Another Biking Milestone

Monday, on the ride home of my 16th day of commuting, I experienced a biking milestone: I passed another biker. He was not stopped to take a brake or fix a flat, he was not hauling a huge pack, (and no, he wasn't going the other way) he was just another bike rider that was going slightly slower than I was. This has never happened before. I am now officially not the slowest biker in Cincinnati!

Biking to Work - Day 13

Here are some notes from biking to work for 13 days. I'm writing this partly for me to look back on and partly for any other bikers that might stumble onto this and be interested it someone else's experience.

• It feels like a lot longer than 13 days. (12½ days actually, I still have to bike home tonight.) I feel like I've been doing this for a long time
• It's a lot easier than when I started. Still a lot of work, but more manageable.
• I'm taking Memorial Parkway home instead of Waterworks. I like it much better.
  
• I still drive to work on Tuesdays & Thursdays, but every time I get in my car it feels like it's been about a couple of weeks since I drove.
• Even on a fairly mild morning, a water bottle full of ice cubes will melt in under 30 minutes.
• Most cars are pretty tolerant and courteous of bikes, but every once in a while there's some guy who thinks 6 inches is plenty of space to leave between us, even though there's an empty lane right next to him.
• Sometimes it's safer to take up a whole lane than to stay all the way to the right.
• For the first two weeks, my leg muscles weren't sore, stiff or anything. My lungs and heart couldn't keep enough to give them a real workout. The past two weeks, my heart & lungs have caught up enough allow my legs to start getting workout.
• I've lost about 10 pounds.
• I'm still making some progress on my times, but it has definitely started to slow. Here's a graph:

7 Days of Commuting

I guess it's time for an update on the commuting thing. For starters, at the suggestion of my biking friend I decided that rather than going from no exercise at all to biking 15 miles per day in traffic, I would start out doing it every other day - so that I wouldn't die. So I and am doing Monday Wednesday & Friday.

Because I'm a geek, I keep track of how long it takes me and calculate my average overall speed. And I make graphs. Pastor Steve would be proud. What the graph doesn't show is the fact that my times have decreased every day with one exception (the obvious dip in the blue line). The slight dips in the red line is were I took a shortcut which decreased my overall time, but also decreased my average speed.

I's also getting easier. Not easy, but easier. Here's a few things I've noticed:

• The first few days all I could think about was "What have I gotten myself into?" Then when I would arrive I would collapse on the floor for 15 minutes to recover and wonder if I could return the bike. Now I don't even have to collapse on the floor at all.
• On my first commute it took 43 minutes to get in. This morning it took just under 29.
• The first ride I stopped about 5 times on the way in to rest, this morning I didn't stop at all. (the rests alone probably account for the time difference)

I say all this not to brag, because I realize that a 7½ mile bike trip is not a huge deal. I thank God for giving me the discipline to do this, because it doesn't come naturally to me - I'm not an extremely physically disciplined person by nature. I know a lot of people who are, and I think you're all weird :) Anyway, I'll keep you posted.

My First Commute

Yesterday was my first commute to work. All things considered it went fairly well. I rode the 7.4 miles in 43 minutes. The ride back was a little tougher, due to the fact that it is more uphill, and I did that (7.5 miles) in 1 hour even. This morning I did the ride in to work in 39 minutes. I'm going to take an alternate route home tonight which should shave 0.3 miles off of the uphill part of the trip. Of course that will also probably mean that the climb will be that much steeper, but I'll just have to try it and see.

I bought a bike

OK, as Katie hinted about, it's time for an update on my plans to bike to work. I bought a bike! After riding a low-end Scott, a Rocky Mountain Metro 30, a Rocky Mountain RC 30 DISC and a Scott Sub 10. I finally settled on a Rocky Mountain RC 50 DISC from Reser Bicycle Outfitters in Newport. The picture to the left is a stock picture of the RC 50 from Rocky Mountain's website. Mine is pretty much the same, but it's black.

If you're ever in the market for a bike, I highly recommend Reser. They are very knowledgeable, helpful, and encourage you to test ride a lot of bikes so you can get a feel of what you're comfortable with. As an added bonus, they don't make fun of you when you're so out of shape that after your first test ride you're so worn out that you have to go home and take a break and come back a few hours later - or so I've heard.

Anyway, I've taken it on a ride around the neighborhood and around town. Both rides confirmed that I am very out of shape (as if there was a doubt after my test ride). Tomorrow morning is my first commute to work, about 7.4 miles. Going to work will be bad enough, but at least it's a lot of downhill (300 ft decrease in elevation), and it'll be relatively cool. What I'm really dreading is the ride home, uphill in the afternoon. If I make it, I'll let you know how it went.

Biking to Work

A guy I work with started biking to work recently, and I thought I should give it a try. My commute would only be about 6 miles, which is about a third of my friend's commute. Biking would save me money on gas & parking, and would also be good exercise. I was actually discussing all this with Katie right before we saw this on The Office:

I haven't started yet because I don't have a bike, but I'm going to buy a Motobecane Elite from bikesdirect.com, so hopefully I'll be able to start in a week or two. It's been about 15 years since I've really done any biking, so this should be interesting. I'll keep you posted. If anybody has any pointers for me, I'd be interested in hearing them.