A little background...

OK, I've got it easy...sort of. I mean, my commute is pretty short compared to many bike commuters throughout the country. The most direct route from my house to my office is a shade over 2 miles...3 miles if I make the detour to the local coffee shop on my way to the office.

So, my typical commuting day is a three mile ride in the morning (hauling two mugs of hot coffee - one for me and one for a co-worker), a two mile ride home at noon for lunch, a two or three mile ride back to work after lunch (mileage dependent upon if I need an afternoon coffee fix), and the final two mile ride home after work. So, altogether, I get in somewhere between 9 and 10 miles a day.

I live in a small community with one traffic light. Part of my ride is on local, residential roads, part is on a new bike path that the town created a couple of years ago, about half a mile is on a state two-lane 55 mph highway, and about two hundred yards is on a gravel (or mud, depending on the weather) road.

I've been commuting on my bike for the last two months, and I have fallen in love with it. It's not just the gas I've saved, or even the weight I've lost since I started. What I've really fallen in love with is how it makes me feel. I arrive at work more alert, more motivated, more alive than I did when I drove everywhere. I find myself anticipating my ride home before lunchtime even arrives, and the ride home at the end of the day is extra special. I can unwind, get fresh air, clear my mind, and prepare to be the husband and Dad that my family deserves when I arrive home.

I should say, up front, that I did come into this new relationship with bike commuting with some conditions. The primary one was that I had to be able to wear my work clothes on my commute. My ride is short enough that I don't have to worry about working up a big sweat, so my only challenge is how to protect my work clothes when the weather is bad or the gravel road is more mud than gravel. I expect this to become more and more of an issue as we head into the cold Minnesota winter.

I am in the earliest stages of discovering how to make this bike commuting thing fit into my life. I intend to document what I learn through trial and error, and look forward to hearing what others have learned as well. This should be an adventure!