Week Twenty-One - Day Two:

BIKE: Mike
TIME THERE: 27 min.
TIME BACK: 33 min. (including a stop at the liquor store for some wine)
WEATHER: a few clouds, -12C, no wind there; clear, -3C, 4km/hr wind back.
WHAT I WORE: warm-up pants (getting too damn cold for these in the morning - my thighs were frozen and bright red by the time I got to work), turtleneck, waterproof shell, running gloves (also too cold, I need to move up to lobster gloves again), scarf
NOTES:

There seem to be an awful lot of cyclists out this week. I passed by two in the west end yesterday, which is quite rare. If I pass by any cyclists en route, it's usually closer to downtown and the university, not in the west end! Then today I was pedalling along the north ridge of the river valley when someone whizzed past me at what seemed like twice my speed. I had to fight the urge to call him names in my head or start beating myself up for not pedalling faster. Instead, I tried to be at peace with the fact that I was c-c-c-cold this morning and I just didn't feel like I had it in me to push myself to go much faster. Even as it was, I made good time - a 27-minute ride is nothing to be ashamed of! Still, I hate being passed like that, it makes me feel like such a lazy-ass.

I go back and forth on how I feel about running into other cyclists. Sometimes it's wonderful - a feeling of camaraderie, of being part of a small but quickly growing community of people who live active lifestyles and care about their environmental impact. And I do genuinely and without exception enjoy the conversations I have with my fellow cyclists when we happen to stop at a red light together or meet up while we're securing our bikes to a rack. On other days - like today - I feel territorial about cycling. It's as though the more people bike-commute - especially through the winter - it makes me feel like this great thing I'm doing is really no big deal at all, that what feels like a great accomplishment to me is just an everyday thing that lots of people do. And if that's the case, why bother? Why bother be so committed to it? Even on those days when my throat hurts, or I'm exhausted, or it's so damn cold it feels like I'm getting freezer burn on the inside of my lungs every time I breathe deeply - why push myself to go through all that crap when it's so meaningless?

The answer is that it's not meaningless. No matter how many cyclists are out on the road, I can be proud to be a part of a growing movement of people who forgo their cars for bikes. No matter how many other people bike-commute, I'm still improving my own fitness and my own health and contributing in my own way to lessening the burden on the environment. What other people do has no bearing on what I've accomplished - and really, it has been an accomplishment - and it absolutely doesn't make my great feat any less great. It just means that other people are doing it, too, which means that cars are more aware of us, we have more of a political voice (i.e., when it comes to advocating for cycling infrastructure), and we can support each other. How is that possibly a bad thing?

Sometimes I need to remind myself to think less competitively and more collaboratively. Most of all, I need to stay focused on the positive - the fact that I've already biked 110 miles this month, and that I've really been noticing my weight loss over the past couple weeks, and that clients who haven't seen me since the beginning of last semester come back and comment on how great I'm looking. That feels good. And that's infinitely more important than whether I'm the only cyclist on the road or not.