I tell ya, moving here from Houston the hills don't make commuting any easier. In fact, upon arriving here I learned about the (fading) novelty of choosing a route based on the amount of knee killing cranking I have to do. It really killed me at first, bc Houston is flat as a pancake. When I would stand on the 65th floor observation deck at "The Tower" (Houston messengers' downtown living room) I had a view that was 180 degrees of flatness that lasted until the Earth curved- or was that smog blurring the distance?
Anyway, I was pretty turned off. The hills were one thing, but there are also thousands of 1-person-per-car college kids and other offenders choking the streets here in Charlottesville. I have been almost nailed here many, many times. Part of it is the ignorance of the drivers- like speeding up to cut me off and make a right turn (a move that had a bad effect on somebody close to me to the tune of emergency room-loss-of-smell-and-taste), people opening doors without looking to see who is coming, people honking so that they can get up to the red light before me.
(By the way- I do not ride like I think the world owes me. I only use the space I need, I use hand signals, lights at night, I say thank you, I make eye contact, and I only blow lights when I judge it to be safer than the situation I am in at the moment-like, I have get away from this text-messaging car driver.)
It's not that Houston didn't have these problems. We probably had more! But bc it was a big place, and flat, and wide, there were lots of parallel routes one could take that avoided the major arteries but got you there just as fast.
Having lost that when I came here to Cville was a blow and I didn't handle it well. Plus, I worked at the Food Whole up on 29 and it was too sketchy to ride on 29, yet I felt it was an insult to ride on the sidewalk. I had been in the heart of traffic as a messenger for years, and now the sidewalk! It was stressful and depressing to commute. Sometimes (more than I like to admit) I would borrow my partner's car and drive. Which was even more of a downer, bc living on caffeine but never getting to burn it out made my body and mind so out of whack. And then I would ride out 29 to try and feel good and hate the commute which made me frustrated which would lead to me driving which made me feel unhealthy, etc...
SO...I went home to Houston for a few months, from Dec 07 to July 08. I got my messenger job back and lived with a vet messenger and his wife and kids who had a house that was just over 9 miles out from the downtown Mach 5 Courier office. It was great to be back in the saddle and riding all day. On the slowest day downtown we still rode 10 miles. A busy day would be 20. So with my commute to and from work, and even the slowest work day, I had 30 mile days. It was awesome! I ate like a horse with no problem. All toxins burned out by 11 am. I did the math assuming the lowest average day (30miles) and figured that between Jan and July I rode just over 4000 miles- not including weekend rides or going out on the weekend, and about 80% of this was on my 2001 Steamroller fixie. Not bad!
On this trip back home it became clear to me again just how important riding is to my mental and physical health ( and my desire to feel like a badass). For reasons unrelated to my bike I came back to Charlottesville, but with a different attitude and determination: I will adapt to the riding conditions of this town and I will not be pushed into a car. I took a job at a smaller health food store in town, so no more 29. I decided to not lose touch with my fix bc of the hills- I now switch the pedals over almost once a day to stay in touch with my two good friends, the Kona and the Surly. I get up earlier so that I can leave earlier. And now that I got my student loan check, I can order full fenders, hooray!
So my hats off to those of you who were never swayed in the first place to stop riding. And to those of you who are experimenting with full time bike commuting for the first time. you can do it!!
My next post I think will be titled 'How the Pros Do It', and I am going to include a list of things that I think can work for everybody who is serious about incorporating biking into their everyday. What to carry, how to plan for the day, etc. Some of this you may already do, but maybe there are some more. Perhaps ya'll could add to the list by leaving comments on how you get around.
Dilute! Dilute! Okay!
Butch
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