Bike Commuting in Columbus

I'm starting a new blog all about bike commuting in Columbus. If you're interested, please check it out and join in the discussion I'm trying to start up.

Bike Commuting in Columbus

Pedal Power Push Proposed

Mighk Wilson (yeah, he spells it Mighk, apparently), bicycle and pedestrian coordinator for Metroplan Orlando, wrote an article in the Orlando Sentinel to discuss the steps that might be taken to reduce our nation's reliance on gasoline and foreign oil, and naturally his first thought was bicycling.

It only makes sense, obviously - but you won't believe some of the ways it actually DOES make sense, like the Norwegian study that says every dollar put into bicycle infrastructure improvement is recouped threefold in lack of health care costs, due to people actually being in shape from riding.

Most of the article is taken up with what might need to be done for bicycles to be more accepted as transportation and not recreation, which only makes sense as the world is set up for gas guzzling and not pedal-pushing.

It also makes a great point that is lost on many people who read about solutions to sprawl, global climate change, energy security, etc.: bicycling is not being pushed as THE answer. There is not going to be ONE answer. Bicycling is only part of the solution to this problem, obviously. Not everyone is going to be able to ride a bike everywhere. I don't ride my bike everywhere. I just ride it as often as I can. Some people can't ride because of a lack of ability. Some just have to go too far. Some need more cargo space than a bike can give. But I'm going to guess that MOST people could use a bike for most of their errands.

Read the article. Wilson just makes good sense.

Ice Bike!

Well, today was the coldest yet - a compression-shorts-loosening 6° wind chill factor. Add to that the fact that the wind was probably worse for a cyclist due to the increased wind factor from just riding a bike.... and I'm surprised I didn't lose parts. MY parts, not the bike.

But the funny thing is, it wasn't really that bad to ride in. I had the same stuff I always wear:

• my work socks
• hiking boots
• polypropylene long underwear
• bike tights
• long sleeved t-shirt
• fleece jacket
• windbreaker
• balaclava
• helmet
• 180s earmuffs
• bike gloves.
  

And it was fine. Sure, it was a tad chilly, but the glasses once again made the problem of too much tearing up go away, and just being out and getting some exercise made me warm. I wasn't exactly sweating when I got TO work, but I wasn't uncomfortable.

Layers, layers, layers. Not just for tortes any more.

Little Things Count

Last night on the way home, I took care of a problem that was starting to plague me greatly with the advent of our snowy weather.

Having caught a few snowflakes in the eyes on the way to work with our recent snowfalls, it was time to get a pair of glasses for riding. So I got some Tifosi Slip glasses at BikeSource with a polarized lens. Makes a world of difference to have those on, let me tell you.

First, the obvious - things stay out of my eyes. Snowflakes, dust, etc. You wouldn't think that a snowflake in the eye would be that big a deal... but it is. Stings for a second and then you have a few seconds where your eye recovers. And you spend the entire ride squinting and hiding your face. Second, the wind and cold that was making my eyes water (not a real danger while riding but annoying at times) is gone. And today was a good test of that, with a 19-degree (Fahrenheit) temperature.

The venting on them is great. Even when I wear my balaclava and my breath gets pushed up under the glasses and they start to fog, that fog goes away quickly when I get moving. Nice design on the vents. And they cover my entire eye area, so that my eyes are well protected. Quite a bargain!

Another Cold Bike Ride, Problems Almost Solved

Today's bike ride was a 22 degrees Fahrenheit venture that my Christmas gifts all helped to conquer. Mom and Dad got me the Cannondale Chamois tights and Gloves, Jenn got me 180s earmuffs, and I threw on my polypropylene long undies and balaclava and was just about perfect. Most notable was that my hands weren't being brutalized through my up-till-now adequate fleece gloves as the Cannondale gloves did the job well. The only exception to this was my legs were a TAD bit chilly with the very light wind.

Now, this was an all downhill trip so my legs don't really get a chance to get warm while I'm going to work, but that doesn't change the fact that it's cold out there and with a heavier wind it's going to be brutal. A pair of wind pants would probably do the trick nicely. I know of a couple that I'm looking at online right now, hopefully they won't be too pricey. I had been using my Columbia rain pants but they're not so great in the cold weather, though they rule for rainy weather.

I'll Take Potpourri For $1000, Alex

Just a little bit of catch-up to cover the holiday happenings here, before I go off tomorrow on whatever the result of the Sugar Bowl is.

• Christmas was great. I got to spend some quality family time at home with Jenn and Duncan and he really had a good time (though I'm getting a little weary of his Wiggles piano). Duncan also got a pair of padded (of course) hockey sticks and a ball. He's happy as a clam - the kid has picked up on hockey as his favorite sport, for whatever reason, and he runs around the house with one of the sticks, not flailing it around as much as I'd feared, and having a great time trying to hit the ball.
  
