It Gets Easier

Well...I rode in to work for the second time this year today! That's twice in three weeks. Considering how little I bike commuted in 2012, this is very promising.

It helped that I left after 7 am today whereas the last time I tried to get the jump around 6:30 am (more sun!). Also the weather in general was just warmer, too. I doubled up my socks, including some new wool socks I bought, but my poor little toes were still cold. Ah well, such is life. After dusting the cobwebs off last time, my day of riding went much easier. Sad to say, but my legs were pretty sore after the previous commute, and I needed a few days to recover. As I write this a few hours after getting home, I'm feeling pretty good.

Another amazing sunset

In case you're new to my blog and haven't read about the origin of the name Bike21, take a peek at the About page. I recently saw this article that tells a similar story to how I started bike commuting:

The 21 Day Challenge

 

Follow Friday

Recap: I began the week by finding out this very blog had been listed among the Best of San Diego 2011 according to San Diego Magazine. They deemed Bike 21 as Best Cycling Porn, which is crazy, and I pledged to 1) post a new photo each day this week, and 2) propose other deserving sources of cycling-related visual media.

























Finally the week has finished, so I figured I would feature four fantastic photogs from the Twitterverse, ala #FollowFriday. Check out the timelines of these folks for some top notch cycling porn pics.

• @BikeCrave: read the tweets of local cyclist and wordsmith Jeff Bean and you'll be treated to scenic vistas from the coast to Palomar. This guy clocks the miles and he's got the photos to prove it. His bikes often are featured in the pics, too, so don't worry about that. One word: Moots. Oh yeah, his blog is (usually mostly writing) really good, too.
• @TimJackson: the former Masi Guy is a self-proclaimed bike nerd, marketing nerd, and social media wonk. Another San Diegan, Tim now shills for Pivot/BH Cycles. You could always count on Tim to tweet sneak peek pics at what was in the works at Masi and it seems to be no different at his new gig. Also: pics of his cute kids.
• @pathlesspedaled: now I'm stretching beyond San Diego. The couple behind The Path Less Pedaled, Russ & Laura, were based in Long Beach for a time, but they've ventured out on a bike tour all over the map. Russ is actually a professional photographer. More than just bikes, they tell stories of the people & places they visit. It's real photojournalism.
• @copenhagenize and @_Cycle_Chic: moving over to the Old World, we've got Mikael Colville-Andersen from the cycling paradise in Copenhagen, Denmark. He's got the trademark on "Cycle Chic" and is a renowned expert on urban mobility, so what more do you need to know? Beautiful people on bikes. But also just regular people on bikes, where it is actually regular to be on a bike. Still, the regular people manage to look hip & stylish all the same. Nary a helmet to be seen.
• Don't forget: All the sites I mentioned the other day are also on the Twitter, too.. @velocult, @ecovelo, and @bikehugger

To close out, I did an impromptu night shoot, as seen above and below.

























Thanks to everyone who has checked out the blog for the first time this week. And if you've been coming back throughout the week, thanks again for that, too. I don't think I can keep this pace up, but maybe I can get in the habit of more regular posts. Maybe.

You can usually find me on Twitter, so follow me @juanrcm

Back in the Saddle

It’s been awhile since my last post (whoa, first since October and first of 2011!). Much of that has to do with me not making my bike commute on a regular basis pretty much since September. I definitely had no rides after the fall time change. I have a few bike commutes under my belt in 2011, but it's been a slow start.

As I think I have mentioned before, I haven’t been keen on riding home in the pitch dark on the parts of my commute with high-speed car traffic (basically the start of my ride home from work). I have lights but they’re more of the be-seen-in-the-dark variety than the see-in-the-dark variety. The days have been getting longer again, though, and already the spring time change is upon us. Hmmm...This makes it darker in the evening again for a little while, right??  

I don’t remember having many issues with available light last year at this time. Though last year at this time I was doing the partial bike commute to the park & ride 6 miles from work. These days I’m only doing the 15 mile door-to-door commute, so obviously I’m out on the road longer. It is dark by the time I reach home.

In addition to the darkness issue, I have also just been having a hard time again getting ready to leave early enough to ride in. I did get into a pretty good routine for most of 2010, so I’m looking forward to getting back into those good habits again for 2011.

Bike 21: Official!

