40 Days and 40 Rides
Today I hit 40 commutes for the year, 700 miles on the nose, or as on the nose as you can get when your mileage is an estimate from Google Maps. This puts me at exactly two commutes per week since I started the week of August 6 as I've made up the three missing days since last time, just in time to go on vacation for a week and fall two behind again.
To put that another way, the year has 52 weeks. I've got five weeks of vacation and another two weeks of paid holidays, which means I work 45 weeks out of the year. Right now I've biked eight weeks. If I hit my 1000 mile goal, I'll have biked 11 weeks and change, or fully one quarter of the weeks I worked. Not too shabby, and since I'll go farther than that if the weather cooperates, I may even bike a full 1/3 of the weeks of the year.
Of course, instead of 40 commutes of biking maybe I should say 39.75 commutes. On Monday I broke another spoke (my fourth) on the way to work. This was the first time I actually noticed the spoke breaking when it happened; my ride immediately got much harder. No big deal. Then on the way home that tire blew out in Rocky River. I'm not sure if that was because of the spoke or was unrelated, but I ended up walking my bike about four miles to get home. Fortunately, repairs were cheap and easy and I was back in the saddle today. The boys at the bike shop said that if I break some more spokes I may want to consider getting a sturdier wheel. I wasn't aware that was even an option (nobody I polled for advice mentioned it when I was shopping) but one of my bike-mad coworkers said it's actually pretty common for the standard wheels not to be rated for people above 200 pounds. So maybe I look like I weight less than 200 pounds? Hah! On the other hand, I only broke one spoke all of last year and didn't even notice it until I took my bike in for a tuneup this spring, so maybe it's just a run of bad luck.
Besides, a flat tire is hardly the worst thing that can happen when you're on a bike. Two weeks ago I just missed encountering a worse thing. I was almost at work in the morning when I went past an intersection; I had no stop sign or light and the incoming intersection had a stop sign. The approaching SUV was definitely slowing down so I kept on going. Then I heard the screams of lots of teenage girls; when I glanced right the SUV bumper was about 2 inches from my right leg. Thankfully they managed to stop; I don't know if they tried a Texas stop or were distracted, but that almost was very unpleasant. I restrained the urge to flip them off as they went by my after turning. That is by far the closest I've come to getting nailed by a car. Since virtually all of my serious cyclist friends have been hit I'm sure I will one day too. Or is that too fatalist?
To put that another way, the year has 52 weeks. I've got five weeks of vacation and another two weeks of paid holidays, which means I work 45 weeks out of the year. Right now I've biked eight weeks. If I hit my 1000 mile goal, I'll have biked 11 weeks and change, or fully one quarter of the weeks I worked. Not too shabby, and since I'll go farther than that if the weather cooperates, I may even bike a full 1/3 of the weeks of the year.
Of course, instead of 40 commutes of biking maybe I should say 39.75 commutes. On Monday I broke another spoke (my fourth) on the way to work. This was the first time I actually noticed the spoke breaking when it happened; my ride immediately got much harder. No big deal. Then on the way home that tire blew out in Rocky River. I'm not sure if that was because of the spoke or was unrelated, but I ended up walking my bike about four miles to get home. Fortunately, repairs were cheap and easy and I was back in the saddle today. The boys at the bike shop said that if I break some more spokes I may want to consider getting a sturdier wheel. I wasn't aware that was even an option (nobody I polled for advice mentioned it when I was shopping) but one of my bike-mad coworkers said it's actually pretty common for the standard wheels not to be rated for people above 200 pounds. So maybe I look like I weight less than 200 pounds? Hah! On the other hand, I only broke one spoke all of last year and didn't even notice it until I took my bike in for a tuneup this spring, so maybe it's just a run of bad luck.
Besides, a flat tire is hardly the worst thing that can happen when you're on a bike. Two weeks ago I just missed encountering a worse thing. I was almost at work in the morning when I went past an intersection; I had no stop sign or light and the incoming intersection had a stop sign. The approaching SUV was definitely slowing down so I kept on going. Then I heard the screams of lots of teenage girls; when I glanced right the SUV bumper was about 2 inches from my right leg. Thankfully they managed to stop; I don't know if they tried a Texas stop or were distracted, but that almost was very unpleasant. I restrained the urge to flip them off as they went by my after turning. That is by far the closest I've come to getting nailed by a car. Since virtually all of my serious cyclist friends have been hit I'm sure I will one day too. Or is that too fatalist?