  For myself, I got a lot of James Bond stuff from my wonderful family; a pair of bike tights, some gloves, and a pump/repair kit from my folks; a beautiful Irish sweater from Jenn; and some other fun trinkets from various other folks. The tights are going to work out nicely, I think, plus they show off my sexy legs really well. ;)
  
  The one disappointment - our global-warming-addled climate not having enough snow for me to take Duncan sledding on the sled I restored for him for his gift. Hopefully we'll get some of Denver's weather.
  
  
• The best bowl game I've seen so far is the Fiesta Bowl and the upset win by the Boise State Broncos. Despite my disappointment that the Glendale staff didn't paint half the field blue for the visitors from the potato state, the game was the most fun to watch of all of them. Normally I hate the NCAA's overtime structure, but darn it if that wasn't a great one. To watch a team actually go for a two point conversion instead of playing it safe and taking the one-pointer to force a second overtime period was a joy. And I always (with one notable exception, Jenn) enjoy watching Big 12 teams look like a bunch of over-hyped jokers.
  
  And the incurable romantic in my heart appreciated Fox covering the post-game proposal by Broncos star running back Ian Johnson to his cheerleader girlfriend... true Americana there!
  
  
• I started a new twist on my workout routine - instead of saying "I'm gonna work out every day" or something like that, I am going for numbers this year: I set a goal for the year of 100,000 Hindu squats and 30,000 Hindu push ups from the Matt Furey Combat Conditioning workout. And keeping track of those reps all year long will hopefully help me to have something to really strive for. We'll see... check out my other blog if you're curious about how that's working out (no pun intended).
  
  
• The Sugar Bowl has me a bit scared. LSU is gonna be tough, and we've not played up to our potential in a lot of games this season (with the exception of the Penn State game). Hopefully Weis has the boys ready. And hopefully we'll be surprised as we were back in the Cheerios Bowl a decade ago.
  
  
• I watched a great documentary from Discovery Times that I'd Tivoed a couple months ago (finally) called Addicted To Oil. Created by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Thomas L. Friedman, it goes into the damage that oil does to our national security and to our climate, really breaking it down and showing the effects on both our security and the world's weather. He also goes into oil alternatives for both vehicles and general consumption, pointing out the good and bad of the various ideas. Very cool - check it out if you have the chance.
  
  And yes, I still need to see An Inconvenient Truth though I know most of what he's talking about already.
  
  
• On a similar train of thought, I watched Syriana over the holidays. This movie was outstanding though very disturbing at parts. Theatrically, it was a bit confusing, though that's part of its charm - you never are quite sure what's going on any more than the characters themselves are. It's definitely a movie you can see over and over and make new connections all the time.
  
  But the more important thing to take from it is the hypocrisy of the oil industry and its proponents in the government. The part that got me the most is when the eldest son of the emir, Nasir, is talking about how the US wants his brother to be the new emir because they consider him a Communist, simply because he decided to sell the country's oil to China as they offered him the best price (a very capitalist idea, wouldn't you think?).
  
  Go see this one if you haven't already. Though, if you're looking for a typically buff and sexy George Clooney in it, you're going to be watching the wrong movie because he reportedly put on 30 pounds for the role.
  
  
• There are still a couple things I want to get for my biking experience - a set of bike lights for the dark days and for my own safety, and some panniers so I don't have to use a backpack (and hopefully are a little more waterproof than the backpack I'm currently using. A set of fenders would also be nice - so I don't have to keep putting on rain pants.
  

I think that's everything.

Coldest. Ride. Ever.

Okay, today was tough. The issue with the balaclava not protecting the top of my head well was still an issue, and so were the cold hands. But I still persevered and rode in to work today.

A note that only you guys may get: boxers don't work too well for a bike ride. I'm gonna have to get more boxer briefs, I think. Enough said on that. It'll be warmer, too.

Some other stuff I'm going to need includes some wind/rain pants. Until I get going, the legs get a bit cold. And even when I am going (and I generally wear fleece-lined pants in the winter) it's not quite as toasty as I'd like.

But I still got to work feeling great, so it's not like I'm going to give up the bike any time soon.

First Snow Bike

Just as Jenn was leaving for work this morning with Duncan it was starting to snow, and by the time I was ready to go there was a fair bit on the ground. And, more importantly, on the road. So my first bike ride in the snow was today. Luckily my balaclava from REI arrived last night so warmth on the face wasn't a problem. Three things stood out:

1. My bike gets better traction on snow than I thought it might. Those big knobby tires do the trick pretty well. The only slippery times I had were instances where it would have been slippery whether I was on foot or in my car. And I just put my feet down and slid along on four points instead of two. Not that big a deal (though it surprised the hell out of me the one time I had to deal with it.

2. The balaclava did the trick for keeping my face warm nicely. Strangely enough, though, the top of my head was a bit cold. I may have to find some sort of helmet cover for the winter so that less air gets through it (as it's built for maxiumum air running through your hair, since most people don't bike much in the cold.