This is sort of anti-climatic, but on April 14, 2010 I finally reached Bike Commute #21! Hooray!

At the outset of my venture into bike commuting, my goal was to ride to work 21 times. The reasoning being that it generally takes doing something for 21 days to really make it a habit. I'm stretching a bit since I knew I wouldn't be able to bike commute every work day for 21 days in a row. Still, 21 bike commutes seemed like a worthy goal. I started off in July 2009, and it was a rough start. I averaged one bike commute per month through the end of the year. Though my wife initially suggested that I could get a new bike upon reaching my goal, she let me get a new bike early on my birthday in December. You can see pics of my Masi Speciale CX here.

The new bike proved to be a jump starter, though, and as of today, I am averaging one bike commute per week for 2010. Another small motivator has been the friendly competition I've dubbed the Bike Commute Mileage Challenge that a co-worker started between us (or rather between fictional representations of ourselves, lest it get too personal, perhaps?). Initially I was hesitant to get into any kind of contest, friendly or not, since I was struggling to get started and my co-worker had been frequently riding his bike to work for awhile. Funny what a new bike and a new baby will do. Now the tables have turned. For me the new bike has been an effective stimulus for riding more, and getting the Wednesday commute routine down was also key. On the flip side, the joys and realities of fatherhood (and arranging day care) have slowed down my compadre substantially.

I've got close to 290 miles on my Masi now. That's great, but in terms of offsetting my automobile use, that 's not quite equivalent to a full tank of gas in my 2003 Saab 9-5 wagon, which averages about 22 mpg. That's a little disappointing to look at it that way, but it's better than if I was not bike commuting at all, right? You have to start somewhere.

So, what's next? If I stick to the once per week bike commute, I should be able to rack up at least 500 miles total for the year. Maybe my next goal will be to ride twice a week. I want to test the waters on some longer distance riding, but I also want to do a lot more utility cycling. I want to ride with my kids and get them excited about riding bikes. I need to get them off training wheels!

Part of my Twitter bio says: "(aspiring) part-time bike commuter." I think I'll take off the "aspiring" part now! I'm a full-fledged part-time bike commuter. Look out!

(Oh, by the way, today was Bike Commute #22. A post summarizing Bike Commutes #16-21 should be coming soon.)

Bike 21 Commuting Habit tips, 1st edition

Now that I've got bike commute #21 in sight (you know, to make my bike commute habit "official"), I thought I would just share a few thoughts on my bike commuting experience so far. None of these are earth-shattering revelations, but I think are worth repeating here for anyone just getting into bike commuting.

1) Be prepared to ride. It seems like this goes without saying, but if you don't ride everyday, this is pretty critical. Every other tip is basically a corollary from this basic axiom. Early on I would try to pick my bike commute days at the spur of the moment while getting ready in the morning. Instant recipe for failure. There was always something I was missing or needed to do that slowed me down and caused me to abandon the ride.

2) Coordinate with your family. Well, that is if you have a family or someone else that depends on you to be home at a certain time. There were several days I wanted to ride but for one reason or another I needed to be home at a certain time or to pick up the kids from school. Plan ahead of time to avoid these conflicts. Set a recurring appointment in your Outlook/Google/iCal calendar and share/invite your wife, significant other, mom, parole officer, etc. so they remember you will be riding that day.

3) Pick the day(s) you know you have the lowest chance of a conflict and stick to it. There are always exceptions, of course. I figured out Wednesday was the best day for me to ride, so I plan on riding every Wednesday. Monday mornings being what they are, Mondays were out immediately. Tuesdays & Thursdays my kids have activities after school so those days were out. Fridays I usually like to get home as soon as possible, but this is my backup day if I miss my Wednesday ride.

4) Leave a change of clothes, toiletries, etc. at work. I had read this tip before on another cycling web site, but it took me awhile to come around. When I started seriously trying to bike commute I bought a rack for my bike and a set of panniers. I would load up the panniers with my change of clothes, a change of shoes, a towel, and the sundries I needed to shower at work. The stupid thing about that is I have sets of work polo shirts and pants provided to me for my job and a pair of work boots already at work. I don't normally wear them, though. Now I've been leaving a pair of jeans, some underwear and socks, and some basic white tees in my cubicle to change into when I ride to work. Then I will also wear one of the polo shirts and my boots. The work pants are really horrible; they are pleated and too baggy. I just can't bring myself to wear them. Anyway, if you don't have room to keep things at your job or don't have showers, then I guess you can stick with panniers or a backpack to hold your gear and then try to clean up with wipes or just the bathroom sink and a towel.

