Month: July 2017

If the past few posts haven’t been clear, I AM LOVING BIKING TO WORK. I, unfortunately, haven’t really left the house enough the past four weeks to really go anywhere else. All in all, I’ve listed a handful of benefits for biking when it’s a feasible option. I’m gonna dig into some detail on three major categories of benefits.

Health:

Clearly, the exercise from biking is more than a person will get sitting in a car, but what has really blown me away is the benefits for my mental health. Just earlier this week, I had a rough day at work. While I wasn’t exactly thrilled to do much when I got home, I thought about it later. If I had driven home, dealt with rush hour traffic, and didn’t have the endorphins blasting in my brain from the ride, I would have been in a far worse mood. I’m also the opposite of a morning person. Not exactly “nocturnal,” but definitely in the sense that I probably can’t form a coherent thought for the first 30 minutes of being awake. I put my morning routine on auto pilot and prep as much as I can the night before, so I can be up and out the door without much thought. Previously, I would get to work and keep myself busy until my brain kicked on and then would start doing actual work. Now, I have about an hour where I have to be attentive to my surroundings and am getting my heart pumping before I even turn on my work computer. This has helped me focus on getting tasks done fast and on to the next one earlier and throughout the entire work day.

Financial

I bought my bike a little under a year ago for $30 from the Dubuque Mission Thrift Store and got a tune up, replacement tire and handlebar tape for about $120. In the time between then and now, I have spent maybe $10 on replacement tubes. And before you ask, I got my helmet for free from a friend. Safety first. All in all, I spent about $160. One thing I’m excited to learn, and will probably look into it this coming weekend, is how to tune up a bike. Insourcing this job will save me a ton of cash in the long run, as well as give me a solid skill as someone who is becoming more and more interested in cycling.

To take a page from Mr. Money Mustache’s blog, I’m gonna get into some numbers. The most recent number I could find for the cost per mile in the US is from this AAA post from April 2016, but let me know if you can find an updated number. Each mile driven costs about 57 cents on average. I used to drive a Hyundai Santa Fe, which according to the AAA post is more expensive, for obvious reasons, at about 68 cents. My commute was about 10 miles. Just to have the privilege to go to work, I was spending over $13 a day. Last month, I spent about $50 on gas alone. I may not have had any other major costs last month, but in the past year, my maintenance bill has been in the thousands of dollars.

Societal:

There may be a handful of people that are “negatively” impacted by my riding, but I think it’s more so a situation of not knowing how to deal with sharing the street with bikes. For the most part, I am out of the way and cars just drive on past. Though from time to time, there is a car that sits behind me with a confused looking driver behind the wheel. I can’t blame them, they probably don’t want to ruin their day (and my life) by making a small mistake with some dire consequences. But hey! I thought this was supposed to be about the benefits of biking! For every driver I leave confused and unsure, I get out of the way for dozens of drivers per day. One car may not seem like much, but I think about the impact a single car can on traffic have during rush hour.

Another major benefit that I am actually quite proud of is the environmental impact. I may not be some crazy tree hugger or anything, but I thought of a good counter argument to people who don’t think driving affects the environment. Just the other day, my brother and I were having a conversation about sustainability and some documentaries he’d watched recently. I thought, “Anyone who doesn’t think driving is bad should just sit behind their car, and just breathe in the exhaust. If it’s not that bad you’ll be fine right?” I don’t want this to come off as political or anything, just something I’ve figured out I actually care about quite a bit.

Overall, I hope every new practice leaves me this excited to continue it! I can’t suggest this enough to anyone who is capable. Maybe settling into it is the best route for you, one day a week or drive halfway there and bike the rest of the way. Or maybe you’re better off diving in full force and committing to it every day to minimize the willpower it takes to do each day. However you go about it, I hope you give it a shot and let me know if you do and how it goes.

For the moment of truth! What will I be doing for the next four weeks? I got a lot of good suggestions and had a laundry list to pick from. My next personal “challenge” is to start a daily journal. I’ve thought about starting this for some time, but have always had excuses to stop. Not this time! Feel free to let me know what you think in the comments below, and as always, if there’s anything you’re trying out before buying in!

It’s been three weeks of primarily biking to get around, and I’ve definitely had my ups and downs. Some days I’m feeling great to hit the bike, others my legs are heavy and I dread the morning commute.

Overall, bad days included, I can see myself continuing this for as long as I’m able. The short term benefits have been spectacular, part of me actually regrets a recent car purchase cause I’ve driven it all of three or four times since buying it several weeks ago, which is a good thing in my book.

The biggest thing I am loving so far is the progression I’m feeling every time I ride, especially on the way home. Near the end of my ride is a pretty big hill. I used to live in Dubuque, IA, and people who’ve been there should know, I do not exaggerate the term big hill. Every couple days I’ve noticed that it’s a bit easier and easier to get up it, then I get a nice coast all the way home. That feeling of hitting the top every day is probably one of the most satisfying of my waking hours.

As mentioned in a prior post, the benefits to me alone make simply biking to work something worth habitually doing daily. A friend of mine made an interesting point, opposite one I had made previously. He said that by doing it every day, it takes less willpower than to do it once or a few times a week. By doing it every day you don’t need to think about which day(s) to bike and which you can simply drive. The only point I can think to really counter this is people who are physically unable to, but I’m sure he’d understand that. For those people who are fit enough to ride a couple miles at a time, what’s stopping you from giving it a go?

