Category Archives: Biking

Weekend update

Once again, we made it from Sunday through Friday without the car, but it made an appearance again on Saturday.  I think that habit will be hard to break as long as we are commuter gardeners, but it does make me think crazy thoughts like, “Do we need to own a car at all?  For as seldom as we use it, couldn’t we just rent a car once a week?”  Perhaps . . . .

Saturday was full of gardening and food preservation.  I canned pear preserves (to be discussed in a future post) and prepped more fresh basil for freezing.  We will be enjoying lots of pesto in the coming months — no complaints here!

Sunday dawned rainy, great for all the little seeds we planted yesterday, not so great for biking to church.  I resolved to bike in spite of the rain and ended up staying relatively dry, due to convenient breaks in the rain that corresponded with my travels (and due to my fenders).  In the afternoon, we needed to run an errand that involved exchanging a long handle of a tool with interchangeable heads.  When I say “run” an errand, I do mean literally.  The store is 1.25 miles from our apartment, but we weren’t sure how to safely and securely attach a seven foot pole to a bike.  I was highly opposed to driving, so I suggested walking, which became running (well, jogging actually) to save time.  No doubt we looked highly ridiculous, running through residential neighborhoods carrying a seven foot long red pole.

Mission complete, we returned to begin a cooking/baking extravaganza, including roasted beets*, vegetable pot pie, and apple pie**.  This was our first time making the vegetable pot pie with all local vegetables: potatoes*, butternut squash*, carrots*, green beans*, sunchokes**, and onions**.  We love this pot pie recipe, but before you are fooled into thinking that this is a super healthy dish, in the interest of full disclosure, this recipe has 3 sticks of butter in the crust and filling.  Three sticks in a recipe that’s meant to serve four people!  We stretched it into six servings — this means I consumed a half stick of butter in one meal.  Oops!  Maybe we’ll go with even smaller serving sizes in the future.

No biking for you

Yesterday I biked to work as normal in the morning, fully intending to bike home in the afternoon, despite the little detail that I was donating blood.  No big deal, I’ve given blood plenty of times before and always bounced right back.  The warning, “Do not do strenuous exercise or lift heavy objects for at least 12 hours [after donating],” was written for other people, not for me, right?

For better or worse, I never got to test whether or not their warning applied to me, because I got sidelined much earlier in the process.  I was reclining on the cot, donation almost complete, when my vision started to blur and my head got fuzzy.  I could hear them saying my name repeatedly, but it took me awhile to realize that I was supposed to respond.  The staff quickly lowered my head, raised my feet, and placed cold packs on my neck and forehead.  And I was back.  And feeling ridiculous for almost passing out.

Fortunately, I completed my donation.  (They took the “lightweight” amount of blood.)  However, after spending 40 minutes on the cot recovering (including one relapse), walking back to work with my teeth chattering (when it was not cold), and feeling really drained the rest of the day, I was perfectly happy to take public transit home.

*Note: I’m not sure what made this one time different than the 20+ other times I have donated blood, and I will certainly not let this one time deter me from donating in the future.  However, in the future I will NOT assume that I will be able to complete a 6-mile, moderately strenuous bike ride just six hours after donating.

How not to drive

Exhibit A
Exhibit A

Today we will talk about proper behavior at intersections in congested traffic, class.

Rule 1: If you cannot clear the intersection due to backed up traffic in front of you, DO NOT ENTER the intersection.

Rule 2: STOP before entering the intersection.

Rule 3: If you fail to follow Rules 1 and 2, you might get stuck in the middle of the intersection when the traffic light changes (see black oval in Exhibit A, representing a car).

When this happens, you are a sitting duck — other drivers trying to use the intersection will become irritated with you for blocking it.  However, that does not make it okay to reverse into the OCCUPIED CROSSWALK, where I am crossing with my bicycle.  Just because you are in an awkward, dangerous, and ILLEGAL position, you do not have the right to run over me.  It is not my fault you are not aware of and/or cannot be bothered to follow some simple laws of driving.

Who needs a car?

We’ve now gone over a week with one car, and except for our rainy Saturday morning errands last week, we may as well have had no car.

Over the past six days, we’ve been to church, Home Eco (green general store), the Japanese Festival, the park, the Greek festival, the grocery store, the dentist, choir practice in the suburbs, and a community meeting about street design, all sans motor vehicle.  We also engaged in the normal biking to work during that time.  From Sunday morning to Thursday night, we covered 117 miles on our bikes.  That’s 117 miles not driven.

You built this . . . for me?

We spent the morning of Labor Day completing our own little personal biathlon — bike, run, bike. In the middle of the last biking event, we refueled at the Greek festival. Eating spanikopita and baklava is normally part of athletic events, right? I guess if you count the eating, it was a triathlon.

Anyway. On the way home, we noticed that the construction workers also had the day off, leaving the completely closed for construction interstate along part of our bike route wide open. A beautiful expanse of smooth new pavement with no cars to be found. And, oh, would you look at that? A gap in the fence — perfect for walking a bike through.

We tried to resist, really we did. But in the end, it was just too tempting. In a few short months, the interstate will reopen, serving only the all important motor vehicle, encouraging and enabling our car culture. But on this day, it was all ours, and it was beautiful. We only rode a short stretch, since we were at the end of our biathlon and ready to get home, but it was enough to make me want more. Just think of the possibilities, if there were interstate systems for bicycles, a way for us to safely and easily travel longer distances. A world where our transportation infrastructure not only supported but truly prioritized biking and other forms of alternate transportation. More green dreams . . . .