At the beginning of this year, just as the weather began to warm in the spring time, I got the desire to challenge myself to ride my bicycle to work as many days possible during the summer. It was an endeavor mostly born out of a necessity to save money on gasoline, but carried along with it the additional perks of being a great source of additional exercise and being a nice change of pace to the typical daily routine.
The distance from my apartment to work was 4.7 miles, making a daily bike ride a 9.4 mile round trip. After attempting a trial run first in April, I discovered that the trip would take me about 25-30 minutes one way. I waited for the average daily temperatures to reach a consistent level before attempting to begin my summer long venture; that time had finally come the week of May 8th.
Part of my original goal was to, at most, ride my bicycle to work at least 4 days out of a given work week. Although, that wasn't always possible, due to many factors such as inclement weather, holidays, and after work commitments that required the use of my automobile.
In fact, that first week was off to a mediocre start, as I had only managed to utilize my bike on just 2 days. The second week was even more pathetic, as I garnered only a single day on my bike. After that though, the weeks progressed nicely. Starting with Week 7, on through to Week 11, I managed 5 straight weeks of riding my bike to work at least 4 days in each given week. In Week 14 and 17, I managed to ride all 5 days, by far my most successful two weeks.
I kept up my bike to work excursion for 20 straight weeks over the summer, finally ending all attempts the week of September 18th. I would have liked to continue on for a few more weeks, and very well could have with the beautiful weather we had last week, but my scheduled sinus surgery and the required 2 weeks of "no strenuous activity" following that operation caused me to call it quits a bit prematurely.
In total, over the 20 weeks, there were 100 work days, but 3 of those days were paid holidays off and I took another 4 vacation days off, so really there was only a total possible of 93 days in which I could have rode my bicycle to work. Of those 93 days, I actually managed to utilize the bike a total 65.5 days, the half day attributed to the one day in Week 4 where I rode my bike in the morning, but got a ride home from my co-worker due to rain. So that comes out to a respectable 70.4% of the total possible time that I was able to ride to work, with an average of about 3.3 days a week; feels pretty successful to me.
Although, while I still rode my bike to work, Week 18 must have an asterisk next to it, as it cannot be classified as a full bike-to-work week in regards to the original guidelines I set out from the beginning. That week, my parents were out of town on vacation, and I had the task of house sitting for a few days. They live significantly closer to where I work, so much so that a bike ride from their house only amounts to a 1.5 mile round trip. So out of the 4 total days that I rode my bike to work in Week 18, 3 days were the shorter distance from my parents house, and the 4th day was back to the full distance from my apartment.
Taking all that into consideration, I rode my bike about 592 total miles this summer. Through it all, I experienced all kinds of weather, from riding in chilly temps in the upper 50's to surviving through a week-long heat wave that had temperatures in the high 90's, with heat indexes expanding that up to 110 degrees. I dodged the threat of rain many times, struggled through high winds, and survived almost being hit by inattentive motorists at least 4 or 5 times. I also dealt with a foot peddle that broke halfway through a morning ride, and wore down my bike tires significantly to the point where they will have to be replaced before next year.
While the original prediction many analysts made early on, that gasoline would rise to over $5 per gallon this summer, thankfully that never happened, although it did manage to get close and it made me all the happier that I was saving money by not filling up my gas tank as often.
Before I started my bike riding in May, the last time I regularly filled up my car with gasoline was about a week and a half prior, on April 28th at a cost of $55.70. That fill up lasted me almost an entire month, thanks to the number of days I was able to ride my bike. Normally, I would have to refuel my car every 1.5-2 weeks, so by riding my bike, I effectively doubled the amount of time between fill-ups, significantly reducing the amount of money I was wasting.
In fact, throughout the entire duration in which I was utilizing my bike, I only had to buy gas once every month. Here are my fill-ups for the entire summer: $54.60 on May 22nd, $45.01 on June 25th, $52 on July 21st, $50 on August 7th, and $50.25 on September 11th. My next, and most recent fill-up, occurred on October 11th at a cost of $44.25, well after I ended my bike riding for the summer.
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