The rest of the biking commute story

Thanks to everyone who called me brave for biking to work earlier this week. I was pretty proud of my own gumption, because traversing the city streets with nothing but a bargain-priced helmet to save my life if a cab hit me definitely did make me more than a little nervous. As you know, the trip in was, for the most part, pretty good.

The way home...that’s where the real excitement happened. The day was beautiful, so joggers and bikers were out in force. There are two non-car lanes in the park, and I honestly don’t know if one is supposed to be for joggers and the other for bikers, or if one is, in theory, a passing lane, or what. But in reality, the joggers took up the entire width of both lanes, forcing all the bikers to veer into the car lane (which, PS, was chock-a-block with cars) every three and a half seconds. Not fun. Also, the route home is a bit more uphill, though it’s nothing terrible. I’ve done this hill many times (and by many, I mean about three. But still...) without feeling it too much. For some reason, though, on Tuesday afternoon I was really huffing and puffing. It could have been that it was the end of the day and I was tired. Or it could have been due to the strengthening exercises Shannon taught me at Christmas that I finally did for the first time that morning. Or it could simply have been because I’m way too out of shape. Anyway, I was struggling a little up this hill, when my biking inspiration, Jane, rode up beside me and congratulated me on joining the ranks.

“How’s it going?” She asked, trying to decide whether she really wanted to talk to me enough to slow down to my pace.

“Stressful,” I admitted.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “It gets easier as you get used to it.” These word had barely left her mouth when a biker a few yards in front of us took out an old woman—knocked her flat out on her back in the middle of the street. Besides being hit by a car, this is basically what I most fear will happen to me on the bike. I’ll somehow lose control and knock down someone’s beloved grandmother. I pulled over long enough to see that she was up and about and that I wasn’t the only person on the scene with a cell phone (I didn’t want to assume what joggers tried to fit in their teensie-weensie little running shorts) before riding on. Jane had seen her chance to ditch slow-poke me and ridden on already, so I took the rest of the commute nice and slow. I got home without hurting myself or any pedestrians, but the whole thing freaked me out a bit. I liked biking to work and definitely didn’t miss the subway, but it was far from an idyllic ride. I need to mentally prepare before I try it again.