I've been curious about the length of my bike commute, but I've been hesitant to go spend even more money on a bike computer to calculate that and much more. As my friend Craig said, it only makes you feel antsy about whether you're keeping a good pace.
So today I found MapMyRide.com and calculated my commutes. In the morning, when I ride from our house to the MAX, it's exactly three miles. In the evenings, when I ride straight through from work to home, it's 10.95 miles. So, all told, most days, I'm doing about 14 miles. And I'm toying with the idea of starting to ride all the way in most mornings when the summer weather is so nice. So that'd be, basically, 22 miles a day.
Here's a map of my route home.
Of course, all this was moot since last Tuesday. On the way in that morning, I took a bad spill -- rookie mistake involving the clip-in shoes -- and sprained the holy hell out of my wrist. Got it X-rayed Wednesday and there's no break. It's still sore, but I'm getting back on the Poprad in the morning. I've missed it.
It's Pedalpalooza here in Portland, which best I can describe is basically a festival celebrating all things bikey. The events even drew some other guy form Oklahoma all the way out here. (Video from BikePortland.org.) My favorite line: "Like any other, you know, ding-ass town..."
Next up, more bike fun. Riding home Wednesday night I encountered my first unicycle commuter. I was in a good groove, fresh off topping the worst hill of my ride, when I looked up and there he was. I had -- had -- to slow down and just watch how he managed that thing. In particular, I wanted to see him handle a red light. Sure enough, about two blocks up we caught one. The guy slowed and worked his way over to the curb as we approached the crosswalk. Then, he just reached out and grabbed the telephone pole and sat there. Impressive, no?
When the light turned, though, he couldn't get it going and fell/jumped off. Still, he landed on his feet, which is almost better than me occasionally in these new clip-in shoes.
Third bit o' news: In the ongoing preparation to sail away from the no-kid island we currently inhabit, we went out this week and got ourselves a proper baby-friendly car. No pics yet, but it's a pretty sweet, year-old Toyota Rav4. Traded in the trusty 5-year-old Civic -- what a good car that was. Kind of sad to see it go. Still, this new ride gets good gas mileage and will be a lot easier to get the wee one in and out of while also being a better fit for us and our occasional light hauling needs. Next up, cleaning up and selling the Malibu and becoming a nice, simple one-car, one-commuter-bike family.
Finally, tonight, ever exciting, we flipped through the dial and saw not one, but two classic cheesy martial arts movie scenes. First, caught the final fight scene from "Karate Kid" ...
I admit, I teared up a little. But then, it got better - or worse, depending on your view -- "Bloodsport" with Jean Claude Van Damme was on some other channel. Amy, to my horror, had never seen it. We had to watch a little to its great fight scene. Enjoy. Especially the way he yells -- one loudly, one weakly -- before he realizes he can fight blind.
Yeah, that pretty much made my night. Not so much Amy's, for some reason. (Though the baby was busting out some serious kicks on her. Maybe he liked the flicks, too.)
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