Hi y’all! Essentially a biking newb here- haven’t rode a bike since wandering around my neighborhood as a kid. I’ve been wanting to get in on the bike to work scene, and scored a free bike over the weekend (Sedona XL Giant bought new about 4-5 years ago with some panniers). Definitely need to get a lot better at biking before I attempt to make the trip to work, though. Eventually, I will make my first commute on a Friday before a 3-day weekend when traffic is super-light, then work towards Fridays, and hopefully eventually just make it an everyday thing. I would love to go back to being a one-car family, but that’s a (much) longer term effort.
The problem I will eventually end up facing is that I have a nice, flat, 7 mile ride to work that has big car-lane-width shoulders for the first 6 miles and then turns into a mass of cloverleaf on/off ramps and entrance/exit lanes for the last mile. My place of work is smack in the middle of this. For a car, it’s very nice because it’s essentially like a 50 mph interstate- people getting on and off don’t mess with you. There is a back road/trail I think I could take that would only add 3 or so miles, but I will still have to deal with passing at least 4 ramp lanes (on and off for each direction of travel). I think I would just need to stop in the shoulder, wait for a break in traffic, and then make my way across. Small beans, I suppose, to experienced bikers, but it is what it is to me. I would be perfectly happy to cut off the road and do a bit through the woods but this is an old military base and they find old WWII/WWI munitions all the time. I can move my commute times a little bit, but not very much due to little ones at home/DW schedule/etc. (okay, in the spirit of MMM it's not *can't* but *not willing to make that sacrifice/effort*)
There is practically no biking culture in the area, and that little which does exist is focused toward group rides after hours for cardio exercise. In my 3 years working here I’ve seen someone biking at coming/going hours maybe 5 times? And those were along the nice shoulder parts, not at the hectic part.
So, I know what I want to do, what I need to do to get there, and how to do it. I guess I’m just posting for the sake of accountability?