What a wonderful thread.

I'm a bit of the backward chick here, because I became truly motivated by reading a friend's blog (http://nobody-knows-anything.com/) and being inspired by her desire to ride more for environmental reasons (she has an xtracycle, too) and by her bloglist, where I found many of the bike blogs I read regularly now, including Oil is for Sissies (http://blog.lib.umn.edu/thil0020/carfreelife/) and Minus Car (http://minuscar.blogspot.com/).

So when I got my bike (for health reasons) and was so horribly out of shape, I found it easier to motivate myself to go on short trips to the post office, etc. than to simply get out in the heat and ride for the sake of riding. Thus I've accumulated a fairly nice number of "green miles" but no ride longer than 11 miles!

I just figured out a new 6 or 7 mile ride for me that goes largely on good streets that get very little traffic during the day (unless it's rush hour or time for school carpools) but haven't quite motivated myself to try it. Instead I've done a few 2-mile loops in the immediate 'hood. But now that the weather is FINALLY more pleasant I hope to get back into riding the way I did in July and August -- where I'm on and off my bike two or three times a day. At least once to just get some miles done, and then for errands as needed.

I did make it a point to ride to Starbucks, to the grocery store (and took my bike in to pick up my prescription), through the bike drive-through, and into the doc's office to schedule an appointment. Each little challenge was fun.

So thanks for this thread. I needed it to goose me a little. I've been too distracted lately to be as motivated.

Oh yeah -- Geonz -- I have already linked to the sojourner's entry because I saw it on your blog, and now I'll add the friends one. Thanks!