Ruth Lloyd
Black Press
I used to bike to work.
I used to bike to work a fair distance even, up a very long and fairly arduous hill to the Williams Lake Airport.
Now, I work in my living room and when I do have to go out, it often involves large amounts of camera equipment, not necessarily very compatible with a bicycle.
But I have recently been inspired to mend my lazy ways and, if not necessarily biking to get to work, instead biking away from my house so I can bike back to work.
Two things have brought this on (well, three if you include my need to get back in shape).
One is the inspiration of a friend.
Everyone has someone who inspires them, and my latest source of inspiration is a single mother who works two jobs and yet still gets up ridiculously early on days she works in town to ride her bike to the gym and then to work. She is loving it, and has had some inspirational facebook posts about it this spring.
I used to be that hardcore, and perhaps it is time I tried to do so again.
The second thing is Bike to Work Week.
Reading a recent email, I was reminiscing back to the days then I would ride my bike almost 18 km each way to and from work to firefightings, and always arrived at work invigorated and alert, dismayed at the people who wouldn’t even make the effort for Bike to Work Week.
I used to try and get groups from work to give it a try, and there were many people who did.
It was a coworker who originally convinced me to give it a shot, and while I recall thinking it was a bit tortuous at first and on my mountain bike, once I had a road bike and my fitness improved, I loved it.
So let this column be my soapbox once again, and I will just say that from May 30-June 5 I will make an effort to ride my bike away from my house so I can bike to work and hopefully get back up on the horse I seem to have fallen off.
Now, if only the streets would be swept so the riding wasn’t so darn dusty.
With some decent mountain bike trails only minutes from my home, I suppose off-road might even be my new route “to” work.
And according to Dr. Richard Backus, volunteer president of Bike to Work BC and sports medicine physician, “Cycling to work even one day a week can make a big difference to your health and make you feel a lot better about yourself, as well as help boost morale in your workplace.”
“You can convert the drudgery of the morning commute to the fun of sailing to work through the morning air, and convert the drudgery of the afternoon commute home to a space where the workday worries evaporate, and the transition to home becomes refreshing and energizing,” he says. Now, couldn’t we all use a little of that?
