Cycling Project

Today I did something a little bit weird… or weird for me at least. Now you may be wondering what could be weird for someone who runs 12 mile obstacle courses for fun, reads books over cosmology, and rides a bicycle 10 miles for cup of coffee in solitude. Well today I did that immensely weird thing known as driving my truck.

Complete Madness

Yes while most people spend a great deal of their lives tethered to their vehicles, something as seemingly normal as firing up the car is a huge detour from my usual day. I’ve talked before about how I’m slowly dipping my toe into the world of cycling, and over the last few months I have eschewed driving for biking in most instances. Luckily my house next to Coe enables me to ride my bike to work as well as downtown. If I have a little free time and want to partake in a new coffee shop or do a little reading I can takeoff for my destination with no problems. This riding has been helped out a great deal by the amount of bike lanes being added around Cedar Rapids. It turns out those lanes aren’t just for passing on the right like I was previously led to believe. Those lanes are actually for bicycles and the people said bikes carry. One drawback of this whole system is that people in cars are most often hell bent on crashing into cyclists like a big game of pin ball.

One more biker and we get an extra ball!

I haven’t biked a lot back home but I’m sure this little problem would be even more prominent there. If you’re not polluting or killing something with your daily commute then the license gets taken away. I have no doubt that for my previous statements I’ll probably be forced to sacrifice a vegan before being allowed back in the state.

We need you to prove your loyalty before proceeding into the state.

Here is my next project: I have reset the Trip Meter on my truck’s odometer and plan on seeing how far I drive in the next few weeks. At the same time I will track how many miles I bike each week. And I hope this project gets carried out with more vigor than some of my previous ideas like my New Year’s Resolutions which are laying scattered in my mind like confetti in Times Square. I won’t count the time I am away for Thanksgiving or Christmas since I won’t have my car or bike with me while I’m gone. That would obviously make no sense for the purposes of this project. Some of you will probably point out that we are heading steadily toward winter and I’m not exactly a huge fan of the cold, but I plan on continuing this endeavor even when faced with the cold. I rode 20 miles yesterday with a starting temperature of 27 degrees and quite enjoyed myself. I know that sounds like madness, but for me driving my truck? That sounds like madness.

Total Miles Driven today: 8