Looks Like I Made It

You know what would have made my bike in to work easier today?

Having more than one gear.

You know what would have made a lot of sense?

Testing my bike out ahead of time and, thus, finding out that only had one gear.

The other gears are still there, but my bike steadfastly refuses to utilize them. You hit the little shifter thingy, nothing happens and then 20 seconds later the pedals start spinning around independently of the wheels and the bike gradually slows down. I’m thinking that some basic maintenance and a stern talking to is in my bike’s future.

By the time I realized what was up, it was pretty much too late to turn back. So, I just kept going. Because, as has been well established in this here blog, I are smart. 

It took me about an hour to go approximately 6 miles. Not bad, considering I had to walk part of the way (I was not going to make it up that last hill with only one gear, plus I took a wrong turn and ended up at a dangerous intersection and wasn’t too keen on becoming road kill my first day).

It takes me about a half hour to drive and at least an hour to take the bus. I figure that, once I get this whole gears and getting lost business taken care of, I can probably make it in 45 minutes. That’s not a bad compromise, plus I’d be getting in some extra cardio.

We won’t talk about my depressing foray onto the scale yesterday. Let’s just say that I could use all of the extra cardio that I can get.

The only thing that I miss is listening to NPR in the morning. I always listen to the radio when I drive and I almost always listen to NPR podcasts when I take the bus. I’m told that I could still use my iPod while biking, but that’s just crazy talk. I’m not even sure if I should be trusted to listen to podcasts while walking. My propensity to walk into things is just too great. Add in a bike and cars and it would just be a recipe for disaster. 

If I was a bigger asshole than I already am, I’d mount a little speaker to my bike and let everyone else listen to NPR along with me.

So, yeah, I made it. I enjoyed it. I think that I will continue to do it. I was surprised at how quickly the time passed. It almost made me feel like we don’t live in the middle of fucking nowhere. And I got to relax knowing that, if I left the house 30 seconds later than usual, I wasn’t going to miss a bus and fuck up my whole morning.

Not bad.