Category Archives: Biking

Moving my preggo booty

With the exception of Christmas weekend and my sick day last week, I’ve achieved my goal of getting to the Y three times a week since I rejoined in mid-December.  Part of my workout is getting to the gym.  It’s 3/4 of a mile from our apartment, which is a distance that I absolutely refuse to drive.  If the weather is so bad that I cannot walk there (which is very rare), I just don’t go that day.

Most days, I alternate walking and running on the trip there.  Other than the walk/run to and from the Y, my workouts mostly consist of weight lifting, though I’ve thrown a couple of Zumba classes into the mix.  The first class was a disaster, with my uncoordinated limbs all over the place, rarely in-sync with the instructor.  I went to my second class last night, and it went much better.

I’m not a complete Zumba newbie.  In fact, I bought the video tapes back in college, when Zumba was relatively new.  After my embarrassing debut at the Y class, I searched for the tapes so I could work on my moves in private, but they’re nowhere to be found.  Fortunately, Zumba is a great cardio workout, and it’s FUN — like one big dance party — so I’ll just keep going to the classes and work on my skills there.

Tiny Choices just posted on the environmental impact of gym exercise:

. . . there’s not much of a contest that exercising at the gym is probably not the greenest way you can exercise. . . . in general [a gym] is a large open space that is kept brightly lit and heated/ventilated at all times. That is a huge energy sink!

Fortunately, they did not conclude that gyms are a bad thing to be avoided at all costs, and they give some helpful suggestions for making your gym-going as green as possible.  For me, the fact that I am paying for a gym membership is definitely a motivating factor — I want to get my money’s worth!

Anyway, after the decidedly sedentary start to the beginning of my pregnancy, I’m very happy to be getting some regular physical activity.  I’m looking forward to continuing to use my bike for transportation on the weekends, but that’s a bit limited due to weather and road conditions this time of year, so for now, the Y is a great option.

Of recent bicycle escapades

A small snowfall that melted and then froze into a nice slippery layer, followed a few days later by freezing rain, made our streets rather bike unfriendly for a full week.  St. Louis makes no attempt to plow or salt anything other than the biggest roads, leaving many of the ideal cycling routes treacherous for bikers, pedestrians, and drivers alike.

Fortunately, things warmed up a bit toward the end of last week and into the weekend, and we were ready to roll (albeit with caution for those icy patches that remain where the sun don’t shine) on Saturday and Sunday.  I ran a few errands by bike on Saturday, followed with biking to church on Sunday.

Both rides were lovely, with the only treacherous spot being the icy patches in our alley.  On Sunday, I encountered the obligatory jerk driver on The Hill.  He was quite outraged that I delayed his trip by 30-60 seconds for a 1 1/2 block stretch where there was not enough room for him to pass me safely.

His tirade included the oh-so-helpful information that I was operating my bike illegally — that the law* said I could ride no more than two feet from parked cars — and HE KNEW because he raced bikes for 30 years.

Well, Mr. Jerk picked the wrong lady to quote “cycling law” to, but I really wasn’t able to get a word in edgewise.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t carrying my handy-dandy, ready-to-hand-out copy of Missouri Bicycle Statutes.  (I have copies, and I’ll be ready next time.)

Realizing that Mr. Jerk was not in a state to make this encounter remotely positive, I eventually biked away, with two thoughts in my head:

  1. “If he thought that riding within two feet of parked cars (i.e., squarely within the deadly “door zone”) was a safe cycling practice, it’s a bit of a wonder that he survived 30 years of cycling.”  His comment was not surprising, as I see plenty of the spandex-clad crowd riding in this unsafe position on a regular basis.
  2. “Small penis.”  Sometimes this is the only logical conclusion when one encounters an unreasonable male motorist who thinks he owns the road.  This thought, combined with some deep breathing, did much to help restore the equilibrium of my nice Sunday morning ride.

* I have no idea where he pulled this from (okay, maybe I could take a guess 😉 ), but this is NOT a law in Missouri, nor is it a law anywhere else as far as I know.  If you think about how far a car door would swing out if suddenly opened, two feet is clearly not enough space.  I try to ride 4-5 feet from parked cars — you want to be out of the path of the door if it were to suddenly swing wide open AND confident enough in that distance and your position that you won’t swerve out into traffic should a door in fact open.

Better than Cash for Clunkers

I just read about Canada’s cool Retire Your Ride program that allows people to trade in their old, higher polluting car for a newer, somewhat less polluting car.  Hold up, wrong program!  Wrong country!

Actually, Canada’s program is much cooler than that — it helps reduce the number of vehicles on the road and encourage alternate means of transportation by providing vouchers for bicycles or public transportation.  Neat idea, eh?

Click on the link above to find out more about the program — you can even view the presentation in French, if that’s your thing.

This kind of makes me wish I were Canadian — depending on how today goes, maybe we’ll move there.

 

Baby Jake is famous!

I discovered this cool site, EcoVelo, just in time for their “Why I Bike” photo contest.  Click here to see my Baby Jake in all his glory.

While you’re at it, browse through the other “Why I Bike” photo entries — some of the photos (and stories) are simply spectacular.  If those photos don’t make you want to go out and jump on a bike, I don’t know what will (but I’ll keep trying to motivate you, anyway).  Entries include people and bikes of all shapes, sizes, and ages, many with amazing scenery.  I’ve never done any bicycle touring, but it might be time to change that.