I drove my bike route with my dad (at night, no traffic), and it took 45m. I would’ve expected a half hour. that’s only twice as fast as biking, and my time will drop with practice for sure…

took two . off following the 23.5m sojourn in the dark & rain on Wed, so I was itching to get out but also facing a full day of family stuff.

so I decided to try the route starting with Washington street righ tnear us.

there are a couple of small hills, nothing terribly difficult. the real pain is that there’s no room to cross the bridge under construction unless you jump up onto the also-under-construction sidewalk.

looking at google maps afterward, it looks like East st is still my best  bet (flatter & shorter, can’t argue…). but I am going to try this way of cutting up crossing over Washington st. to get around Bellevue Hill. I don’t see a way to avoid Centre st entirely and its traffic without taking some of the hill, but who knows I’ll look at alternatives over time.

stopped by Dedham Bike and wow it is quite a store. made me think of getting a luggage rack and some snap on bags

every cyclist should read this in self-defense: http://ow.ly/Gjcd

some have objected to the results of this study, saying for example that because the report just compares the % of crashes that involve pedestrians/bicyclists for each type of car, there’s not a big surprise because hybrids tend to be driven more in cities and at low speeds (which is where you get the mileage advantage).

but even if you look at the comparisons ONLY for accidents at intersections and at speeds lower than 35mph, the incidence ratios are way, way different. so I think there’s something to this study.

and I am horrified at people like this who drive hybrids and hate bikers: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/08/13/the_cure_for_road_rage_bike_laws/

turns out that my bike commute involves the highest point in the city of Boston: Bellevue Hill. It’s 330′ at its peak, though the part that Washington St. traverses is closer to 300′. I had been calling it “Mount Washington” until I realized the proper name.

It’s pretty steep, so I have been looking for ways around it. Centre street in West Roxbury is one way (only 200′) but it’s really busy with traffic and has no bike lane, so that’s not great. Another is to come up the hill on Enneking Pkwy through Stony Brook Reservation, which still means going up the whole hill but with a bike lane, not much traffic, and a slightly more merciful ascent.

Another alternative is the paved bike paths in Stony Brook Reservation, but these are fairly torturous for me at present.

Even so, parking at Stony Brook is only a good idea if you are taking the commuter rail home (getting off at Hyde Park). Otherwise it leaves your car in the middle of nowhere, and you have to climb Bellevue from the other side and then ride your brakes down Enneking (probably OK when it’s *not* raining…)

this morning my back wheel was wiggling a bit as if a spoke was loose. turns out it was not only loose but broken – a huge CRACK in downtown Boston.  luckily, a Cambridge bike store replaced it for me.

the plan was to ride back to South Station and catch the train to Hyde Park, then bike the half mile to my car. I rode down to the Memorial Drive bike path — WHICH BY THE WAY IS NOT LIT AND NOT SAFE TO RIDE AT NIGHT — and the crossed the mass ave bridge. before long I found myself at the Southwest Corridor path — which is lit the entire way — and then realized I didn’t have a plan for getting to my car.

I had parked in the StonyBrook park and taken one of the murderously uphill trails (never again!!), so I had to  climb West Roxbury Parkway (could be worse I guess) and then ride my brake all the way down Ennenking.

The ride wouldn’t have been so bad if I hadn’t
1) worn my glasses, which completely fogged up and got blurry from the rain
2) been wearing jeans, which got soaked
3) or rather, HAD washed my water-resistant biking jacket and worn it. I had on Heather’s old fleece, which the water passes right through.

it took almost an hour and 40 minutes, but I made it!

I bought a bike last summer. At the time i didn’t plan to bike to work, b/c we live just a couple of miles from two different commuter-rail lines. But I was annoyed by the idea of having to pay $5/day to park my car after driving for such a short distance. So I got an entry-level Giant Cypress (steel frame) and started riding it to the train station.

Then a few months later a friend took me biking on the Minuteman Trail, and it hit me that I could bike a lot more than just a couple of miles per day. So I drove myself from Westwood to Roslindale and biked the rest of the way to MIT (about 6-7 miles). I couldn’t believe how easy it was.

Then I tried biking all the way from home (13-15m, depending on the route). I’m really tired by the time I arrive, and it takes longer than I’d like to admit, but it’s worth doing just to say that i did it. I’m not in great shape though so I have been trying to minimize the hills. In future posts I’ll talk more about the sorts of things I’ve been trying out.