3. The hands are still cold. I'm going to have to find some real biking mittens or something.

All in all, though, I enjoyed the experience. I took it a bit slowly, but not too slow, I thought. And the looks on people's faces were great, as usual. :)

More Than Just Face Chap

In my first big discovery with the biking to work thing (which I've had plenty of time to practice this weekend, unfortunately) is that I am going to need something to cover my headphones on my telephone (Motorola SLVR, so it has iTunes) while I'm listening to podcasts on the way to work. All the wind rushing past them is making it impossible to hear anything! Also, the ears are getting frostbit.

I've ordered a balaclava to try to alleviate the problem... we'll see how it does (BTW - if you're looking at getting me bike stuff for Christmas.... don't get me a balaclava now).

Bike Commuter Guy

Yeah, that's me. I'm bike commuter guy now. Since I got a lock for my new bike (thanks Jenn, Mom and Dad!) I've been doing the bike commuting thing. First it was to our old office down on West Campus at OSU (The Martha Moorhouse Medical Plaza, for those of you keeping track at home), which allowed me to take the Olentangy bike trail for the major portion of it. I LOVED that route - it allowed me to stay out of traffic and enjoy the wetlands and river while I was riding to and from work.

Now, my office has moved to 650 Ackerman - which is even closer to my house (by a mile or so - nothing in Columbus is too far away, of course). Takes me about ten minutes to get to work, and on the way to work it's almost all downhill so I don't have to worry about being too sweaty when I get to the office. I have to deal with a little more traffic, but for the most part cars don't give me any problem. Either they're too nervous around a cyclist to get near me, or they appreciate my efforts and give me room (I think it's probably the former). Luckily I'm a pretty big guy and sort of hard to miss on the road...

The only tricky part has been weather. The days when it's not wet out there are no problems - just dress in a couple layers and I'm good to go. But on wet days... there's another issue. I have a full rainsuit that I wear (it's yellow, which is good for visibility), but the water runs down the legs of it and into my shoes. So I probably need to either bring dry socks and shoes and wear other shoes while on my commute, or get some gaiters of some kind to let the water run past the openings of my shoes. I've been looking around a bit to see how other folks work around this problem. There are a few websites out there for bike commuting and I've been slowly checking them out as I have time.

The other tricky thing, I think, is going to be the cold. I'm not a person who gets real cold in winter, but I'm probably going to need some sort of balaclava to wear on the bike so I don't get face chap. Plus I'll look like Snake Eyes from GI Joe while I'm riding. Sweet. I just need to carry my sword on my back to complete the image. And perhaps not wear it with a bright yellow rainsuit. :)

Parking: A HUGE Non-Issue

Where I work, there's a big furor going on over the fact that people are being asked to park somewhere that isn't convenient for them. And to that I respond: "Huh. Really."

Here's the situation: the area of OSU Medical Center where I work is a good distance from the rest of the Medical Center - so far that there is a shuttle service to get people around between our section of the campus, the main medical campus, and even the other two areas that require it (put it this way: one of the areas' shuttles goes once an hour because it's that far away, up at Polaris for those who know Columbus). So parking is a big deal for some people here.

Our area has free parking - one of the few places on the OSU campus where parking is free (and not just the Medical Center campus - the WHOLE CAMPUS). So people have been getting used to parking here and then taking the shuttle to wherever they work to avoid the parking pass fee.

So in an attempt to combat this dishonesty, the Medical Center brass has decided to increase the areas of our parking garage that are for patients only, as the effort is being made to ensure that patients get most of the parking. And to me, that makes good sense.

But the practical side of this is that the employees all over the Medical Center are up in arms about it, because they're being asked to park somewhere that's inconvenient for them. And at that, I mock them openly.

I take the bus to work every day. And I get dropped off RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE BUILDING. Every day. And my bus pass costs about half of what it costs for parking passes, plus I don't have to worry about parking too far away from my office because I don't PARK ANYWHERE. OSU is the easiest employer to service with the COTA bus system as there are more routes toward campus than just about anywhere else in the city.

But to suggest to folks that they take the bus to work, you'd think that someone suggested that they crawl to work with a skateboard strapped to their stomach. They just don't get it!

But let's do the math:
Jamie:

• $40 per month, all the transportation he needs. Total: $480 per year.

Everyone else:

• According to AAA, in 2005 it cost $8,410 per year to own and operate a car. Add the $960 for OSU parking passes (I think it's $80/month). You're looking at around $9370 for operating a car as an OSU employee.

Is that an easy decision for anyone else to make? Yet for some reason, people just have it in their heads that they MUST drive to work. And I'm not going to be so bold as to say that EVERYONE could take the bus... some people don't have that luxury due to other constraints.

But I'm going to say half the employees here could get away with it, and enjoy not having to drive, not having to put up with road raging morons, not have to get frustrated by traffic, not having to shell out money every time someone decides to try to take the easy way and ends up ramming your back end, and most of all not have to lose almost $9000 a year just because you think you have to drive.

I laugh at those of you who choose to drive to work, particularly at OSU. It's really a no brainer.