I have a confession to make.
Ready? Besides my Tuesday bike
ride to my carpool for school, I really can’t remember the last time I rode my
bike to run errands. Eek! No really.
This blog is all about biking and a biking lifestyle and here I am
feeling like a phony…a fraud.
There are 5 adult bikes in my house: a long tail, a
street/city bike, a mountain bike, a Brampton ,
and a road bike and lately I have found myself taking the car everywhere I go. Where am I going with this? Well, I guess I wanted to share that even for
people who are excited about biking as a lifestyle, it doesn’t mean that it isn’t
a challenge sometimes.
There are times when I’m on the bike and my kids are having
a meltdown and wish I just had my car with me so I can buckle them in and take
off. The thought of not having to plead
with my 2 year old to keep his hands off the chain while I tell my 4 year old
for the 6th time to ‘come here, so I can get your helmet on’, while
I figure out how to get the grocery bags on the bike, is just
too much to handle. No screaming toddler
rocking the bike while I’m riding on the street. No frustrating thoughts that I’m not there
yet, meanwhile all the cars are flying by and if I just had my car, I would be
there already! Argh!! As much as I love my bikes…and actually
riding them, there are times when these thoughts are all that go through my
head.
Yet, when I drive those few miles, a little voice in my head
always tells me I should have taken the bike.
Summer is finally here and it will be gone soon. We live in Oregon for cryin’-out-loud, there is no time
to waste. A brief 2 months of rolling out
without having to gear up and I’m totally wasting it. A little pebble of guilt starts to build up as
do all the excuses I give myself for why I chose the car. Life seems to end up getting in the way, yet the
bike is one of the only times I have to escape everything else that is pulling
at me.
I share this just because event though under normal
circumstances, I love riding my bike and I think it’s a great way to slow down and take it easy,
I also wanted to be honest in sharing that it can be a challenging choice. Like most things, there are good biking days
and there are bad biking days and there are weeks when I just don’t want to do
it. So if you’re thinking about biking
sometimes but feel ‘it’s just too much to commit to’, just know that it doesn’t
have to be all-or-nothing. It’s about
getting out there and having an adventure…even if it’s a little one.
