that for a year and a half. It was not a good commuter bike though. This bike weighs about 50 lbs or more and it has extra wide tires so everyday when I got to work I was always huffing and puffing, no matter how used to the ride I got. I finally went bike shopping this last fall and found a great bike at Target. It's a hybrid bike called the Schwinn Tourist. Basically, it's a lightweight mountain bike frame with thin road bike tires. I love it!

Since I have my new bike, I've actually decided that this year I'm going to bike a marathon, that is, 26.2 miles. If that ends up being a pretty easy and satisfying goal, then I will increase the mileage of my goal. My ultimate objective (as of yet) is to ride what's called a century (100 mile bike ride) sometime in the next few years. Pretty ambitious I know. But doesn't that just sound like an awesome accomplishment? Or maybe just crazy.

Every time the weather warms up for a day or two I'm outside riding my bike. What really got me excited was when I went on a 9 mile ride and it only took me 34 minutes! It was a killer workout but it pretty much rocked! I'm also excited because we're hoping to live with my parents for the summer before I start a doctoral program in the fall (I have an interview in South Dakota this weekend, so here's hoping I get in) and my dad has agreed to ride a marathon with me. Although he doesn't seem as excited about it as I do, I think he'll like training together. It'll be a lot of fun. So when you see cyclists out there, riding away into the sunset, think of me and my dad this summer, because we'll be doing that too.

Learning to ride

My first bike looked a lot like this one. Take away the training wheels and the chain guard and paint the bike black, add colorful beads on the spokes, and add another pad on the top tube (top bar) and that was my bike. I got it when I was 6 years old as a birthday present from my parents. I loved it! The only problem was that I didn't know how to ride. I assume most of you experienced something similar. So the first thing to do was to learn how to actually get on the bike by my short little 6 year old self. This was really pretty hard. I remember standing on the front porch and attempting to lift my legs over the seat (saddle) and trying to somehow get on without sliding off and having to start all over again. Finally I would get on and pedal once or twice and then fall over. For the next few days, my knees and hands were scraped up pretty good, but the scrapes and bruises provided motivation to learn.

It didn't take long to learn either. Once I could stay on, I spent my time riding in circles in the street in front of my house because I wasn't allowed to ride up and down the street alone. Although I completely understand the reasoning behind not letting your 6 year old ride away on his bike now, at the time I thought it was a crutch. Here I am trying to become the best biker on the block and I can't even ride up and down the street by myself? So I rode in circles and in the field next door. I even took the jumps! Not that I actually jumped off them--I mostly rode (or walked) over them. I was sure not to go too fast so I wouldn't fall down. I don't really like crashing. It's not fun, but that's pretty much a given.

And that's how my biking story began.