Biking to Work

I like to bicycle. It is fun. I do not like red lights during the evening commute. Not fun. I like the idea of going green. I do not like paying $4.00 a gallon of gasoline. I like the idea getting more exercise, in addition to all the furious typing I do during the day. I could go on and fill a library with other stuff I like and do not like, but there is an advantage to stopping right here... because "biking to work" addresses all of them at once. Ever since I moved to Tallahassee in 2006, I've been trying to do that 2-3 times a week, all year around.

And I'm loving it.

It actually started inauspiciously. The very first day I got a flat tire at almost exactly the geometrical mid-point between my source and destination. Compounded by the fact that my wife was still in Ann Arbor, and all the people on my cell-phone still had a (734) area code, I was left with no alternative besides dragging my bike four miles. Luckily, I met a good Samaritan, on the way, who put me and my bike in his truck and gave me a ride home.

The best part of the whole exercise (no pun intended. Don't you absolutely hate it when people pun, and then say no pun intended?) is that after I come back home I feel amazing. All the tightness accumulated by sitting on a chair in front of a computer (as much as I love my job - and I do) for hours untangled, released and transformed to suppleness. It is exactly the opposite of what I feel when I drive to work. For a small town, Tallahassee has terrible traffic, and very few things make me as mad as having to stop at the same traffic signal two times.