My first full year of bike ownership & riding wraps up tomorrow night, March 1, 2019; my bike was delivered March 2, 2018.
Since tomorrow is forecast for snow, then rain, I don't think I'll get bike time... So, some final figures, observations and thoughts:
4,598 --- total miles for the 365 days (7,400km)
1,355 --- "car miles" eliminated by biking to work
600.2 --- highest monthly total miles (July)
378.1 --- monthly average miles for 12 mos
211 ----- days with rides, out of 365
128 ----- office commutes by bike
92.4 ---- weekly average miles, of weeks with biking
61 ------ pounds of weight lost (winter held fast, no new losses)
51.4 ---- longest single-day mileage total
22.1 ---- daily average miles, of days with rides
Surprises along the way:
Not riding a bike in 25 years (and very infrequently then) and the last 10+ years as a too-sedentary couch-potato lifestyle, I’d never have imagined I’d take up bike riding, nor ride this much, nor ever dreamed I’d ride through a winter. So I’m thrilled all that actually happened, and stunned that tonight, February came in 7th-best, mileage wise (407mi), beating out Aug, Nov, May, Jan and Mar (ranked 8 – 12, respectively).
Through biking, I found a new-to-me farmer’s market hosted by a nature conservancy group. (They focus their efforts on a Potomac River tributary paralleling my commute; Four Mile Run.) I joined their recent “volunteer clean-up day” and it was fantastic to help remove 1,200 pounds of trash! (Sadly, all from a short stretch of the overall waterway.) I even tried out the market's free 1-hour yoga stretch session, and plan to continue doing it.
I joined a local biking forum (BikeArlington) and made some new friends as a result. While their membership majority is non-ebikers, only a few seem really anti-ebike “on their trails”. (I try to be an unassailable ambassador for ebikes when I meet up or ride with anyone.) Through the forum I found another volunteer clean-up opportunity on M.L.K. Day, along the Potomac; so much broken-down Styrofoam and plastic utensils, I stopped using all plasticware at work the next day. With that same group, earlier in the winter I spent 6 hours helping shoveling 8 inches of snow from parts of our popular Mount Vernon Trail -- a National Park, and the snow was during the {insert adjective here} government shutdown; so normal trail plowing would have ever happened!
One of the forum members posted an excellent idea at Valentine’s Day; carry empty grocery bags on every ride and stop to pick up trail litter for just a few minutes, until your bags are full. They fill surprisingly quickly here… she called the idea “quick-picks”; vs. waiting for a group to organize a bigger clean-up event.) So simple… so easy… so accessible to all riders…! Imagine if every biker did this, even 1 bag per ride. I’d love to think the pedestrians and cyclists who pass me during these quick-picks, absorb a “pay it forward” vibe. (I found $11 bucks once during a quick-pick, and paid it forward as a donation to the conservancy.) I have now wholeheartedly embraced her idea along my commute route and have picked up 32 grocery bags full of trash since Feb. 15. (One member who rides the same trail describes me as having “a vendetta against trash on ‘my’ trail.” I rather like that!)
I joined a 20-mile themed group-ride & tour and enjoyed it so much I decided to plan and organize one; I will be leading my first group-ride in March. (An hour’s ride through D.C. to Washington National Cathedral, with a few brief stops tying in to the cathedral’s history. I’m a volunteer tour guide at the cathedral so the ride ends with a guided tour.) I’m tickled to find myself slipping into this new expanded “real” social network; I’m not on any of the digital social platforms, and I’ve always felt comfortable being sort of solitary.
With sensible eating changes and the exercise from rides (vs. my zero-exercise state before) I’ve taken more than 80 garments to GoodWill as I’ve shrunken down out of them. I’m wearing L-sized shirts from the depths of my closet, vs. the XXL shirts I was wearing last year. I’m aiming to drop 30 more pounds this year, and that should get me down into the surviving M-sized shirts I somehow kept from years ago.
My biking to work spilled over onto someone else and inspired 1 coworker to try bike commuting last summer; she managed several commutes on nice days... I'm not sure the habit will "stick" with her, but since she actually went out and bought a bike and helmet so she could try it, hopefully that means as warm weather returns this spring, she'll give it another chance!
Bike; gear & accessories, repairs:
I’ve outlined earlier in this thread the details of mechanical/electrical issues that befell my first Cafe ebike. Suffice it to say, once the manufacture (the awesome team at Vintage Electric Bikes) resolved them (including sending a new Cafe last June, then later a new rear hub wheel to resolve a surprise bad-spokes problem on that replacement bike) it has been 100% smooth sailing since. No new issues have arisen, nor have any repairs been needed; just routine maintenance (new tires, brake pads, etc.) Fingers crossed, but never a flat in all this time.
I had 1 wreck over the year, this past December; sliding out when the rear wheel passed over a wet manhole cover during a turn on an empty street. A very hard fall, but no bike damage (the Mirrycle Mirror took a direct pavement hit and survived) and no broken bones; the huge knot on my upper shin (where the battery housing slammed hard into my leg on the ground) has finally subsided, though is still discolored.
I’ve had to add a good bit of gear (“So then, I had to buy xyz” – always good for a chuckle!) to get me through winter; mostly in staying-warm gear. A great investment was the Gore windstopper jacket on sale in January. Other notables were my 3rd pannier (using it 99.99% of the time now) after trial-and-error on two earlier bags. Clip-in pedals + shoes (make a huge difference!) were a great upgrade. The jury is out on whether I’ve settled my saddle (currently on saddle #4, but for a good long while now.)
I still think I would love a bike with suspension – I’ve avoided riding one because I don’t want to risk falling in love with that and then feel compelled to buy a new bike; but I have many tree-rooted buckles in the paved paths of my routes. Beyond that, I have no complaints about the bike and love its great looks as much as on first sight.
The bike has more power than I realistically need; I now rarely go out of Level 1 (of 5) on my regular rides; Level 2 pops in for some hills, or strong winds, or at the end of a long ride, to “relax”… but mostly I want to ensure I get exercise benefit from the rides, yet have an exit strategy in the wings when I don’t want to work so hard! There’s no throttle, and with judicious (conservative) use of Assist, I once managed 87 miles on a single charge over 3 days of rides; that still left 2 bars on the gauge before I opted to recharge for the next commuting day. The current battery (came with replacement bike, early June) has 103 charge-to-full cycles on it now. I do a full charge whenever I’m getting “fairly low”; I’m very much in the “don’t fret over it” camp.
It is a common theme expressed here in the Forum; how transformative ebikes can be on your life… As I wrote this summary and reflected on my first year (including the touch points on my weight, fitness & health, socializing, bike & community engagement, positive environmental impacts…) that transformation concept really was driven home all over again!
My couch on the other hand, in a fit of jealous pique, isn’t speaking to me anymore… but I can live with that.
