Torgo trains for Tour de France (w/o drugs)

Drugs would make this easier.

My goal in riding my bike to work was to get some exercise and save some money -- parking isn't feasible, so the alternative was the train, which is super-convenient, stopping half a block from our apt, then right outside my office. But since I don't need to walk for the train, it takes away all exercise (unless I walk to a different stop, which seems dumb).

The train takes about 25-40 minutes one-way, depending on how busy it is. The bike takes 20-25 minutes going to work, 30-40 coming home. (Lots of downhill going to, lots of uphill coming from.) So, it's actually faster, almost always, to ride to work.

It's 5 miles, pretty much on the dot. So, to and from, M-F, that's 50 miles. But I have yet to ride 5 straight days. Usually, I ride Mon/Tue, take the train Wed, and then ride Thu/Fri.

Why? Because I'm weak. My legs hurt. Those hills coming back haunt me. By Friday, the only thing that keeps me going is the thought that I won't have to climb hills on the weekend. But this is often strangely negated by my climbing of hills on foot on weekends, sometimes pushing a stroller or carrying the boy.

So I put in about 40 miles each week. I'm slowly phasing into my existence as a biker. I bought gloves -- the cool ones without fingertips. Why don't they have fingertips? I'm not sure. They just look bad-ass in a very 1986 sort of way.

I also got a bell. That's less bad-ass. The bell is useless with stupid cars (or, as one warning near the end of a bike path puts it, 'death monsters'). The bell is for people on foot and other bikers. About 1/4 of the ride is through parks on paved trails, shared with people on foot. That includes parents with strollers (whom I sympathize with, granted); joggers and walkers (whom I don't mind sharing the paths with, except for this one guy who runs on the wrong side--maybe he's British, I think he's just a jerk); the homeless pushing their shopping carts laden with trash bags (SF is full of the homeless); and dog walkers.

I worry about hitting dogs. I don't want to. But I also don't want to use the bell. I think that a dog might hear the bell and go towards it. Why? Pavlov, maybe. I just don't want to hit a dog.

So far, in about 3 months of riding, I've only hit low-hanging trees with my head. I almost rode into a trash barrel once. I've had lots of close calls with cars. I witnessed a motorcycle cop pull over 2 SUVs making illegal left turns at the same time (each one thought he was pulling over the other -- he managed to get them both). I also discovered that the people who plant sprinklers in parks do so without regard to the paths. Once a week or so, I have to dodge some serious water. It's like a slip 'n slide on wheels.

This has been my biking post. Have a good night.