Bike 2 Work Week—Day Five

This past weekend I had to do all my laundry from the commutes last week.

The thing I recall most about last Friday’s ride, and Bike 2 Work Week, was that I was riding fast and strong. I decided to fore-go River Rd and jumped onto the bike route so I could just take it easy.

I rode most of the way to the office with a woman about my age. She had a new road bike, and was getting in a ride before work. She was, Gentle Readers of This Blog, quite obese—but as she said, she was trying little by little to regain the fitness she once had a few years ago. She told me the name of the cycling group she belonged to (I can’t remember it) and how they were a group of people, like herself, that set reachable fitness goals and encouraged each others’ progress.

She said that she would like to ride to work—but thought it much too dangerous.

So she asked about my rides and I put in my $.02 about commuting—about how I bring clothes to leave at work when I do drive in, and about how I gradually built up riding the round-trip commutes starting at different distances.

Tucson has a large group of fit cyclists on road bikes and they can be intimidating if you’re just starting out. The other extreme are the less affluent that have to take a bike because they don’t even have money for the bus. So we don’t really have an in-between set that rides to work because its close or because it’s good for the planet—they’re too afraid of being run over.

I know many people that live within 5 or 6 miles of the San but they will not chance riding a bike even on the side streets of their neighborhoods. Americans get in their cars and they become very up-tight pieces of shit—or just oblivious to anything but the conversation they’re having on the cell with their illiterate cohort in fucktardness…

I just do not understand the mentality of a person driving a car seeing a person riding a bike, simply to work or for an errand, and feel that person riding the bicycle must be punished for something.

Well, all I will say is that I had a good time riding my bike to work this week. Seems that every week is bike to work week for me, and many others in Tucson. I am very happy that Tucson had good weather, and that many people have worked hard to make changes in how this city sees cyclists.

Cheers! Bruce


Spring in the Desert. This is over by my bike locker at the Desert San.