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moominmollyGetting a car may be bad for my butt.
Last year, I biked to work all winter, since the alternative was riding the @#($)&!^# BUS, which took 80 - 90 minutes each way. This was a huge time sink. As a result, I biked two hours a day, a few times a week, all winter. I managed to stay sane despite having a really messy year.
Now, I have a car. In a lot of ways, this is a godsend - it's a magical machine that allows me to zip to work in 15 - 20 minutes. This gains me an hour or two, MINIMUM, every day. That's good time I can use to, say, sleep - and sleep keeps you sane, right? So ideally, I should be able to bike in to work, say, three times a week, and save the car for when I'm feeling lousy or it's actively slushy and icy.
In reality, I've biked once so far this month. There have been at least four potentially great biking days that I've missed, and a host of other possible ones. Sleep always seems more important in the mornings. But then, I get to work, and I've missed my entire transcendental commute. I missed the sugar-frosted sidewalks and the delicious feeling of my thighs warming up despite the winter cold. I missed the buffer zone that biking placed between my home life and my work life. I missed the clean and virtuous feeling of actually getting my ass in gear before 9 AM, and the solidarity of the nod that winter bikers give to each other.
Now, things bleed. I go home and I'm still thinking about work. I get to work, and I'm not fully alert yet. I feel slow and listless, unwilling to get outside and exercise. I'm operating under a constant low-level depression from lack of exercise. Indoor exercise doesn't cut it, either - I like lifting and playing DDR, but they don't give me the mental rush that biking does.
So it's a self-perpetuating cycle. I feel bummed, so I don't bike. I don't bike, so I feel bummed. This sucks!
Last year, I biked to work all winter, since the alternative was riding the @#($)&!^# BUS, which took 80 - 90 minutes each way. This was a huge time sink. As a result, I biked two hours a day, a few times a week, all winter. I managed to stay sane despite having a really messy year.
Now, I have a car. In a lot of ways, this is a godsend - it's a magical machine that allows me to zip to work in 15 - 20 minutes. This gains me an hour or two, MINIMUM, every day. That's good time I can use to, say, sleep - and sleep keeps you sane, right? So ideally, I should be able to bike in to work, say, three times a week, and save the car for when I'm feeling lousy or it's actively slushy and icy.
In reality, I've biked once so far this month. There have been at least four potentially great biking days that I've missed, and a host of other possible ones. Sleep always seems more important in the mornings. But then, I get to work, and I've missed my entire transcendental commute. I missed the sugar-frosted sidewalks and the delicious feeling of my thighs warming up despite the winter cold. I missed the buffer zone that biking placed between my home life and my work life. I missed the clean and virtuous feeling of actually getting my ass in gear before 9 AM, and the solidarity of the nod that winter bikers give to each other.
Now, things bleed. I go home and I'm still thinking about work. I get to work, and I'm not fully alert yet. I feel slow and listless, unwilling to get outside and exercise. I'm operating under a constant low-level depression from lack of exercise. Indoor exercise doesn't cut it, either - I like lifting and playing DDR, but they don't give me the mental rush that biking does.
So it's a self-perpetuating cycle. I feel bummed, so I don't bike. I don't bike, so I feel bummed. This sucks!
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Right there withya, girlfriend.
Date: 2002-01-17 10:47 am (UTC)Want to go biking sometime? I _have_ a bike, I have a great bike, and now that I've got a gel seat cushion for it, it's even manageable to ride for more than 20 minutes. But I'm not often motivated to use it, and I think that the tires need inflating now because of the cold. Either that, or I've got a really slow leak (which would be bad, very bad).
Re: Right there withya, girlfriend.
Date: 2002-01-17 01:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-01-17 11:59 am (UTC)Molly without her hot biker butt?
Unthinkable!
btw this entry sounds like something that
would be in the sf bike coalition's newsletter.
maybe you should submit it. :)
"why i went back to bike riding"
sf bike coalition?
Date: 2002-01-17 12:09 pm (UTC)And, hey! Hi!