Bicycle Commuting

The City of Tucson is trying to promote riding your bike to work. You'd think they'd have employees (of which I am one) set the example by giving them incentives or something. Budgets being tight, I can see where the problem may be, but for my health, and cost savings, I'm going to give it a try anyway. I'll start one day a week, and see how it goes, especially as the weather changes into the Summer.

My path is around Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, down Golf Links road then all the way down Aviation Parkway to the Public Works building downtown. The map of the route isn't exact due to the nature of bike lanes and the Snake Bridge, but it's close. It's about 12 miles each way. At 6:30 in the morning the ride is nice and cool (for now), but the ride home at 5:00pm at 80 degrees isn't going to be as nice.

So today I took my bike, a 3 year old Trek 4100 Alpha mountain bike, and rode it to work. The rear tire was flat, but I had self-sealing tires so I pumped it up and was ready to go. Halfway to work the tire went flat again. It appears that sitting for a year didn't keep the self-sealing goop in good condition. I pumped the bike up again and almost made it to work before it was flat again. I didn't ride home on it because I didn't feel like pumping the tire on the way so I called my wife to pick me up.

I made the trip in about 60 minutes, so that's an average of 5 minute mile. For my first bike ride in years, and my first ever long distance bike ride, I don't feel I did too badly.