Can you get to work without a car? Biking/Training it to work

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed so you don't miss anything. Thanks for visiting!

My experiment

Monday I plan on doing something I’ve never done in my life… Ride my bike to work. Actually I will be riding my bike to the light rail station, riding the train down, then biking it the final leg to work.

Yesterday I timed the trip to the initial train station. It is 3.3 miles and it took me 25mins to get there. I needed to make sure that I am physically able to do it. I didn’t have much difficulty. I don’t normally do cardio so I honestly wasn’t sure about this.

I will definitely be adding some time to my commute. It normally takes me 45mins by car. I am expecting the new bike/train method to take 1 1/2 hr (hopefully).

The Route

leg 1: Biking it from home to the light rail station [3.3 miles]

leg 2: Riding the train with my bike [? miles]

leg 3: Biking it to work from the train station [2.3 miles]

Why am I doing this?

• I complain about public transportation not being viable all the time. I should make an honest effort to see how it is, how plausible it is, and just experience it.
• It is good for the environment. I will be using 0 of my own car’s gas, using mass-transit and a bike.
• It is good for my health. Unless I get hit by a car or get caught in the rain this is a good thing for my body.
• It is cheaper. Though this does not really register as a motivation, I’ll save around $2-2.50 in gas.

My Normal Drive
Below is my normal drive (16.5 miles and 35-45 mins)

Preparing for the Worst

I need to email my manager and let him know that I may be late if I have “difficulties” in my commute. Hopefully I will be able to withstand the Texas sun and not pass out. I have Google Maps on my Treo 650 now. I’m glad they finally released the app for Treo’s. [Go to www.google.com/gmm from your phone to download it.] That will help me if I get lost. I will be a newbie and carry some water with me and some granola bars. Its no Tour ‘de France, but its more than I normally do.

Leave a comment and tell me how easy/difficult it is to commute by bike in your city. Any tips for us newbies? Leave a comment. I’d be happy to hear from you.

Wish me luck readers!

Update [7/28]:

I was able to get the exact distance I’d have to bike from the train station to work using gmap-pedometer. My brother pointed this site out to me a year ago. It’s a cool Google Maps mashup that allows you to manually track your trail on a Google map. This can be useful for joggers, bikers, etc.

Update [7/30]:

I have a scheduled task right after work at 6:30 so I chose not to experiment today. I will be biking it tomorrow -7/31

Update [7/31]:

Rain :o( Will try again tomorrow. I’m not up for venturing through rain on my first go at this.