Cars are too big. You can’t go around obstacles. You can’t park in your office. You can’t pick them up and carry them when you need to. The only benefit to the size of the car is that it’s easy to secure. Lock the doors, and it’ll take a tow truck to move it (or a broken window, but you get the idea).
I drove to work on Thursday and Friday of last week. I paid $8.75 per day to park my car downtown. I didn’t use much gas, but I used some. I moved to Louisville so that I wouldn’t have to drive. That was the whole point. Yet, I did anyway. I did it as my December bike mileage was looking pretty sad.
Monday I had a doctor appointment in New Albany, which is about 12 miles from home. After last week’s crap, I wasn’t going to drive. I headed out the door in the morning in 15 degree temperatures.
Before I go further, let’s discuss footwear. If I were riding th 3.5 miles to work, I would have just thrown on a pair of wool socks and my shoes. I knew I’d be out in the weather a while, so I put on two pair a wool socks, then a plastic grocery bag over each foot, then a third pair of wool socks. Then my shoes wouldn’t fit over the mess. I don’t own any boots currently, so I put my open-toed sandals over it all and hoped for the best. It worked okay. My feet were warmer than my hands.
I stopped to use an ATM and had to pull my glove off, which caused the inner liner to come inside-out. That was fun trying to get it fixed so I wouldn’t have frostbite.
The whole ride there seemed to be into a brutally cold headwind. Then I made a wrong turn in Clarksville, and had to backtrack.
I barely made it there in time, yet still had to wait 30 minutes. Due to my health insurance, I had to bike another three miles to get blood drawn for lab work. After finishing up there, I realized I didn’t know that part of town very well, as wasn’t sure how to bike back over to Louisville. I knew the best way by car, but some of the roads would be sketchy on a bike.
Rather than waste time in the cold thinking about it, I just went. I rode on Brown’s Station Way, which looks like a freeway, but isn’t. The speed limit varies between 35 and 45, but you’d think it was 65 based upon traffic speed.
After a while I found the neighborhood streets that took me to South Clark Blvd, then to the bridge.
After work, I needed to go to the drug store. This whole time I’m riding my LHT with studded tires and Christmas lights. I stopped at a local Walgreens. Several people commented on my lights as I was locking up outside.
By the time I got home, I was cold, tired, and had racked up 30 miles for the day. It may not sound like it in this post, but it actually was a good day, especially in retrospect. 🙂
Today, was straight to work in the morning, with shoes and one pair of socks. After work I had a stop to make to get my every-two-weeks massage, but my total mileage for the day was less than 10.
I haven’t looked at the weather forecast for tomorrow yet, but I know I’m riding. I also know I’m not making any detours.
Just thinking of only one pair of sox makes me shiver all over. I have girly feet. Two layers minimum for me.
Are you “un-studding” or will that be the freezing junk bike the rest of the winter?
I don’t hate driving. Parking can be a pain but definitely less so here than there. This is one reason I like living in a smaller town …
Sounds like you need some bigger shoes or boots. I’m in the same boat, really. I can’t wear more than one layer of socks without overly constricting my feet.
I have Christmas lights for my bike too, but I haven’t unpacked them since we moved. It’ll probably take a while for me to find them, but I intend to do just that, and put them on the bike. I’m not a big fan of Christmas in general, but any excuse to add lights to my bike is good!
Tim,
One pair of nice wool socks is do-able for my short commute. If I’m going further I need more. I still need to go buy some boots.
I’m leaving the studded tires on the LHT. I’m riding the single-speed tomorrrow.
Apertome,
I really have come to loathe driving. I get more stressed out in traffic in car than in the same traffic on m bike.
Yes, I need to buy a boot a size or two too big. I just haven’t gotten around to doing it yet.
I found my Christmas lights a while back because I was moving into the new house, and ran across them. Otherwise, I probably wouldn’t have found them, and I would have bought new ones, or skipped it this year. I really need to get organized.
OMG! I know that stretch of Brown’s Station Way. I’ve ridden it a bunch of times, and I always feel weird about it, because even though I know rationally that it isn’t a freeway, it looks so much like one that some part of my brain refuses to believe that it isn’t.
This seems to be true for the drivers as well … every time I’ve ridden on that bit of road, I’ve been honked at by at least one driver (whilst operating my velocipede in a legal fashion and usually at a pretty good clip) … though perhaps they’ve just been trying to figure out what I was, since I added two long red reflective strips to my road bike’s seat stays 🙂
Asher,
I’ve ridden it a few times, but this was the first time riding there alone. I think a couple of RCCS rides briefly rode on it.
It’s not the most bike-friendly road, but I’ll ride it again if I have to.