the rubber meets the road

For those who don't know me, I moved from the burbs to right smack in the middle of town after my husband, Lee, died.  I'd wanted to make this move for awhile before that point, but Lee carved stone as a hobby and worked as a General Contractor, so a little house in town rather than the house with some land and outbuildings that we had was not practical for him.  Anyway, I did it, and I found a house a half mile from my job, which was amazing.  I could walk or bike to work everyday, and frankly it was easier and more relaxing just to walk, with podcast playing and coffee in hand.  I loved it.  Then my office moved a mile further away on the other side of campus.  I could still walk--23 minutes from door to door if I took every short cut and walked like a bat out of hell--but there is the dog.  The dog requires that I come home at lunch because, at 4.5 pounds, she can't hold her bladder for nine hours a day.  I don't like leaving her alone that long anyway.  It feels cruel.  She loves me so much and gets so sad when I leave that it feels like a minor sacrifice (most days) to spend my lunch hour with her.  Long story short, if I walked 1.5 hilly miles, four times a day, that's a lot of time spent walking, only to get home and walk some more with the dog. It's not that I couldn't walk that far every day, but it takes a lot of time and gets to be very exhausting by the end of the week given everything else I try to fit in. I'm no Spring chicken.

Another factor in this long, somewhat boring tale, is that I'm stubborn.  Like, really stubborn.  When the IU parking pass for the lots near my office went to upwards of $600 a year, I decided I was not paying it. Six hundred dollars is not that much in the scheme of things, but I live one-point-five miles from my office, damn it.  I should be able to get there without depending on a car.  Thus, we come to the crux of my story: I've committed myself to biking every day. I've spruced up my lighting system.  I have all kinds of rain gear from other adventures.  Today I ordered good, waterproof panniers.  That was the thing I'd been holding out on. Before my office moved, I hadn't been biking much anyway, and I've made it through this summer without them.  But my backpack is heavy, I've spilled coffee inside it a dozen times while biking to work, and if I have to throw in rain gear, it's just not sustainable. The panniers will make biking life easier.  So far this summer I've been mostly lucky in terms of rain, it's daylight when I leave, and the traffic isn't so bad.  That is all changing as the students return this week.  I've already seen three kids on campus riding on rental scooters the wrong way in the bike lane.  I ask myself how they even got to college, but having raised a couple of them, I know that 18 year old boys can be just plain stupid outside of their formal education.

Darkness, drizzle, and cold (which I don't mind that much) will be the true test of my mettle.  I think I'm up for it.  I like a challenge, there are many other benefits to biking to work, and I'm excited for the new panniers.  (Ortlieb, if you're a bikey type.  My bikey type coworkers highly recommended them.) In the end, this post is not so much about current action and adventure, although biking in town in Bloomington is always a bit of an adventure, but more about suiting up for the adventure of biking to work year round. Wish me luck.  (Photo: Ortlieb Panniers! Yellow!  Yay!)