Fall and Winter Commuter Challenge!

[Geonz]

Well, if kfergos is allowed in, can I come too? I don't even drive on the weekends - I drive when I rent a car (or if the Subaru dealer lends us one for our bike rides for sag, like last Sunday )
I just got a ***really*** bright little flashlight, a Fenix something or other from www.batteryjunction.com . I realized that it is a nice little defense device. It's blinding. Cruising in the dark dark last night I realized it's also pretty good for requesting oncoming drivers to dim their brights. (We don't have too many creepzoids around here... ) It was expensive ($50) but it's as bright as my big battery-in-the-water-bottle-carrier light that broke last week was (I had it jammed between the other stuff on the handlebars and must have stretched the wrong part and broken some wires). The $50 also got me a cute holster for it ... and it's a sweet piece of machinery ... and I have sort of decided that the "I can get that for cheap from China via Walmart" is a bad idea, and getting things that are well done and will last is a better one. (It's an Xtracycle thing ) WIth what I save being without a car, I can do it.

[out_spokin']

Well, the commute's over for the week, about to hit the airport for a biz trip. I made 2 for 3 rides though, and I ended September with 69% - just above the goal! Definitely need the lights in the morning now, and the temps are falling into the normal fall zone...glad to have this group to help stay excited about being on the bike on those early mornings!

And yes - the more the merrier -- car-free, car-lite, any kinda bike commuting is a happy thing in my book.

[kacie tri-ing]

I made four out of five again...I'm happy with that!

[kfergos]

5/5 - and with a yucky ingrown toenail. Ew. That's all I'm gonna say on that.

Did I just see Xtracycle? How's commuting on one of those? I'm thinking of converting a bike with an Xtracycle kit, but it looks involved and expensive. Is it worth it?

[Grog]

Assuming that I'll make it home all right, it's 9/10 for me this week. On Monday I brought my spare bike to a colleague in my department who's just visiting for two months and previously bikeless. So I came back by transit. Otherwise, I commuted by bike every day! Not a whole lot of rain yet. Fall foliage is splendid, especially looking through my yellow lenses!

[SouthernBelle]

4/5 days for me this week. Yay me! A new personal best. & today I rode in a skirt.

[Eden]

M, W, Th, F for me. I got in an extra day by attending a lecture (at my workplace) on one of my off days. Today was my first good and rainy commute.

The lecture was actually about performance enhancing drugs in sport, though not at all what I was expecting. It was by an ethicist, who is *for allowing* peds... he had some compelling arguments, but for me it comes down to the governing body of a sport can make any rule they want - without even having to justify it. What is a sport but a list of mostly arbitrary rules to play and create a score, by which a winner is derived. So no matter how good the ethicist's arguments were if the governing body of the sport says no PED's then to go against that rule is cheating and that should be the core issue, not whether or not the reasons that the drugs are banned are valid or not.

[Geonz]

For a shorter reading, omit the passages in brackets

When I first saw the Xtracycle, I emailed a friend saying "I just saw something that fortunately is too expensive to tempt me." I was surfing for panniers, racks, *something* so that I wasn't so frequently saygin "I'd have taken the bike, but I had to bring _____."
Then I spent more time on the website, and also priced out the "racks and panniers and .." - especially since I *use* my bike. Quality matters.
I questioned the quality. Was this some quirky gadget that Californians with excess discretionary income got for show? Would it fall apart?
It was the history page that shifted me. These guys had been down in Central America with "bikesnotbombs" and had noticed bikes being overused... and went back and got a grant and got Stanford engineers to figure out how to elegantly, simply make a bicycle a more functional cargo machine.
Oh, and of course a chunk of the Xtracycle profits supported getting bikes down there.
I sent a few emails to Xtracycle. Laughter Medicine answered them.
I asked my bike shop guru who is ALAS AND ALACK moving to Wisconsin in a week or two... "ever heard of Xtracycle?"
"A reasonable carrying alternative," he said. And by the way, he'd be glad to make it happen to my bike. In fact, his eyes dilated... his breathing quickened...