5) Check your bike the night before. Again, this is more critical if you only ride once or twice a week like I do. Air up your tires. Make sure you didn't remove anything from your bike that you might need, like say lights or tools from your saddle bag. Make sure your saddle is still attached to your bike. I saw a guy biking to work with no saddle one day. That couldn't have been fun.

Some optional tips:

• Have a helmet to wear. I think there is a saying: "Opinions about helmet use are like a**holes...everybody knows one and he doesn't wear a helmet." No..."A**holes are like helmets, everybody has stuck their head in one." No..."Helmets are like opinions, you either have one or you don't, a**hole." No, that's not it, either. Oh, nevermind. My recommendation: wear a helmet.
• Carry a spare tube. Also, make sure it is the right size for your tire. I think I have three spare tubes for my 26" mountain bike. I don't have any spare 700c tubes for my other bike. that. I. use. to. bike. commute. Hmmm...

Well, that's it for now. Look out for more bike commuting tips in the future. Maybe.

Get on the Bike

It's been over a week since I last rode my bike. I have been trying to designate Wednesdays to be my official "bike commute" day. I needed to stay home this past Wednessday so I missed my opportunity. Riding once a week sounds like a realistic goal, but there always seems to be something that comes up, legitimate or not.  I had ridden two weeks in a row (I think a first for me), until this week, that is.

I'd been thinking that maybe I should change the tag line of my blog from "Developing a bike commute habit" to "The diary of an aspiring bike commuter" or "21 and more excuses not to ride" or "The sometimes bike commuter" or "How to blog about bike commuting without really riding." Please suggest others in comments if you've got any good ones I can use.

It can be tough finding time to ride when you're trying to balance family and work and whatever else. I've been thinking I should bring my bike in on days I don't ride to work and take some lunch rides. We'll see if that ever happens... Even if I can't ride to work, I think I just need to find a way to get out on the bike a little more and log some miles.

So, having said that I snuck out for a quick ride as the sun was setting this Saturday afternoon. I've been wanting to tackle this hill nearby my house. It is probably not much of a climb for most cyclists, but I figured it would be a bit of a litmus test to gauge my current riding fitness. The main climb is about 1.7 miles and about 330 feet in elevation. That's a 3.6% overall grade - like I said, probably nothing to a lot of people. I don't really know.

I've seen plenty of people climb this road. Several of those people, by appearances, were in much worse physical shape than I. I figured that I could probably make it up OK on my mountain bike with the luxury of spinning the granny gear on the front triple crank (of course I never tried), but since I got my new bike I've been a bit worried about my gear range on the low end. I've got a 50-11 combo on the high end and a 34-28 combo on the low end, which my co-worker kindly pointed out is a wider range on both ends than what his more traditional cyclocross 48/36 double crankset gives him.

As Miley Cyrus says, "It's all about the climb." (Hey, I've got a young daughter who incessantly watches the Disney Channel.) It turns out the climb was not so bad after all. It is broken into two sections with a nice flat in the middle that afforded me the chance to catch my breath. I was still straining a bit at the crest, but I was doing everything to stay out of that bottom combo, for nothing more than the illusion that I've got some minor semblance of strength in my legs.

Here's the route plotted with elevation. The ride took me about 38 minutes and covered over 8.6 miles. I hit about 34 mph on the way down the hill. I also made a few poor choices in the way I handled the bike on the road in relation to cars on the way home. (Incidentally, I'm currently listening to the audio version of Tom Vanderbilt's Traffic.) I'll be more careful in the future.

Last Bike Commute of 2009

So I managed one last bike commute for 2009 using my brand new road bike this past Tuesday. This makes Bike Commute #6, cementing my one commute per month average since trying to get into a bike commute habit.


Thankfully we're on the other side of the winter solstice now, so the days are only getting longer from here out. Even though I've got head and tail lights, I wasn't too keen on riding in the dark evenings since the switch back to standard time. This last ride in the evening there was still enough lingering sunlight to see without lights, though I think still dark enough that lights were necessary to be seen.

