Tales from the early days

Like an old man on the porch outside the general store, I’ve been reminiscing about my early days of bicycling, before I knew what I was doing, before I considered myself a bicyclist. Each of my stories has a moral.

9. Money makes the bicycle wheels go round

After major abdominal surgery in October of 2005, I began bicycling whenever I could, instead of when I had to. I wanted to recover at least as much fitness as I had before surgery, if not more.

In January of 2006, I drove to work for the last time. It was snowing and I thought it might not be safe on a bike. One fellow in a truck with a snow plow attached was merrily clearing the parking lots around the hospital. Push the snow forward, zip back with a twist, push the snow forward, repeat, like a dance. I waited at what I thought was a safe distance, until I realized that he was backing up straight at me! I laid on my horn, which he heard, and as he continued to back up at a brisk pace, he looked around trying to see who was honking. Finally I frantically tried to put it in reverse and get out of his path but it was too late. He ran into me. Insurance paid for the repair (mostly), but to me, this was a message to stay out of the car and stick to my bike.

I can hardly articulate what I love about bicycling. There are so many things. Sometimes I think the ego trip is the driving force, sometimes I think it is how safe I feel on a bike, sometimes I think it is the endorphins that I love. The first year, I spent a lot of time on my bicycle calculating in my head how much money I was saving. Mental math distracted me while toiling up the toughest hills.

Since we shared the car, driving to work for me meant Iain had to make 2 trips: one to drop me off and one to pick me up. I calculated that with our car’s mileage and the current price of gas (about $3/gal at the time), I saved us $1 in gas alone every time I bicycled to work.

If we had 2 cars, one trip to work would be just one trip to work, about 50 cents in gas. However, the median cost of car ownership is $9,000 a year according to AAA, totaling up all expenses (not just gas). Since we have not owned a 2nd car for over 10 years now, my bicycling has saved us $90,000.

The moral of this story is that money is a powerful motivator.

Tales from the early days
Like an old man on the porch outside the general store, I’ve been reminiscing about my early days of bicycling, before I knew what I was doing, before I considered myself a bicyclist. Each of my stories has a moral.
8. My origin myth
Superheroes have origin myths. Superman was a foundling in a spaceship. Wonder Woman was an Amazonian princess. My debut into bicycling and my identity as a bicyclist has an origin narrative, too.
I became a bicyclist when we became a one-car family. It was only going to be until we could afford a car, but I discovered I love bicycling and I love not having a car payment. We never did buy a 2nd car.
During my first year as a bicyclist, I biked when I had to. Sometimes I biked to campus and drove home with Iain, sometimes we drove to campus and I biked home. I thought maybe sometimes he could bike and I could drive, but he wasn’t interested.
It was the second year that I started bicycling whenever I had a chance, and I only drove when I had to. That was the year that I had a major abdominal surgery. I learned of other women whose lives were forever changed by the procedure. I was terrified that I would be prematurely old (I was 31). As soon after the surgery as I could with permission, I started doing stomach crunches every night until I could do one sit-up. I tried to do one more sit-up than I had the night before. Within a year I could do 100 sit-ups! Even when I was in the best shape of my life, I had never been able to do that before.
I started biking to work within a few weeks of my surgery. I biked slowly, but the nice thing about biking was that it didn’t hurt. The hunched-over position was actually comfortable. I biked whenever I could. I only drove if I was picking up Nell from school, or going out to eat with my family and they didn’t want to bike.
The moral of this story is that, just like not being able to afford a car payment was one of the best things that ever happened to me, major abdominal surgery also turned out to be one of the best things that ever happened to me.

