I pride myself on the fact that I ride my bike on a fairly regular basis. By fairly regular, I mean two or three times a week, every once in a while. I used to be much more consistent, until this winter when I fell of the er…wagon? Bike?
No better way to get back on the bike than Bike to Work Week! My hardcore cyclist colleague Joanna Ludlow invited me to join her team. That was all I needed. Or, so I thought.
I got signed up on the Bike Hub website and took this on full force. So, I rode to work every day. I live at Main and 15th Ave, so it’s a pretty solid distance (in my humble opinion). Every day, I logged my rides. It takes about 40 minutes and 12 km each way. My inner competitive side came out.
There’s quite a few teams at UBC. The next largest team is the City of Vancouver. Well, I wanted to win, something, anything. I really didn’t care. I rode my heart out. I was pretty sore after the first 3 days. But, I was not giving up.
Turns out, I was one week early.
Yes folks, Bike to Work Week was the next week. Oh well! That first week really reminded me how much I love riding my bike. So, I started at zero kms logged. But by the end of the week, I had logged 8 rides, or 113.84 kms, burned 3,415 calories and saved 25 Kgs of greenhouse gases. Pretty awesome!
A side bonus of this experience was all the comradery. There are bike hubs all over the city where you can stop and get a free treat, a bike tune up and make new friends. There’s even prizes to win. People were interested in chatting about your commute: they love to compare rides. All in all, it was well worth the extra effort to get organized at night.
If you did the Bike to Work Week or are a regular commuter cyclist, please share your experience in the comment section. What do you love about cycling?