Bicycle Commuting

So on Friday, I hit my 40th commute by bicycle this year. I’ve been driving in once a week or less and I know it’s trite and everyone says it, but commuting by bicycle changes your perspective. It has become instinctive to take my bike out of the basement in the morning and put it back when I get home.

There are a lot of things that I never anticipated. When I get home, I am much more relaxed than when I drive. I think spending 40 minutes alert and trying not to get run over stops the musing over the day, frustrations that I had at work, or fuming over dumb drivers. There just isn’t time for that, you just ride, watch for cars, and ride more. I take the long way home (19-27 miles) home a few times a week, and pass cows, sheepies, sometimes both. Fields, historic houses, so pleasant. Driving has become the exception, and I find myself wondering what will I do when it isn’t summer and it is dark and cold, driving will become normal again, and I am a little sad about that.

One thing I never thought about before was the smells. One thing that is drastically different on a bicycle is that you can smell things. In fact I think this is, besides the sheepies, my favorite part of bicycling to work and around town. People mowing lawns, charcoal barbecues being lit, the pizza place at mile 4.5 on the short way home. One thing that has always for me marked the seasons is distinctive smells. The smell of leaves in the fall, the first night it smells like snow, fresh spring smells, salt air at the beach. Even the M&M’s in the silver baby bowls at Christmas have a distinctive smell (I think it’s the silver bowls, but it could be just M&M’s at christmastime).

This year I have noticed the lilacs, the charcoal grills, and this week some flower that I vaguely thing is honeysuckle has bloomed at a few points on my ride home. Even the time Waltham Center smelled like sour milk (not sure what that was, but it was very distinctive) I am glad for, I would have missed it completely in a car.

It has slowed my pace down. I don’t listen to the news on the way home, and unless I check I don’t know what the stocks did that day. I say hello to the Hispanic guy on a yellow bike that I see in the same spot by the rail road tracks most days on his way to work. The weather is good most days, even when it’s raining. In short, it has greatly improved my days. 1100 miles so far, hopefully at least as much again before I have to put it on the trainer for the winter.

I was always a runner, and I thought of myself as a runner. Long distance running was where it was at, and where it would still be at if my adductor would hold itself together. But I am beginning to think I am a distance traveler instead. I am still sad when I see people out for runs that I can not go on, but I am generally satisfied and very happy about my rides and glad for them in ways I didn’t expect. Where one door closes, another one opens. And for anyone thinking, even mildly considering a Brooks Saddle, I say GET IT NOW. You will not regret it. I’ve had it a little over a week. It was comfy from day 1. I’ve done 200 miles, including a 45 mile flat and a 40 mile hilly ride on it so far and it has only gotten better. I am so in love with it. It goes so well with my bike, which as it turns out is exactly the bike I’d be if I were in fact a bike. I thought I wanted a new bike, because those are shiny and new and who doesn’t want a new of what they have. My bike is heavy. It has fenders. It is rugged – built for cyclocross and trails and jumping over barriers. I thought I wanted something sleek and fast and light. But as it turns out, I am slightly heavy, rugged – not mt bike rugged, but cross country rugged, camping/touring rugged – and all it wanted was a handmade, leather seat to point that fact out to me. If I were a bike, I’d have a handmade leather seat for sure. We’re soul mates. It’s color is officially listed as gangrene. Who wouldn’t want to ride her!

Ode to Running

I have posts about wool and knitting coming up, I swear. But today I wanted to mention the end of bike to work week.

There are a million things I don’t know about myself, a fact which confounds me. But by the time I’m 29, I am starting to realize a few things. I like to be around people but don’t like to be on teams. I am all about fairness and goals. I like to push myself physically for reasons that make little sense to others but somehow make sense to me. I like communities. I like technicalities. I don’t like things that are all about gadgets. I like history. I like feeling like I’m part of history. I am astounded by the subtleties of history and how it continues old things in new ways. I like science and math, especially in the experimental sense. I love spreadsheets. I don’t like stupid fiddling. I like things that serve there purpose specifically and the intricacies of why you’d pick that thing over another. I like things that are unique, in the ‘that suits you/fits you/works for you’ way, not in the ‘oh, that’s… unique’ way. I like things that are natural. I don’t like the latest fad.

For these reasons, I was lousy on softball teams (I went to one game and two practices… I was a lousy teammate. I I hate the prospect of possibly letting the whole team down by my girly swings and inability to come close to a ball never mind catch it). I love that the work you put into a training season or a sweater is evident in a personal record or a perfect sweater. I love marathoning. I love the running and knitting communities, people who ‘get it’ when the rest of the world is like “wtf man.” I love the technical training for marathons and the fitting of knits. I don’t have a fancy knitting case, but rather one made by me for exactly my needles – or more specifically my needles and those of my great Aunt Ester, who’s knitting and embroidery things still live in the same psychedelic knitting purses-turned-bags they’ve lived in the past 30-50 years.. I love the Boston Marathon and learning about traditional knits. I love seeing traditional knits done in a new way that normal people would wear. I get a familiar feeling when weddings, deaths and births happen, like this is the way things should be, this has been happening for thousands of years and a warm cozy (and sad but realistic in the case of deaths) feeling comes over me. I like graphing my miles run and my knitting charts and have spreadsheets galore for every possible thing. I don’t like sewing because if your corners don’t match or the left side is sloppier than the right, it’s not ok, it can’t be blocked, you can’t fudge it. I love that running requires sneakers, a pair of shorts, and a sports bra, knitting requires string and sticks. Even spinning requires fluff and a stick with a disk on one end. And Give me Wool or Give me Death (none of that stupid plastic stuff).