Tales from the early days
Like an old man on the porch outside the general store, I’ve been reminiscing about my early days of bicycling, before I knew what I was doing, before I considered myself a bicyclist. Each of my stories has a moral.
7. Blessing in disguise
My bike didn’t see a lot of use until 2004. We’d gone to Chicago for my first postdoc position. There was a fellow in the lab who biked 12 miles every day to work. He was tall and skinny and strong. I peppered him with questions. Was it safe? What about when it was cold? What did he do when it rained?
Those are the questions I find annoying nowadays. If it rains, I get wet, I don’t melt. If I want to stay dry, I wear rain gear. If it’s cold, I wear warm clothes and very warm gloves. It’s funny to think that I probably know more about bicycling now than he does, especially about bicycling with traffic. I wonder if he still bikes, or if he finally bought a car. He biked because he liked it, and didn’t want to spend a lot of money on a car. It’s expensive to own a car in Chicago. I paid three times as much for a parking permit at the University of Illinois – Chicago than I had at the University of Missouri, and I had to park in a gravel lot that was sometimes full and was always so far away from my office that sometimes I rode the shuttle instead of walking, especially at night, especially when it was cold (which it always is in Chicago), and especially after the creepy alcoholic homeless guy sitting on the corner asked me for details about my undergarments and shouted things at me. I sometimes wondered if I should bring my bike on my car so I could get to my office in a reasonable amount of time.
That was a miserable year for us so when I got a postdoc fellowship, I looked for another lab to join and found one in Columbia. On the move back to Columbia, we didn’t want to transport 2 cars and a moving truck, so we sold the older car. I was not excited about having to share a car again and we had the added trip now of driving Nell to school. Nell went to private school thanks to a generous scholarship from another parent because we couldn’t afford private school tuition. The scholarship covered most of the tuition but it wasn’t free, and we had to choose between a car payment and private school. I had a horror of public schools because of my experience with public school. But even with the thought of having to share a car, it was an easy choice. Besides, maybe I could use my bike sometimes.
I biked my route to work on a Saturday, just to see if I could do it. It was a hot July day and I was drenched in sweat. There were some steep hills, but it wasn’t too bad.
The moral of this story is that not being able to afford a car payment turned out to be one of the best things that ever happened to me.

Tales from the early days

Like an old man on the porch outside the general store, I’ve been reminiscing about my early days of bicycling, before I knew what I was doing, before I considered myself a bicyclist. Each of my stories has a moral.

6. Lazy and out of shape

After we moved to Columbia, I worked for ABC Labs for a few months. We lived north of town, and ABC Labs was also north of town. We shared one car, and it wasn’t easy to get our toddler daughter to daycare and both of us to our jobs. I did all the driving and worked part-time. One day I thought I’d try biking to my job. I had no idea how long it would take bike 11 miles but I thought maybe 45 minutes. When I arrived, an hour and a half later, Iain had called the lab several times frantically worrying because I wasn’t there yet. He picked me up and drove me home at the end of the day.

That was my first attempt since college at using my bike for transportation. I didn’t try it again for several years.

I hated having to share a car, having to wait for someone to pick me up, having to make extra trips to drop someone off and pick them up, having to hang out awkwardly with nowhere to be waiting for someone else to pick me up. It wasn’t long before we took on a car payment and a 2nd car.

In graduate school I was appalled at how far I had to walk to go to seminar. It took me over 20 minutes. I thought that was ridiculous. I started bringing my bike to campus. I could sit at my computer an extra 15 minutes and ride over to seminar in just 5 minutes.

The moral of this story is that I was getting out of shape by the time I was 24. Today, I don’t think less than a mile is worth the trouble of biking, I just walk it. Also, it doesn’t take me 20 minutes to walk that far.

Tales from the early days

Like an old man on the porch outside the general store, I’ve been reminiscing about my early days of bicycling, before I knew what I was doing, before I considered myself a bicyclist. Each of my stories has a moral.

5. Frostbite

I had a little pair of knit gloves. I hadn’t needed any better gloves than that, walking to campus wearing a backpack with my hands in my pockets or driving around town with the heater on. I wore those gloves through the winter. Springfield is far enough south it doesn’t get as much snow as northern Missouri. But it gets some snow, some cold weather, and the wind chill on a bike makes it that much colder. When I got to campus I tried to warm my hands under the tap water of the sink. Even the cold water felt boiling hot. My fingers hurt every time I biked to early morning calculus study sessions on cold days. I’d had to drop Calc II the previous semester, so I went to every single study session the next semester.

I not only passed Calc II, I got an A in it. But I also got frostbite on my fingers. For years afterwards, my fingers swelled up every time they got cold. Even just washing my hands in cold water made my fingers swell up.

The next year we were married and I was pregnant, and I still rode the bike to campus rather than walk 20 minutes. I bundled up in my winter coat. I thought I would walk on icy days, because pregnant women shouldn’t fall off bikes. But one day I didn’t know it was icy. It didn’t look icy. It didn’t feel icy until I tried to turn the corner and the bike slipped out from under me and I landed on the road. That scared me, but I guess my thick winter coat cushioned the fall. Anyway the baby was fine.

The moral of these 2 stories is 1) wear good gloves and 2) watch out for ice, especially on the corners.