Following the move of our office headquarters in December 2010 from the suburbs, Lake Oswego, to downtown Portland, OR, my goal was to use my bike as my primary transportation. The move changed my one way distance from 15 miles down to 5 miles.
Prior I had signed up to help with the BTA*'s Bike Commute Challenge in September through a co-worker, fellow cyclist. I committed to 1 bike commute per week. I continued with a 1 per week commute through November.
The 3 work days I had in December were bike days, as has been every day in January, so far. I am loving the closeness, it feels like "wow, I'm already there" now. I've had clear, cold days, overcast mild days and, of course, cool , wet days. I'm having to trial and error the right combination of layers to meet each type of weather condition.
The other cool thing, is that my son, when he is here, bikes to school (a bit over 4 miles) since I am biking to work. I use to drive him. Escorting him adds about 5 miles to my total, round-trip commute, but we are enjoying it. He has picked up no-hands riding on only our second trip.
Plus, we find ourselves smiling when we look over at the inbound, freeway traffic, cuz we are sometimes moving quite a bit faster.
Well, I'll be writing more and sharing some of my solution creations I've developed, using my converted MTB commuter, which I call my SUB**. I am planning to write up my custom light mounts and how I managed to mount full fenders on my son's road bike which does not have any eyelets (it is a late '80's tri type framed bike).
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*Bicycle Transportation Alliance
** Sport Utility Bike
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