I was quite surprised to make my ride into work at about 23 minutes flat! I think 28 minutes was my best time to date on my mountain bike. I usually was clocking in between 29 - 32 minutes, if my recollection serves me correctly. I finished the ride back in the evening at just about 25 minutes flat. This is great. If I can get into some decent riding shape, how much more time can I shave off? Dare I try to ride all the way from home again?

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I'm hoping for more frequent riding in 2010, and to possibly do some longer distance riding outside my bike commute. I'll probably try to venture out for some solo rides and slowly test my boundaries for both climbing and distance. I'd like to do some formal and informal group rides, and maybe even a charity event ride. I'd like to go watch a cyclocross race, and if I'm really crazy into it, maybe get my own butt into a race. It's a little while until cyclocross season starts back up, so I have time to think about this. Feel free to try to talk me into or out of this idea.

To everyone that has read this silly little blog, even if this is the first post you've read, thanks for reading. I hope to improve not only my riding, but my writing in the year to come. To everyone who has taken the time to comment here, thanks for your kind words of advice and support. Honest thanks again to my wife for encouraging me to start bike commuting in the first place, and for letting me get a new bike in advance of my self-imposed 21 ride goal because she believed it might encourage me to ride more and really get in the habit.

Happy New Year everyone!

Good habits are...hard to make

So let's recap: I decided to try to work cycling into my commute for all it's inherent benefits. I decided I would keep a blog about it. I came up with a name and theme for my blog that is tied to this concept of habits.
Perfect motivation I thought.

I went through a little effort to tweak the design and make a logo for my blog. I'd tested out the bike commute a couple times. My kid drop-off routine seemed (on paper) to be simplified since the kids were now at the same school.

Well, post-blog launch I think I've biked to work one and a half times. Or maybe just half a time (see bike commute #2), I can't remember exactly. However you count it, anything but a success to this point. It turns out I've had a harder time than I anticipated nailing down the morning routine so that I could leave early enough to bike to work. We went on vacation. Twice. I needed to pick up the kids in the afternoon (I don't usually). It's been hotter than hell this past August. I guess I don't need much of an excuse. Anyway, I will continue to try and figure this into my routine somehow.

On another front, my previous walk-kids-to-school habit, which has earned a massive FAIL in 2009, is beginning anew. I think we walked 4 of 5 days this past week. Even if the bike commuting venture becomes hopeless (not yet!) I will try to remain steadfast in the walking.

Then again I am tempted to just get an Xtracycle (PeaPod LT!) and just bike the kids to school. Hmmmmm...

The walking habit

I live about 16 miles from work. Due to the preschool/child care arrangement we had for about the past year or so I was dropping off my daughter at school very near our house, and then dropping off my son somewhere around the midpoint of my commute to work. With the school being so close to home (about 0.4 mile one-way on foot, though almost exactly within a 1/4 mile radius from home for any planning nerds out there) and in an effort to be less car-dependent and reduce my carbon footprint, I committed myself to walking the kids to the school to do the drop-off in the morning. And by walking the kids, I mean pushing them in a stroller. There were a few rare days where the kids actually made the walk themselves, but mostly they were along for the ride as I walked them to school.

From when I started in mid-July 2008 until the end of the year I only used the car twice to make the trip to the school. Pretty good, I thought. I definitely got into the walking habit. That's not to say it was a huge accomplishment in the larger scheme of things. I'm sure there are people who take their kids to school car-free everyday and don't make any big deal about it. And then, after the holiday break, the walking in 2009 didn't go so well. By February 4 I had already doubled the number of non-walking days from that last half of 2008. Eventually I stopped keeping track of how many days I used the car, and instead was counting how many days I walked. As an alternative to walking I also had started to bike myself and the kids to the school with the use of a borrowed bicycle trailer. Unfortunately that had to end since the hitch set up was putting undue stress on my rear axle due to its design. The lesson learned is that some habits can be easily broken. Perhaps more truly, the lesson is that bad habits can quickly return.

Next post, I look back at the initial bike commute test ride and two more commutes that really got this idea rolling for me to try this on a more regular basis. As it currently stands, I've neither started bike commuting nor blog posting with any regularity. I hope to change that.