Hope you have a good week! Next post will be my summary of what I learned during this trial run. Let me know in the comments a new habit/routine/etc. I can possibly try out next week. I have a couple in mind, but want to hear what you guys think!

What a week! Spiderman: Homecoming came out, you get a chance to see that? Free slurpee day at 7-11 and Amazon’s Prime Day, though I didn’t end up buying anything on account of being currently broke.

When it comes to my goal here, to transport myself by bike or foot, in other words not drive, I had an evening that tested this and I suppose I failed that test. My brother, cousin and I went to see Spiderman HC at the movie theater pretty close to our house, no way it’s further than a mile. I hopped in the car with them, as going together is obviously the easiest solution. After getting to the theater I thought, “Does this count?” Looking back on this, I would say yes.

While I can’t force my family to do this with me, by choosing to do the less convenient option, it shows a much better commitment to the blog and my goals. Who knows it may have encouraged them to join me.

Due to this failure, I want to apologize to you for not being 100% committed to this.

With that out of the way, I want to mention a situation I did not want to count. My cousin needed to be dropped off at the airport in order to catch an early flight. In this case, I didn’t count this as failing my goal, because someone else was relying on me getting them somewhere fast. It felt weird to get behind the wheel of a car again, but it was like riding a bike, pun completely intended.

I made the mistake of working out again this past Sunday, and my body is far from grateful for that. My legs feel like fragile tree branches ready to fall off the trunk. I’m trying to get in better habits for stretching and rolling out (my hamstrings were brutal when I rolled out last night). If you have any advice for getting into good habits for taking care of one’s body, please let me know in the comments below!

Final thought on the week, I never thought I would miss the co-worker dropping by to ask, “You rode your bike to work!?” But their lack of acknowledgment made me realize how mundane doing something as small as this truly is. In the end, it is not the praise of others, or some other social or material benefit that keeps me getting up and doing this day after day, but a self-driven joy knowing all the positive things I am creating by making this single choice.

Have a good week and see you next Wednesday!

Whew! It’s been quite a past few days. I’ve biked or walked everywhere for the past week and I am loving it thus far.

I’m glad I started with this habit to kick this blog off because I’ve felt the benefits since day one. I feel like I have more energy and am more productive at work, especially in the mornings. I wake up on time to leave, a challenge in the past for me, as I would previously roll out of bed, toss on some clothes, and be on my way. I have plenty of time to listen to podcasts, to the point where I may need to take some suggestions or check out a handful on my own. I get a solid hour and a half to two hours of exercise every work day. I am less frustrated as I don’t have to sit in traffic at all, I can actually slip past a lot of it along the side of the road. I save money not having to fill up a tank of gas every week or two, not to mention the other maintenance costs that come with driving a car.

The benefits aren’t only personal too! I am taking a car off the road which helps the environment, at least a little right? It’s one less car other people have to deal with backing up traffic. And I’m in a better mood, in general, making me a more pleasant person to be around.

Now you may be asking, so what’s the catch? As an economics major in college, I always look at the opportunity cost. Time and safety are the two biggest factors in the negative side of things. While the time I spent biking, in my opinion, is used well, as I’d like to get that exercise in regardless, there have definitely been times where biking has been rough early in the morning and after a long day of work. I would still argue that the time spent is worth it though compared to driving, which would take about half the time to commute, I feel significantly better biking.  The other aspect I mentioned was safety, couldn’t think of a better term to define the problem. As a resident of the Dallas, TX area, there are definitely some times when riding in the street there are some cars who decide to cut it pretty close. I, of course, do my best to minimize this element of danger by trying to stay aware of my surroundings and signaling always, even when it seems unnecessary.

I would recommend everyone at least give this a try if you can. The health, financial and external benefits are extraordinary. By making a small change you can create a big impact on your day-to-day life. Now you may be thinking, there’s no way I can do that! Or even I don’t own a bike anymore, I’m not a kid anymore. The latter point is simple, you can get a very inexpensive bike that will get you around where you need to go. When I lived in Dubuque, IA, I bought my bike for $30 and took it in to get it tuned up, as it was in pretty bad shape. Overall, I spent around $125 on a great bike that has worked well for about a year now. I recommend checking out thrift stores or websites like Craigslist, you can get pretty great deals on good bikes from a variety of places. Hell, ask family members that don’t ride much anymore, you might get one for free!

To address the, “But there’s no way I can do that,” claim. You know yourself far better than I do, so you probably have a better gauge of your abilities than I do. BUT! I also think people sell themselves short on a lot of things in life. Maybe you can’t make the 10-mile ride to work every day, but what about once a week? What if you drove halfway to work, parked your car at a park or something, and rode your bike the second half? As you do these small things one day at a time you can build on them and it gets easier. That’s the hard part though, you have to do it

“It gets easier. Every day it gets a little easier. But you got to do it every day. That’s the hard part. But it does get easier.” To quote the running baboon from the Netflix series Bojack Horseman.

Let me know in the comments if you’ve given riding your bike more, with better-defined goals than that of course, or if you’ve decided to try something else out!

Catch you next week.