May #everydayonabike Review

Nearly half of the year is over. I can't quite believe it. Five whole months of riding (nearly) #everydayonabike. After a rough start to the season, spring has finally arrived. Although I haven't been able to ride everyday yet, I have significantly increased my daily mileage this month. Last month, I barely broke 100 miles for the entire month. This month, I easily broke 200 miles (223 total miles). I wasn't able to completely give up a car this month, but I got pretty close. Many weeks, I only got behind the wheel once or twice - usually to run errands outside of my biking comfort zone (less than 5 miles).

I did increase my biking bubble a bit for meetings this month. Typically, I drive to meetings that are over 5 miles from my house. This month, I rode to several meetings over 5 miles away and even trekked down to the University of Denver once (8 miles one way). I'm getting more comfortable riding longer distances and more familiar with the city's bike routes, which helps out on longer rides.

Here's the rundown for May:

63 total photos // 25 photos posted by me // 38 photos posted by others 

10 contributors // 27 out of 31 days on the bike // $52 in gas savings

Thanks to everyone who contributed this month!

@bemorelocal // @mrsweichbrodt // @runbobbierun // @obc_benson

@allmybrush // @emfritz // @timaides @simplybike // @claireelaine // @frauwein

The biggest challenge for me now is taking a picture everyday - riding everyday seems to be the easy part! Although I would love for June to be the first month that I ride everyday, out-of-state (and country) travel plans probably won't allow for that. 

Bike to School Day 2013

It just occurred to me today that a Bike to School Day is probably happening soon. Turns out, it was scheduled for Wednesday, May 8. Lucky for us, nearly every day is a bike to school day. I don't have any photos of Wednesday's ride, but I do distinctly remember that the bike racks were at capacity and I nearly took a picture of them. It made me so happy to see so many bikes at school.

On Wednesday I did bike to the University of Denver for the first time, so I guess I did it on an appropriate day. The ride was a total of 16 miles round trip and it was relatively easy (light traffic, few hills). I'll definitely be riding to teach more often.

Bike to Work Day is scheduled for June 26 in Denver. I've never had the opportunity to participate, so this year I'm definitely scheduling a meeting away from my home office so I can get in on the action.

I'm also working on organizing a Walking School Bus for Benny and his friends in the neighborhood next year. It's a simple concept - two or more families take turns walking their children to school. It can be as small or as large as needed. The Bike Train is another organized way to get to school - and we already do that on occasion. The only catch? Lila's daycare is two blocks away from Benny's school, so I'd have to make my way there three days a week anyway.

Suddenly, It's Spring

Birds are chirping, the sun is out, the high is above 55. By golly, I think spring has finally arrived! And just in time. I was getting really, really sick of winter. We have been busy, busy preparing for good weather. Yard clean up, new gutters, new painted trim. All of this work to install a deck in two weeks. It's going to be amazing.

I have been planting flowers and Nate has been planting veggies. A week ago, I transplanted no less than 50 iris bulbs from the area where the deck will be to the beds in the front of the house (that we desperately want to get rid of, but can't quite justify yet).

The trim and the gutters will match after next weekend - a nice forest green. And the garden, which is already producing!

And now that the weather is cooperating, I'm finding that the more I  ride, the more confident I get about riding. See how that works? Prior to #everydayonabike, I wouldn't ride more than 5 miles away from my house and would never consider riding downtown or to the southern part of the city. But, as I've become more familiar with Denver's vast network of bike paths, lanes and routes, I'm increasingly comfortable in expanding my radius of riding and testing new directions. As a result, I've been riding to new areas of the city and increasing my daily miles. For example, today I tested out a new route that will allow me to ride to a standing monthly meeting about 6.5 miles away. I was reluctant to ride to these meetings before because I didn't like the bike route that Google naps suggests. So, I plotted a new route. It adds about a mile to the overall trip, but the sense of security is worth it!

Tomorrow, I have my biggest challenge yet: Ride to the University of Denver (a 16-mile round trip) in the morning and then to an event across town in the evening (a 10-mile round trip). When the day is done, I hope to have ridden nearly 30 miles in one day. So glad it's finally spring!