Alec bikes to work!

Happy Bike to Work Week! This past Thursday, May 15, I finally biked to work from home. Normally it is a 20 mile drive each way for me (mainly highway), but thanks to 'the Google' I was able to map out a 16 mile route that would avoid major roads. Google Maps is great, in that it allows one to drag the route and it snaps to another road. My one complaint about the program is there is no 'shortest route' option. They do have a 'avoid highways' option but it still includes local highways. When I map out the route from my house to work and select 'avoid highways' it directs me onto the death trap of Route 1. That road is dangerous to drive a car on, there is absolutely no way I would ride a bike along it. I drove the route to work three times last week to familiarize myself with it. Driving it took between 50 minutes to an hour.

I left at 6AM with my packback sitting in the milk crate on the back of my Trek bike and arrived at work at 7:15AM. I think that's pretty good time considering it is a pretty hill 16 miles and I was actually following all traffic signals unlike some bikers. I also have a 'hybrid' bike which isn't as bad as a mountain bike for street riding but is still more work than a true street bike. The only tough part was right at the very end as my work is at the top of a big ass hill. My legs were really screaming at me at that point, but the rest was pretty easy. What's nice is my work has a shower, so after arriving I showered up, changed, and was at my desk before I normally am anyway.

The ride home was a bit tougher as it was rush hour and I had to deal with more cars (and people after a tough day of work ready to get home), but it still was pretty easy. I left at 5:15 and arrived home at 6:35. The extra five minutes were from a wrong turn near the end which I stupidly made. Not to be smug, but it is pretty satisfying when there is a huuuge line of cars waiting and you can fly by on your bike.

How much gasoline and money did I save? I avoided driving 40 miles. Assuming 30mpg for my car, that's 1.33 gallons of gas. At $3.72 for a gallon (around average price now), that's $4.96 direct savings. Not a lot, but that also does not add in the 'hidden costs' of driving like maintenance, oil changes, depreciation, etc. If I can start biking once a week for 30 weeks per year, that would be $149 per year savings gasoline alone (assuming same gasoline price). With the price of gasoline only going up, the direct savings will be more. Accounting for the indirect costs, the savings will be even higher. This will also save 1200 miles from my car per year.

I can't see myself biking to work every day. But for now one day a week should be good. Maybe I can increase that to two days a week. It really was fun, and great exercise. I don't have to go to the gym or go running before/after work when I have ridden 32 miles that day! One thing I need to work out though is putting less weight up high on my bike. Maybe some of those paneer bags that ride low on the back of the bike would be a good purchase, along with carrying less extra weight. Despite the load I carrided not being a lot of weight, I could still feel it when I was going to go over a big bump in the road and stood up on the pedals. The bike really moved differently with an extra load up high than with just the bike weight. Calculating how the bike would behave going over a bump with that extra load up high would be a good system dynamics problem to solve!

Why did I do this? Well the exercise is a plus, I love being outdoors as much as possible, and the money savings is nice too. But another big reason is trying to reduce my negative environmental impact. Despite my various actions to reduce my impact, I really could do a whole lot more. If everyone in the world lived my lifestyle, there would still have to be a number of Earths to support us all. Knowing I'm doing one more thing is great. Plus, I'm sending less of my money to big oil companies and overseas to other countries whose politics and policies don't always jive with me well (I saw a woman on a bike last year who had a sign mounted on it that said something to the effect of "Biking- one small way to protest oil wars" That's a great political statement right there). Unlike that old Boston Area car dealership ad that prices are going "Down, Down, Down, Doo-oown", the price of gasoline and fuel is going up up up. Oil is around $125/barrel and gasoline is near $4/gallon. What can we do? Our genius president wants Saudi Arabia to produce more oil and to open up more of Alaska to oil drilling. Is that really the solution? Why not reduce oil and energy consumption? Isn't that much smarter solution in terms of pollution, long term sustainability, keeping more money in America instead of sending it to the Middle East, etc.?

Another great thing about me biking to work is related to my having been talking it up a lot to coworkers about how excited I was to do it, how I'd be getting exercise and saving money, etc. It is probably not all because of me, but one coworker who lives 5 miles away biked to work the other day for the first time and says he will keep it up! Two other coworkers have at least mapped out the route and are considering it also. Fantastic! Now if only more of America could be convinced to bike more often, that could really make a difference.