I don’t remember who or what first motivated me to begin biking to work; it might have been my brother, who regularly bikes to work from his home in Seattle.  It might have been the realization that I was driving 3.5 miles one way to work (about a 10-15 minute drive, plus time looking for parking), when I could easily walk that distance in an hour.  (I’ve still never tried that.)  It might have been the sinking feeling that as I sauntered through my 30s, my metabolism was not getting any faster, and that if I wanted to avoid becoming fat and feeble in my old age, I needed to get my exercise on, and fast.  Or, it might have been a desire to cut down on my carbon emissions and contribution to traffic congestion. Likely, it was a combination of all of those factors, plus some I’ve forgotten.

Whatever the case, my first challenge in biking to work was planning my route.  I’m a planner by nature; I love maps, spreadsheets, numbers, labeled files, and having an organized life.  So after spending hours poring over Google Maps, this is the route I came up with.

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