I bike to work essentially every day, in an office where no one else does and it’s fairly conspicuous. I’ve also dropped 50 pounds since starting to that (more a change of food than the biking imo, but they started at the same time) which is also conspicuous. I have had a slight variation of the following discussion something like 1-200 times in the break room as I put my big container of salad and small container of meat to put on it into the fridge each day:
Them: "how far do you bike each day"
Me: "about 5 miles each way"
(If they give me a look that I think means “gross, in the summer, you’ll be a sweaty mess,” I mention that I get a gym membership to the PF across the street for $10 a month just during the summer, bike there, shower, then walk across the street to the office)
Them: "oh, that's not bad, lucky that you live so close"
Me: "well, we picked a house to be in biking range on purpose. Save money, get some exercise, save the planet, that sort of thing"
Them: “oh, that’s cool”
I’m always curious what distance people would respond with something other than “that’s not bad” because it’s almost verbatim every time. I think I’m going to ask the next couple people where the line of bad would be for them. Because really, the morning isn’t bad, but biking home at 4 or 5 in the summer, it’s 115 degrees some days and it is definitely bad, but also bad ass.
Anyway, for the first time, the conversation went dramatically differently this morning:
"how far you bike each day"
"it's about 5 miles each way"
"oh, it would be nice if I could bike but i live so close now that it's kind of silly when it's only a 1 minute drive because i live right over there"
"oh... uh, you could walk?"
<lady looks at me confused>
To be clear, this is a 25-35, athletic looking woman who I know does stuff like goes running.
