Bike commute, day 2

[rebeccmeister]

The Villa Maria house was 3 miles from campus, which was just below my threshold for gearing up for a REAL bike commute, so in the summertime that has basically meant I have been showing up in work clothes, soaked in sweat, and marinate in that sweat throughout the day. The new homestead is about 5 miles out, which I deem long enough for a change in commuting strategy: put on spandex, cool down upon arrival for a few minutes, pack a change of clothes and a washcloth.

WAY more civilized.

The smooth pavement and straight-shot road are also WAY more civilized.

And now I've reached a level of Hobo Style where, if I had to pack for a trip, all I would need to do is add a couple more pairs of underwear and socks to my pannier, and I could then just grab the pannier and my backpack, and I'd be ready to go.

Froinlavin broke a fifth spoke last night on the ride home, so I had to fix the Jolly Roger's flat and reinstall the worn-out front tire. At least the debris levels are minimal on the new commute. Sections of the old commute are grimy.

The Jolly Roger is oddly quiet without the picnic basket. Also oddly aerodynamic and efficient. The CETMA rack by itself is hardly noticeable.

Comments

Re: Opinion question

[twoeleven.livejournal.com]

When a commute is that length, it provides two things at the same time: exercise AND transportation.
Ah, another thing I spend too much time thinking about: the death of practical exercise. Once upon a time -- actually, less than a century ago -- most people got plenty of "exercise" from their job. The need to get more physical activity simply didn't exist.

Now, however, most people get very little physical activity on the job, so they need to exercise. Except that they then arrange their lives to avoid as much motion as possible.

For example, we live in a townhouse neighborhood, and each of the townhouses has a tiny lawn. The smallest of them could be mowed with a push mower; they're easier to measure in square feet than in acres. A couple of people do just that. But a whole lotta folks here hire people to mow their tiny lawns. So a guy shows up with a huge industrial mower, makes a couple of tight turns on the tiny lawn, and leaves. It simply baffles me. It would be a lot cheaper do it themselves, and would get them up and moving a little.

Re: Opinion question

[rebeccmeister.livejournal.com]

Totally!

I'm a firm believer in walkability, too, although I am NOT a firm believer in automatic "walk score" calculators.

This town lacks sidewalks. I can't bring myself to call it a city when it's impossible to walk to get places. It was easier to walk in Tempe, and even then, it wasn't especially pleasant to walk. Boston, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. rank high on my list in that regard. Even bicycling becomes inconvenient at points in such cities.

It seems to me that a lot of Texas has been engineered to discourage practical exercise. Lawns are so large that riding lawnmowers are preferred. Things are spread out in such a way that it is challenging to use alternate transportation. The bus system leaves a LOT to be desired. Even Austin, a longtime poster child of bike-friendliness, isn't really a compact city anymore, and most of the people who say they live in Austin actually live in suburbs and clog highways with increasingly longer car commutes.

It is so, so much easier to get exercise when it's built into a daily routine than when it has to be scheduled in. I really feel like children NEED to walk or bike to school.