Thursday, October 02, 2008

A Couple Days in My Commuting Life

This post is a continuation of THIS post. You may want to read that first as I have no idea where this post/rant may end up.

I was surprised by my two day commuting total in keeping track of the last couple days of "inconvenience" of commuting by bike versus a car. I logged 20.67 miles of commuting, which honestly might be a little more than normal, but not by much. Without further ado, the breakdown:

Wednesday:

* Commute to work
* Home for lunch (picked up the trail a bike too)
* Back to work
* Picked up Carson from school, took him home, dropped off trail a bike, back to work
* Went to Fire/EMS open house to meet up with the family
* From there to church for a bible study
* To home from church
* Hooked up "grocery getter" and went to the grocery store and loaded up to the tune of $70+

Thursday:

* Took Carson to school and back to work
* To the dome to teach spinning class and back to work
* To Carson's class to read a story for his VIP day.
* Picked up Carson from school, took him home, dropped off trail a bike
* Home from work, slipped in a quick 22 mile road bike ride.
* To/From Marissa's soccer game.

Does this really seem like a lot to do on bike? I don't think so. Lots of short trips are a simple thing to do. My bike is parked right outside my building at work or in my garage in my house. Many people who drive park 2-3 blocks away from their building. Tell me who gets places in this small town faster?

I'm not trying to get uppity with my response, but I guess recent comments from well meaning people (at least I think they were) kind of struck a nerve. Because it's the "norm", it's okay for you to commute and run around town doing EVERYTHING in your car, but it's not alright as a "normal" (VERY subjective term) person to do almost everything on their bike. I guess we agree to disagree as the politicians say.

Is our family "car free"? No. Are we "car light"? Absolutely. Mrs. Biking Brady does her share of not taking unnecessary trips with the Van (aka O Great and Powerful Steve!). Austin and Marissa both bike to school except in the most extreme conditions. I'm proud of our family choices. They are proud of our family choices. Do what you want with your choices, but don't question ours. It's still a semi free country -- election pending. /end rant

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm totally envious.

You get exercise, you get from point A to point B quickly, you don't have to look for a parking space, you're saving gas and you're demonstrating a healthy, responsible lifestyle to your family.

I used to do 11 miles from Harrisburg into Sioux Falls (mostly rural commute), but can't seem to make the leap to a 14 mile urban commute in Kansas City.

Like you said... just do it, do it regularly, then it'll be a habit and I'd find more ways to ride. However, telecommuting gets me everything but the health benefits :)

Bruce's Bike Blog said...

K,

I appreciate you making the extra effort to use the bike for everything. When I lived and went to school in Verm--I rode the bike everyday--year round. Everything in Verm was within 5 to 10 minutes of biking distance. I don't know about today, but 10 years ago, parking spaces were few and far between. USD PD strictly enforced parking. There was a major battle with the employees and faculty who did have to drive in, with students; most students lived 3 freakin' blocks from Main Campus but--most left their cars sitting in what little parking lots there were all week--then drove them home on weekends. It was a mess. I don't know what its like today--but I think its awesome you ride, and I hope that as Verm grows, biking remains an option for everyone living there.

Cheers! Bruce

bikingbrady said...

Bruce, Yup...not much has changed since you were here!

DIRK said...

Last two weeks I rode my bike to the bowling alley for bowling night. A few people asked me why I rode my bike there.
Answer is simple... Bike, Bowling, Booze all in the same night! It's only 7 miles one way, the weather is nice, might as well ride the bike.
I won't pretend to be a bike commuter, and you don't want to hear my excuses. But, if I can make it work, I find myself wanting to ride my bike instead of drive.
Keep up the commuting by bike, and even better you have the whole family involved.