My Bicycle Commuting Persona
Welcome to May, National Bike Month!
National Bike to Work Day is Friday, May 17!
I’ve been bicycling to work and for most of my other local transportation for 22 years now. I’d always admired people who traveled everywhere by bicycle, but for more than a decade before that, either I was in a job that didn’t have a stable location, or I lived too far from it, or I had young children and couldn’t support spending as much of time on my daily commute.
In 2002, my family moved, and suddenly I was only 5 miles from the office I went to every day. The kids were in school, and I gave bicycle commuting a try. Not only was it possible, it was rewarding. Beyond that, I suddenly was part of “bike culture,” meeting road riders, or mountain bikers, or bicycle advocates… or all three! I got involved with the Bicycle Coalition of Maine, educated myself on how to be a better bicyclist, and started riding the roads around my house for recreation on weekends.
Being a bicycle commuter is very different from being a car driver. You’re outside the car and outside the norm, and sometimes you really feel it. It can be challenging, like when a driver harasses me for riding legally on the road, but it’s always interesting. Sometimes, I feel like a different person. Specifically:
Bicycle Commuter Superhero
Think of Clark Kent, or maybe Peter Parker. My superpower is being able to travel almost anywhere locally for transportation using only my own muscles, and I really love that I can do that! One minute, I’m out on the road “battling” cars (not really, but sometimes it can feel that way), controlling my space on the road, communicating with motorists to “stay back” or “go ahead.” Super Bike Commuter! Then I arrive at my office and take off my “costume”, Suddenly I’m just plain old John Brooking, mild-mannered office worker and introverted computer guy.
Astronaut
The accessories game becomes more challenging in the winter, when I need to add extra layers for warmth, and lights for the daily evening trip. Clothing must be donned in just the right order: Starting with rain/snow pants if necessary, then proceeding to winter boots, jacket, face and head covering, and helmet. Then I must switch all the lights on before finally donning mittens, sometimes after activating hand warmers. It’s basically a pre-“flight” checklist.
Mr. Rogers
Other times, especially in the temperate spring and fall, I just feel like Fred Rogers of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. I’m probably still traveling in a jacket for warmth here in Maine (and reflective for visibility), and sneakers. I arrive at work, trade the jacket for a fleece vest (because air conditioning), take off the sneakers and put on work loafers. I put the jacket and sneakers away in the small closet space in my cubicle. Reverse the process to leave. Look at the camera and smile. 🙂
This National Bike Month, try traveling somewhere by bicycle, and let me know how it makes you feel!
Thanks so much for the article and thanks for your honesty about “battling” cars. I can really relate. I live with many entitled drivers and they really get upset when I take the lane. I experienced many near misses but some are more menacing and egregious by honking, yelling and following me. I wear front and rear cameras so I can call in all of those to local CHP. They send out warning/education letters as long as I can get a license plate number. I have a log of >100 letter requests.
I am a fellow commuter. I started small and worked my way up. I rode thru a couple of winters in Detroit area. I figured I could always take the car if needed but basically never did. We got a few days that were particularly cold so I worried about a mechanical issue since stopping would have been risky, but it never happened. Since I passed right by my son’s school, I dropped him off. He just sat on my rack! I probably should have put on some foot pegs and spoke guards but he was well versed and the school was only a few blocks away.
I now live in SF Bay Area and winters are even easier! I used to ride my twins to pre-school 5 miles each way. I would pile the trailer up with groceries on way home. I have photos with them buried in cereal boxes etc. When the kids got old enough, they commuted to school by bike.
Since we live near a subway station, I get around the whole of the bay area by bike/BART. Transit has really extended my range. The combination is so powerful!
Nice! Thanks for sharing your experience!
I have long since retired, but I have positive memories of my bike commuting days. My commute was 13 miles each way, a little bit more than an hour each way typically. For me that was too long to do every day or in the winter months in Metro Detroit, especially if there was salt on the roads. In the warmer months, if it was not raining in the morning and I wanted to bike to work, I would just do it and then take my chances with the weather on the way home. A locker room with shower facilities was available and necessary after a commute of that length. It was a great way to stay in shape for recreational rides on the weekends.
I worked at the GM Technical Center. Some people were surprised to learn that bicycling to work there was even allowed at an auto manufacturer. I also had friends who worked for Ford who figured out how to commute by bike. While GM did not promote bike commuting, they did make bike racks available in secure locations. In recent years GM even provided on-campus bikes for employees to use to get from building to building on the sprawling campus, just like I had seen years before at NASA Ames in the San Francisco Bay Area in my grad school days. ( I also bike commuted there in the 1960s, about 6 miles each way.)
Metro Detroit is certainly NOT the ideal bike commuting environment. In the 1970’s when I moved there I quickly learned that if bicycling to work there was going to be an option, it would depend very much on where I chose to live. Detroit itself is eminently bike-able, meaning it is not difficult to find routes from A to B that are mostly on thru side streets with less motorized traffic. If you want to be a bike commuter, this is very important. You will tire of it quickly if your route to/from work is completely unpleasant.
As the Metro area developed, at first someone had the wisdom to create lower-speed half-mile roads parallel to and in between the arterial mile-roads. I took advantage of this by choosing to live where I could make use of the half-mile roads for most of my commute. Friends who tried to bike-commute from homes further north where there were no half mile roads did not keep it up due to the unpleasantness of their commute by bike.
My advice to anyone who would like to bike commute is to research the area where you will be working as you decide where to live. Hopefully you will be able to find a job and a residence that allow you to have a safe and pleasant commute by bike.