Sunday, December 4

Conflicts in the Dark Season

Slightly Damp on Friday. The Rain was Reminiscent of Seattle as I Finished Coffee at a Seattle-Based Coffee Store
Lately, in this, the dark season of the year, I've been experiencing conflicts related to my bicycle commuting. You see, my new, shorter commute has allowed me to ride much more often on my v3 route than I did when I used to ride to Fort Worth Alliance Airport, sometimes referred to as "the v2 run." In moments of fantasy, I even imagine giving Jon Grinder, the "Cal Ripkin of bike commuting," a run for his money. Of course, that'll never happen.

However, amazingly, due to a combination of circumstances, I've managed to run up nearly as many miles in 2011 on a 7 mile commute as I did the year before on the 20 mile run. Still, "nearly" only counts in horseshoes and atom bombs. I'm actually about 150 miles down on the year, and now, in this dark season, I'm conflicted by the meaningless desire to come out "on top" and the much more meaningful desire to not lose out on what has mysteriously accumulated to a larger than desirable amount of "use it or lose it" vacation time.

2011 Mileage Is Close, but Vacation Beckons

Partly, this conflict has been getting addressed by taking half days of vacation, such as on Friday. After a hard, half day at the office, I stopped for a leisurely coffee on the way home. As I finished up, I glanced at my watch. All in all, a very "Seattle-like" day, with drizzle and an indicated bike computer temperature of a balmy 48F. Boy, some of these days at work lately simply seem to be FLYING by!
Hmm, It's After Noon, Better Hop on that Bike for the Daily Bike Commute Home!

In other news, our forecast suggests a remote possibility of some early December snow in North Texas on Monday night! Hmm, time to get those knobby tires ready yet?

7 comments:

cycler said...

hmm, can you add a loop to your commute, or would that be cheating? What about if you did your holiday shopping by bike- that would count as "transportation cycling" in my book!

Pondero said...

Yeah. I took the entire week off. The leisure time was magnificent, as was bike hours/truck hours ratio.

Tracy W said...

You know, when it comes to a use it or lose it in terms of vacation time for me, there is no conflict whatsoever. Besides, free time from work might perhaps offer an opportunity for a bike ride!

John Romeo Alpha said...

I find that riding farther helps me to work out conflicts, so you can resolve your distance record conflict by riding farther to determine if you should ride farther.

limom said...

I like the graph.

GreenComotion said...

Cool representation of data! I wonder if it will snow.
Paz:)

Will K said...

I ride less in the winter too. I have a folding bike, and one thing I like about it is that if the weather turns really ugly, I can just take it with me on the train on the way home. I think it still counts though - I mean, the important thing is to keep riding, even if it's not quite as much, right?

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