The pain ...

... it continues. So it's actually been, like, three whole days in a row! that I've biked into work. The morning commute, not so bad, especially after I bought a pair of bar ends, which allow me to achieve a more comfortable, forward-leaning position. The ride home, almost totally unbearable. The heat washes up from the asphalt, there is a dry, hot, stiff wind that blows in my face almost the entire time ... and all the loonies are out in full force. You'd think people have never seen a bicyclist before. Anyways, I also bought a rear light while I was at it, and not a moment too soon as I had to ride into work in some heavy fog this morning. The most difficult part is still dragging my ass out of bed at 5:30 am. Fortunately I've been making lunch the night before, so all I have to do is get dressed, pack up the bike, let the dogs out to pee, put them back in, and then head on down the road for my 35 minute ride.

Who knew reducing your carbon footprint would be such a pain in the ass?

I did it!

I biked into work today. Eight miles in a shade over 30 minutes. It wasn't too bad this morning, saw maybe a couple dozen cars on my ride in. I'm not sure what it's going to look like later this afternoon when I head home around 3:30 - 4:00. There are a couple of places where there is absolutely no shoulder whatsoever, so I have nowhere to go if someone doesn't give me enough room ... well, except down into a ditch. Hopefully drivers will be courteous and give me wide berth. Most of them did this morning, so here's to hoping the afternoon drivers are just as good.

I'd be doing somewhat better if I was feeling 100%. Spent part of the day at the beach on Monday and wound up with sunburn on the back of my knees, and then pulled my calf playing softball last night though it was a good night at the plate (3 for 5, 1 HR, 3 RBI) and in the field so I suppose I'll take it.

At any rate, I hope to keep this biking trend going. Not only does it help me reduce my carbon footprint, it allows me to give my wife my car which has better gas mileage than her beast. With gas hitting almost $4/gallon, we need to find a way to save some money ... and this is one of them. Of course, I guess I shouldn't complain. Watching the news this morning as I was eating breakfast ... diesel in England is (in US dollars) almost $9/gallon. Holy crap.

It rained today ...

... so no biking into work. That was a good thing because I had to lug two textbooks, the 1293 page Manual of Environmental Microbiology and the 1069 page Methods for General and Molecular Microbiology from home. I don't think I would have made it if I had to bike to work. BTW, the Manual of Env Micro is an excellent resource.

I was serious when I said ...

... I was going to do it.

Went out and bought a Slime kit (complete with Slime and air compressor) and repaired both tires on my bike. Washed the bike down and gave it a good rubdown with a microfiber cloth and checked my brakes and gears. Everything looks to be in working order, even though I did notice a couple of broken teeth on the outer chainring (which I'll eventually need to have replaced). So, come Monday, if the weather permits (and part of me is hoping it won't), I'm going to cut down on my carbon footprint a bit!

I'm gonna do it!

I've been procrastinating, partly because I'm a lazy bum, partly because ... well, I'm a lazy bum. Along with just about everyone else, I'm floored by the price of gas, and it's killing me. So, I've been looking at other, inexpensive, options. I'm not looking to buy a new vehicle, partly because I don't want to deal with payments, and partly because I want to see where the market goes in terms of new technology. No point in getting a flex fuel vehicle (FFV) only to see the market turn to electric. No point going electric only to see newer more efficient models three years later.

With that said, my options were as follows. 1. A motorcycle. Chicks dig motorcycles, right? Maybe, but my wife ... not so much. If I were to buy a motorcycle, I'd have to take a safety class (her request) which isn't so bad. The local community college offers one. 2. A scooter. There are some cool looking Schwinn scooters, that run around $1.2k to $3k. They seem to get great gas mileage too. One of them purportedly can get 180mpg with a 200lb load. Not bad. But do I want to waste my entire "economic stimulus check" on a scooter? 3. A set of new tires for my mountain bike.

Well, I think I'm going to go with option #3. I did this once before when I was living in Illinois, but a slow leak served to be a major pain in my rear and I stopped after about a week. I live about 8 miles from work, some of it without much shoulder but if I leave early enough, I should avoid most traffic. None of it is really major road. So, maybe this weekend I'll buy a new set of tubes for my slicks (with the green slime in it, if I develop yet another set of slow leaks), install them and start biking to work. I figure it should save me around $25 dollars a week. So the first week alone, if you figure the tubes will cost me about $8/tube, I should save approximately $9. And I might even lose some of this gut in the process.