Ok, I'm not gonna lie.
I used a car this weekend.
I figure my bike-cred is now shot to blazes and I'm due for public flogging with an inner tube (Presta or Schraeder, you choose.)
Was it the hot weather (I'm not a fan and I think dogs that park on the cool tile of your kitchen floor and look at you like you must be high when you want to walk them at say, 12:30 on a steamy Saturday afternoon are pretty smart animals) or the tornado warnings that put me off?
Actually, it was poor planning.
I find to make the bike life work, you really need to plan accordingly, and stick to it. Which is not to say you can't cut loose and be spontaneous, but had I run my errands in the 'cool' of the day (that's relative under the current weather conditions) and stuck to my good intentions, I could have pulled off my chores via bike. Instead, some oversleeping and too long a time at the keyboard, and general dawdling put me way behind schedule, with planned errands piling up like cars on an icy interstate. Soooo...I went the automotive route.
Penance on my Gazelle Medeo in the morning.
You can do this. When it's this hot, I just wear my sandals and pedal a LOT slower. Last week I made it from west of Georgetown to I St downtown with just a slight sweat.
ReplyDeleteSandals: check! Pedal slow: check! (I believe I've perfected that, no matter what the weather ;)
ReplyDeleteNow I am sure that there are those who will say: sandals=bad, but with pedals that provide traction and my sandals with the deep treads, no problem.
I still dislike the extreme heat, but I've resigned myself to that on the bike.
The thing this week was also time management. Knowing I'd be slower in the heat, and still being able to criss-cross town and complete the tasks in the time allotted--that was the trick. Experience is teaching me.