Bike to Work, Work to Live?
After putting it off for way too long, I finally started biking to work last Tuesday. I’ve car commuted twice since then, to give my legs a break, but I think bike’s the definite preferred commute. The bike commute keeps me awake and my mind engaged, so I just feel more energetic and alert throughout the day. It’s a nice natural high, and I can feel the beginnings of an addiction — I’ve noticed myself getting uncharacteristically cranky when I’d rather be biking.
I still have a bit of learning to do until I really know how to ride a bike, though. I remember it being much simpler as a kid — “pedal this way really fast, if something gets in your way, turn 
“. Part of that could have been simpler equipment. My first bike was single-speed cruiser, and by the time I moved in to a ten-speed, I didn’t really see the need to shift.
The ride this time around is a decent used Raleigh mountain bike with nice fat (and heavy) tubes and more gears than I know what to do with — 24 nominally, including the way-too-useful-for-me “Granny gear”. I chose it because (a) I liked the sturdy feel of the cruiser I outgrew long, long ago, and (b) I’m nearly 300 pounds, so part of me thinks I would crush a nice sleek (and light) road bike. I could use the exercise, anyway.
No pictures yet, but think:
but only one of me, and not as well-dressed.
I still haven’t gotten the hang of pedaling smoothly, or found a good cadence. One experienced biker at work suggested 90 rpm as a good spinning speed, and I started trying to find that. 90rpm = 3 revs every 2 seconds, or 3 pushes of the pedal every 2 seconds…. Think 3 beats per measure. Accent the first beat, and you’ve got a nice brisk Walz. “Tales from the Vienna woods” would be a good target. Currently, I seem to be dialing in at more “Blue Danube” speed when I can actually maintain a cadence. The usual mode, though is more like “Hall of the Mountain King” followed by panting and coasting.
Well, at least it gets me there…
August 14th, 2007 at 7:43 am
Hey, Chris,
That’s great — biking to work rocks! Not, mind you, that I’ve made my 25-mile commute via pedal power anytime recently. Ever, actually. But back in the day, I rode/walked to work pretty regularly, and I’m right there in the get focused/de-stressed benefits therein. I’d like to ride to work now, but I’m scared of the traffic on the highways up here.
I’m glad to hear that I’m not the only one who pedals to music in his head, though truth be told, I’m more of a “Take Five” kinda guy – 5/4 keeps me from putting the downbeat on the same foot and is more interesting than most of the 3/4 pieces in my repertoire.
What are your thoughts/plans for commuting in the winter? If you haven’t seen it yet, you might check out icebike, for laughs, if nothing else.
-aj
August 14th, 2007 at 6:16 pm
I’m not sure how hard-core I’ll be. Biking in cold weather’s OK with me; icy roads, snow, etc. I’m not so sure about. Icebike’s cool — I also ran across some ice races at http://www.mnhpva.org which looked like fun. Ice & traffic? I’ll stop by that bridge, get into my warm car, and drive when I come to it
And yeah, Hwy 2’s scary enough on a bike when the speed limit’s 25. 45-55 and no shoulder and offroad == swamp? Definitely put the bikes on the car for that.
…
We’re musical guys, I guess — for me, it’s the only way to plug in to my internal clock. It’s too bad that march tempo is a little too slow for powerful pedaling. If that worked, I’d be unstoppable.
I couldn’t do Take 5 because it always slides into “The Russians are Coming”, which wouldn’t do at all.
September 11th, 2007 at 6:19 am
That’s great. I am biking to my lame-o temp job right now, and I would have biked to my job last year if they didn’t require me to ride the school bus with those brats. It is amazing just how good even a short ride can make you feel in the morning. Keep it up.
I laughed quite a bit when you mentioned riding to music in your head. The bike person you talked to was right about cadence. Biking at a higher cadence is much more efficient than “mashing” the gears. It takes some getting used to though.
The music doesn’t usually flow for me when I am riding, but it does when I run, and even more so when I am walking on my own. Then the under-educated little composer in my head wakes up and gets creative. Good stuff.