Bike Update
As stated on Facebook, my goal for the summer is to commute to work via bicycle an average of two times a week for May, June, July, August and September. How am I doing?
The first week I was able to commute in was the week starting Sunday, May 5. I only made it once that week due to the A's being in town and my attending all of their games at the Jake. Since then I made it twice every single week, and three times the last week of the month, which pulled my average up to twice a week. That's even more impressive because there were two four day weeks in there (Memorial Day and my office's Cedar Point Day). In other words, so far so good.
In total I have logged 193.0 miles on the new bike (as judged by Google Map Pedometer). After experimenting with a couple of different routes to work, I settled on one where I take Clifton/Lake to work and Hiliard home. This route seems to give me the optimum combination of "minimal street traffic, decent pavement and minimal elevation changes" and totals 17.9 miles. It would be shorter to take Hiliard both ways, but my experimentation showed that there's a lot of traffic on that street in the morning.
The biggest impediment to my biking to work is scheduling. If I have an early morning meeting it's not really feasible as it takes about an hour to get to work and showering takes up some time as well. It's even less feasible if I have something scheduled early in the evening that I need to get to. Most of the days I did not bike ran afoul of the schedule. The remainder were weather related. I don't mind biking in the cold, but heavy rain is not my idea of a good time so for the first time in ages I've started checking the weather report in the morning. So far I've been fortunate enough to avoid significant precipitation, although yesterday was close.
In any event, so far so good. I'm enjoying the rides more than doing the equivalent work at the gym. Combined with the only eat food I bring to work diet (six weeks and counting) I'm down to easily my lowest weight since 2002. Losing weight was a secondary goal compared to cardio health, but I'm not complaining.
I will say that I'm not going to save significant money on gas just by riding to work. At this rate if I hit my goal of 750 miles on the bike I will avoid purchasing two tanks of gas, or about $80 total. That's not chicken feed, but I would argue that the time spent on the bike when I could have been racking up overtime easily outweighs it. So don't do it for the money, do it for the health.
The first week I was able to commute in was the week starting Sunday, May 5. I only made it once that week due to the A's being in town and my attending all of their games at the Jake. Since then I made it twice every single week, and three times the last week of the month, which pulled my average up to twice a week. That's even more impressive because there were two four day weeks in there (Memorial Day and my office's Cedar Point Day). In other words, so far so good.
In total I have logged 193.0 miles on the new bike (as judged by Google Map Pedometer). After experimenting with a couple of different routes to work, I settled on one where I take Clifton/Lake to work and Hiliard home. This route seems to give me the optimum combination of "minimal street traffic, decent pavement and minimal elevation changes" and totals 17.9 miles. It would be shorter to take Hiliard both ways, but my experimentation showed that there's a lot of traffic on that street in the morning.
The biggest impediment to my biking to work is scheduling. If I have an early morning meeting it's not really feasible as it takes about an hour to get to work and showering takes up some time as well. It's even less feasible if I have something scheduled early in the evening that I need to get to. Most of the days I did not bike ran afoul of the schedule. The remainder were weather related. I don't mind biking in the cold, but heavy rain is not my idea of a good time so for the first time in ages I've started checking the weather report in the morning. So far I've been fortunate enough to avoid significant precipitation, although yesterday was close.
In any event, so far so good. I'm enjoying the rides more than doing the equivalent work at the gym. Combined with the only eat food I bring to work diet (six weeks and counting) I'm down to easily my lowest weight since 2002. Losing weight was a secondary goal compared to cardio health, but I'm not complaining.
I will say that I'm not going to save significant money on gas just by riding to work. At this rate if I hit my goal of 750 miles on the bike I will avoid purchasing two tanks of gas, or about $80 total. That's not chicken feed, but I would argue that the time spent on the bike when I could have been racking up overtime easily outweighs it. So don't do it for the money, do it for the health.