Becoming a bike dude

I’ve been sick with a cold for over a week now. I started getting sick last Wednesday. By that night I was feverish and dizzy. Dizzy is a weird symptom, right? I don’t usually get dizzy. I started freaking out about how I could not be sick because I had to go to work, I just started this job, bla bla bla. I slept for 14 hours that night which mostly fended it off. No longer dizzy, but still feeling like crap, I figured the only way to drag myself to work was to take the bus, where I could sleep while in transit. So I did that. I figured maybe by Monday I’d be up for doing part of my bicycle commute again.

Sunday night, the car broke down as I was driving it. My boyfriend usually drives to work. Now he needed the T pass. We can only afford one T pass. So it looked like I was bicycling to work on Monday.

Not only did I manage to do my whole random 12 mile route, I finally made it up the hill! Many thanks to the gears on my bicycle for helping me and my legs.

I’m sorry, too, that I haven’t done anything for Bike Week because I’ve been sick. I slept in on Sunday. Tomorrow morning there’s that thing at City Hall plaza, but I don’t feel up to waking early to get over there. It’s just bad luck, I guess, that I’m sick specifically for Bike Week!

Today I woke up unable to decide if I’m starting to feel better or if I’m just becoming accustomed to having a chronic cold. It was a short, one-job day today so we’ll see how I do tomorrow . . . but I tried the hill again just to make sure it wasn’t a fluke. I huffed, and I puffed, and I made it. Again.

As I pedaled to the “summit” (It actually levels off a bit at my street and then keeps going up) a little girl on a scooter stood there staring at me. I gave her a big grin and said, “Phew!”

I then turned down my street. The girl scootered behind me at a distance and then loitered outside of my house as I maneuvered the bicycle inside, watching me and then making conversation with kids passing by in a way that seemed like a pretext for getting them to stop and stand there so she could keep standing there without looking odd. I wondered what she wanted, but I felt awkward trying to talk to her.

I guess I figure that when I’m actually seen as male by most people it would probably look strange to strike up conversations with elementary-school-aged little girls unless it’s in very specific, overtly appropriate contexts. Maybe I’m just being paranoid but I know this is the sort of stuff I need to figure out. And yeah obviously I’m not a psycho or a predator, and it’s terrible that all men who show a normal interest in children are viewed with suspicion . . . but since that is the case I don’t want to keep doing the “wrong” thing and then have some kind of slap-in-the-face moment later on down the road.

Hopefully I’ll get the hang of this two-jobs thing and be able to make time to update more than once a week, but here are some thoughts from my first week biking to work:

+ Tuesday: Ow ow ow. Why do I have bones in my butt. WHY. Maybe I should’ve eased into this bike commuting thing a bit more?!

+ Highlight: awkwardly passing another cyclist at the Jackson Square intersection because a car was sticking into the crosswalk. We both weaved a bit and managed to avoid bumping into each other. “Sorry,” she said with a smile. “It’s okay,” I responded. She obviously hadn’t done anything wrong, it was just awkward and we were pleasant about it.

+ I don’t care if you’re so talented that you can ride your bike with no hands while texting (true story) — if you don’t have a helmet on, I’m assuming you’re an idiot. On some level, yeah, you must be an idiot.

+ Wish I had a bell. Wish people used bells more. I get it, you feel like you’re “in control” (especially when you’re not going very fast down a path) but the pedestrians you’re passing could do anything. I almost hit another cyclist because I passed a group of pedestrians to their left and then was moving slowly back to the right side of the path when someone blew past me. A ringing bell would’ve been great at that moment. And I was moving gradually, so this person probably noticed before reaching me that I was moving to the right. Maybe they just figured I was going so slowly that it would not be a problem? My reaction: yikes.

+ A guy passed me in a bike lane, calf muscles like steel cables. Maybe that’ll be me someday.

+ I still can’t make it all the way up my hill. On Friday, three driveways before my street, I stood up to try making it just that much farther and still couldn’t manage. This hill is really steep and big. My favorite story about it is when, not long after moving into my current place, some friends were driving me home at night. We crept up this hill and I said, “Wow, this hill is awful! I’m glad I don’t live on this hill.” Right then we turned onto my street. “Oh.” My friends busted out laughing. Apparently I did live on that hill, I’d just never taken that street up this hill before. Now if I can say that kind of thing in a car, imagine how bad it must be on a bike.

+ I’m not doing this for speed, but I am hoping for some health benefit, so . . . maybe I should work on my diet a little. Eating a slice of pizza, a snickers bar, a cup of coffee and a pancake as a day’s worth of food is not exactly helping my health. Just looking at that list makes me feel gross.

+ I registered for the Mass Commuter Challenge. I think it’s pretty silly but hey — a chance to win bike gear? Sounds good.

+ I added up my commuting miles when I registered: 12 miles round trip. A baby commute! Not too shabby for a beginner, though.

Today I woke up at the normal time and rode my bike to work. It only took 15 minutes (which is actually how long Google Bicycling directions claimed it would take, although they wanted me to go the wrong way up a couple one-way streets so . . . that is not how I got there). It was mostly downhill or flat.

I left work early because I’m about to start a new second job, three days a week, and wanted to see how long it would take me to get from Job A to Job B.

At first I wasn’t sure how to get to the Southwest Corridor. That took a few minutes. But with the wind at my back, it only took me 20 minutes to arrive at my destination. It was damn impressive. Not that I’m so fast — I am super slow and riding a dumb, heavy mountain bike.  I am impressed with cycling itself: on a bike, this trip took half as long as it would on the T. It was like driving with no traffic. Amazing.

Usually I ride the bus. The difference in how liberated I feel commuting by bike is astounding. On my way home I thought about how that must be why anarchists are so into bicycles. First, you have the feeling of independence and individualism from riding independent of so many restrictions (bus schedules, gas stations). This is also a trait that is supposed to be manly. Rar, rugged individualism. Why have I never been into that?

Oh yeah, because I don’t actually believe any human being can survive without a community. It’s not natural and it’s pretty stupid to try it. Hence the other reason I’d guess anarchists are so into bicycles: it takes a whole community to support bicycles. There are people who make bikes, people who fix bikes, people who advocate for bicycle infrastructure, and all kinds of people who ride bikes.

There’s also the part of the picture where bicycles are a human-scale technology. I don’t have the time or inclination to learn everything about fixing a car, and most people can’t do this anymore even if they want to, because so much of cars these days is computerized. There’s too much specialty knowledge that goes into a car for most people who drive cars to know much about how to work with them beyond filling the gas tank, changing the tire, changing the oil, and maybe using jumper cables.

With bicycles, you can learn a lot more about them. And if you can patch your tube, change a tire, tighten a few things, and oil your chain? It just adds to the feeling of independence from being on a bike in the first place. You know that if you get a flat you’re not stuck or done for . . . the way you might be if your bus or car breaks down en route.

Not that no one ever gets stuck out in the middle of nowhere with a busted bike, but arming yourself with the knowledge and equipment to prevent that from happening seems a lot more doable than it does with a car.

Lowlight of my trip today: This cyclist (a white guy in a puke-orange rain jacket) sneezed to his left as he passed me going south on the Southwest Corridor. We were riding into a strong head wind. Um, yeah. I’m just glad his snot landed on my arm instead of flying into my face.