[[[[[
[ I drove 735 miles to my sister's house for the fambly "Epiphimas" gathering. On the way I decided to go for it. I got to my sister's house 3:00 California time and called Xtracycle, Friday January 6... and got their voicemail. "You've reached Xtracycle. We decided to take a few days off at teh end of the year. If you want to reach ___, call ____. .... Laughter can be reached telepathically."
At 7:00 California time, 10:00 Baltimore time, after quaffing a few beers with the siblings (I have 5), I wanted to share that message with them. I called again... and a human answered. I hung up 'cause I was certainly not prepared to *talk* to somebody... and figured that there's was a business like the one I'm in and the phone was at somebody's house - and that, like we sometimes did, they'd forgotten to change the voicemail message
]]]]]

I ordered it. And I was just now inspired to peek at my blog, 'cause I had it going since 2005, so I wrote about the process. Snork... what could I know?

{{{{ My bike shop guru put it on. Therefore, it wasn't complicated. I think it takes a competent (but not excellent) mechanic to do it. (Tho' my guru is excellent.) Since it goes on lots of different kinds of bikes, you have to decide exacty how parts are going to get connected. But - once it's on there, it's on there.
I thought I commuted a lot. I thought the stuff on the website about "it will change your life" was California drivel.
I think I thought wrong.
It is so not complicated. It simply turns my bike into a practical vehicle.
The bags are like the back seat of my car, except after havin the Xtra for a year, I sold my car to my brother because in this college town I just don't need one. I've got the money in the bank, so I can get one... it's been a year and a half, and Illinois winters... and boy, do I *NOT* want a car. I'm FREE!
}}}}



I love my Xtracycle.
It rides like a bike. Carries like a truck.
And horribly nonmechanical Xious does not have to carefully load it so it doesn't fal over. I do have to make sure the silly straps don't dangle into the wheels, but I can put *anything* in there and it just stays and rides so easily... it's lke the back seat of a car. Only... what's a car?


((( I especially love watching people see it and THINK.
They think "Crap! She got that bike on PURPOSE!" Not "'til I can get a car."

Oh, and I was the third one in this town... and now there are a dozen.
And now longbikes are going mainstream - Surly, Trek, other folks are makeing them and Xtra has put the design online as "open source." I think this is amazingly gonadian of them. So you can make your own if you want
)))))

[kfergos]

Geonz, thank you for the excellent run-down of the Xtracycle. You've given me quite a bit to think about. Do you remember how much it ended up costing total, with having your wrench install it and all?

[Geonz]

I am thinking $500. (However, I sometimes have to make my wrench let me pay him for labor.) I think the Xtra has gone up a bit in price since 2006 (like all things bicycle - my bike shop guys warned us it would happen iwth the inflationary forces )

It has been very much worth it. The blender, now, that was a silly thing to get (but tossing my pop-tart money in the jar for it lost me about 5 pounds...) - but the bike... it really *does* change the whole definition of a bicycle.

[bikerHen]

Week two in the bag. I'm still 5 for 5. Had my first Fall rain commute this morning. Nothing like an hour ride in the rain! I LOVE my fenders! bikerHen

[twin]

5 of 5 although I may have one of the shorter commutes.

[tattiefritter]

Have had a couple of enforced no computer days as I needed to get stuff done!

Did the shopping I needed to do by bike on Saturday and cycle commuted to work and back on the Monday. No riding to running club as I was resting up for a trail race and didn't go.

[Aggie_Ama]

If I have time I will update who is still in the challenge or has joined (hi Sue!). I did make my 1x a week but we did use the truck 2 days and this week we will be driving it multiple days while we continue to work on the landscape project that is taking over our time right now. Our monthly fuel consumption on it is still way down and has been since we got commuting bikes in April.

[indigoiis]

Week 2 totals

9/30 60 miles
10/3 37 miles


Week 3 plan:
10/6 - 13 miles
10/7 - 60 miles
10/8 - 0
10/9 - 0
10/10 - 12 miles