I’ve gone through many hobbies and goals and the ones that keep me going, in my soul, are knitting and running. Knitting is still there in all it’s glory. All of a sudden, on September 3rd, 2009, I picked up a rug after a hard run, and after 2 MRI’s and 3 doctors have ascertained that I tore my adductor tendon in a way that it just.won’t.heal. 1.5 years, a total of probably 6 months of PT and 3 doctors later, I’m finally in some sort of final phase of mourning over running. I will never, very likely, run a marathon again. I will possibly be running every other day for 5 miles maybe at a time. And I will be thankful for that. Running has been my stress relief, my savior, my friend through many many things. And to say I’ve been lost without it is an understatement. I cried for a week straight when it tore for the third time last Thanksgiving. I went for a final run on my birthday, Nov, 27th, knowing it would hurt like hell after but it was my birthday and damn if I wasn’t going to run.

While most people’s lemons is their doctor saying they really should get some exercise, how about running, my lemons were my doctor saying, I’m really sorry, you can run, eventually, but not like you think of running. Most people’s lemonade upon learning of an adductor tear is aww, shucks, I better get back to the couch. Mine is my bike. I’ve tried biking but it never gave me the euphoria, the total and complete happiness that running gave me. I’ve never gotten that, but I’ve admittedly never tried that hard because, well I’d switch back to running. This time I can’t. I’ve tried weights, which helped my physique but did little for my mental sanity. I need long distances, long times, speed, distance, and rhythm. I need something to keep my body busy while my mind wanders. Running was as much or more for my mind as for my body.

So at the end of April, I decided to try the bike for real. Bike commuting. Great for environment, money, and body. But I need it to be more, I need it to be my sanity. This past week was bike to work week, and the weather was lousy. I have, however, procured a fantastic don’t-kill-me-yellow jacket which as it turns out is waterproof, and my husband has a cycling cap I am borrowing and as it turns out biking in the rain is possible and even pleasant. It leads to you looking like this when you go to bring your bike into the basement where it lives.

But while wandering around a neighborhood in search of a less pot-holed road, in the rain, on Thursday, I finally got a glimmer of that pure joy that I could produce almost always by running. So I’m hopeful that this will work out, that it’s just a matter of conditioning and habit. I’m nothing if not a creature of habit. I am at the cape every weekend in the summer. I wear red pants every Wednesday for the past 6 years, I never leave the house without some knitting, we have homemade pizza every Friday, and I used to run 5 days a week rain or shine, 5 am or 6 pm. Here’s hoping biking can give me a little back. By the end of my 4th week of biking regularly, almost 400 miles later, I must admit, it’s no running, but my biking becoming more me, I’m more comfortable on it, and biking to work beats the pants off of sitting in traffic (and the extra 500 calories don’t hurt). This might just work out. I’m aiming for a century (100 mile ride in a day) by the fall, and while I have no doubts about my ability to complete it (I still maintain that anyone without a bum leg or knee is fully capable or running 26.2 miles with proper training, the question is in the desire) it will feel hella good to be back in the game again.

I’m a cool kid now

I am a runner, have been since I was 13. I’ve been a lousy runner, a lazy runner, a hardcore runner. The point being I’m not a cyclist. I have a bike, and I really enjoy commuting on it and riding when I can’t run. But not being a cyclist, I never did the whole gear thing, I had bike shorts, because, well, they’re important if you know what I mean. But until a few years ago, I didn’t really ride ride. 3 or 4 years ago, I started making the 10 mile trek to work on my bike and back, and I love it. It’s the greatest way to commute. Saves me at least 1.5 or 2 tanks of gas a summer and is a great way to get a workout done on non-running days. And I do love my bike. Not least because the official color is gangrene. But it’s great.

Now, riding the past few years I’ve learned several very funny things about cyclists that I never knew. Riding in groups has a whole etiquette that goes with it, some for safety, but some things you just don’t do. A co-worker spent a lot of time riding with a morning group and he had some great stories. I learned a lot about cars, and the percentage of the road they think they own and the percentage they think you own. One of my favorite things I’ve learned about cyclists is that it’s all about the gear. Which pedals, which outfit, which bike, which shoes, which carbon water bottle holder.

I didn’t have any cycling kit, being a recreational cyclist. I always thought cyclists were very snotty. I would see them wave to each other but they wouldn’t wave to me. I’d be riding along, feeling very sporty in my shorts and race shirt* and my shorts and helmet and my cool bike with drop handlebars, and they’d just ride on by. This continued for years until earlier this year. I was out for a ride and it was warm so I decided, hey, I’ll try out Greg’s jerseys, thinking if it was comfortable, I’d get one of my own. And you know what? All of a sudden, cyclists were waving, saying hello, generally being way less snotty. I was amazed. I ran an experiment where I rode in my cotton teeshirts and a real jersey several times before I was convinced that that was it, that makes you cool.

I now have one jersey, and am clearly in the club.
*For non-runners, race shirts are the teeshirts they give out at races which you eventually accumulate to the point of not being able to open a drawer or closet without a pile falling out. They’re scrub shirts.
PS. Wear your helmet.