The original purpose of this blog was to highlight my utilitarian trips by bicycle. I have always enjoying bicycling, but I did it more as a sport or pleasure. It was occasionally a mode of transportation. If it was a really nice day or my car broke down, there was always the bike.
In 2008, I changed that. I looked at my bike as the first vechicle and my car became what I used when I could not use the bike. The only thing I miss about driving is listening to the radio at ungodly loud volumes.
I really began slowly. It was a trip to the grocery store or church. Then I would try school every once in a while. Eventually, I began riding to school every day. There were times in 2008 that my car sat in the driveway for more than two weeks.
By the end of 2008, I had ridden a hair more than 3000 commuting miles. (I did not count pleasure rides.) That is more than 1000 more miles than my original goal. To put that into some sort of perspective, I put roughly 6000 miles on my car during 2008.
There are a number of things that I learned throughout the year...
- Those white lines that are painted on the road to tell the cars where to stop get very slippery in rain.
- There is nothing better than riding in a snowstorm.
- Riding with kids is awesome.
- There is an art to dressing for the rain. I have tried more than once to create a post about it, but I have a hard time putting it into words.
- After a while, the cars really do begin to get used to you being on the road.
- The worst thing about doing a blog is the guilty feeling about not updating it.
- The second worst thing the shamelessly promoting it.
- I really need to take better care of my bike chain.
- Other than my email, the only website I check every day is Yehuda Moon.
- There is a certain peacefulness to riding everyday.
- If I do not ride, I start to get crabby.
- Golf courses have a funny smell.
- Beer tastes better after a long ride.
- Beer tastes better during a long ride.
- I can carry anything I want on the Xtracycle.
- Secretly, I like it when people are amazed that I rode on a bike.
- I really need to get my backspace key fixed on my keyboard.
4 comments:
Happy New YEar! Here's a goal: ride more miles on the bike than in the car (pleasure miles count because of the bias towards the car on longer trips).
A banner year, indeed!
This year, I am going to count all miles. I think the car will win simply because I use to to drive from Columbus to Cleveland often.
I have a couple of longish (more than one day) trips planned for the year. Maybe I'll be able to do it.
Don't feel about the time you spend promoting your site. I find that I spend about half as much time dropping tidbits like this one as I do actually creating content.
Shameless plug for my blog.
A buddy and I were talking the other day about blogging. I contended that you could break down bloggers into several groups.
1. The person who establishes a blog, realizes that he has nothing to say after the second posting and gives it up.
2. The person who may be a good blogger, but only writes for personal satisfaction and for a small circle of friends and family.
3. A person who would like to reach a larger audience, but lacks the writing or graphical skills to provide something of interest.
4. The person who has the technical skills, but doesn't know how to market their site.
5. The person who has the technical skills (40+ years as a photographer and reporter in the ink-slinging business) and who is willing to beat the bushes to entice readers to come to their site.
did I mention that'd I'd REALLY like for you to sample my blog?
6. The person in #5 whose traffic has achieved critical mass and doesn't have to beat the bushes to generate interest.
It would be super nice to achieve that Level 6. Maybe then I'd be able to afford some of the cool toys and trips I lust after.
A long time ago I thought I would use Google Analytics to figure out how many hundreds, of people visited.
At the time, I think the largest number of visitors I had in one day was about 20. I stopped checking after that.
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