Tagged: daily commute

Welp

This sucks.  Apparently going on a 25-mile ride after not having biked for two weeks, then adding a week’s worth of daily commuting trips was too much for my right knee.  It started to hurt about a week and a half ago, so I purposefully did not ride at all for six days.  I figured that would be enough to give my knee a rest and let it heal.

Well, apparently I was wrong.  During my commute to work today, my knee began to hurt almost as soon as I left home.  Yes, it was a victorious commute, as I broke a record for cold-weather cycling, but a sore knee is still no fun.  And with all the group rides I have coming up, apparently I need some time off the bike.

Sigh.

So I’m going to get in touch with some friends who are much more experienced cyclists and ask their advice.  Let’s hope that I’m back up and biking soon.  In the meantime, I plan to continue to my writing here, only not doing much riding.

New record

I was really excited when I watched the local news last night.  The weather guy was predicting a really cold night here in Memphis.  This means that I would have a really cold ride to work this morning.  And the weather did not disappoint.

This is a screenshot I took with my iPhone as I was leaving for work.

Yep, 18º Fahrenheit.  Pretty frickin’ freezing.  Actually, the bike ride was not that bad.  My knee has been bugging me so I rode rather slowly, but when I got to work I was feeling rather toasty.  Comfortable even.  (Read more here about my cold-weather biking gear.)

I can’t say I’ll be disappointed when the weather warms up in the spring, but I am enjoying these frigid temperatures while they’re here.

Mind the Gap

I haven’t watched it yet, but there’s a new documentary on Vimeo.  It’s called “Mind the Gap” and it’s about sustainable urban transportation.  One of the topics the webisodes covers is biking.  As soon as I get a free few hours I’m going to give it a watch.

Anyway, here’s the link.  Note: I had to open a Vimeo account to subscribe to the webisodes, but I think you can watch it without subscribing.  Enjoy.

My Route, Then and Now

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.

Continue reading →