Bike Commuting and a rant

Have you ever felt the urge to ride your bike to work?

Most would answer this with "No".

In light of the highest gas prices I have ever seen in my life, driving is more and more becoming a unnecessary deed... to some degree. I live 20 miles from work. If I get out at 5:20 or so, I can haul across the vacant streets of Arlington, Texas and off in to the country to Burleson, Texas. Getting back home is a mish mash of turns and side streets avoiding the main arteries of the 4-5:00 rush hour. The real upside of this is that by the time you get home, I have already had two workouts of over an hour each and my weight will come off doing that.

I use Light & Motion ARC LiON and ARC Nimh battery powered HiD lights along with twin Cateye tail lights. In order to lighten the load, I will drive to work on Monday and carry clothing and groceries for the week ahead. This keeps me from having to lug a huge load from home on the back of my bikes. So far, I have only commuted on the DeRosa with a rack trunk in tow. Once it warms 10 degrees in the morning, the rack trunk is history. I may even ride one of the studs to work.

My strategy for doing this isn't to totally get away from driving but rather to curb my driving expense and put off maintenance issues. If you could save 20% or 40% of your weekly gas expense, would you? In September 2005, I spent around 30 dollars in gas. That was right after Katrina and before Rita. A very tough stretch for gas prices. I rode to work about 14 times in that month.Now, however, with Bernanke rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, the price is inching closer to &4.00 per gallon. I am not thrilled spending $45 to fill up. $64 bucks to drive one week is total crap.

I wonder if Bernanke rides a bike to work. Perhaps at his next job working overnight at 7-Eleven, he gets the opportunity to reap what he has sewn.;