BikeWalkBakeBarb: Back in the Saddle: Why April 11 = “Day Three” of 30 Days of Biking

I got off to a decent rolling start. I worked really hard to make a bike ride happen on Day One. Day Two was a breeze, more or less.

Day Three threw me for a loop—ironically, because my husband spent the day in a bike race and I chased him around the course in a car, f’gosh sakes, so his son and daughter could cheer him on. (Before you ask--no, it's not an option to chase a pack of bike racers for 48 miles on a bike. Not for me.)

Then there was a really, really long day of work because I had to leave for several days, then the travel day, then four days of walking myself silly on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. (The good news there is that I did a great job of celebrating National Start Walking Day on April 6.)

I got back, collapsed and recovered from the time zone difference, and now I’m back in the saddle. Woot!

Yesterday was one of those iffy Spokane spring days; I set off in the rain with my raincovers over my dress shoes but still wore my skirt outfit because it wasn’t that cold. What I hadn’t anticipated was the amount of mud spatter I’d be sponging off my skirt when I got to work, but oh well—it’s washable and I paid all of $4 for it at a thrift store.

The reward came at the end of the day, when the sun shone and puffy clouds decorated a blue sky as I pedaled home on dry roads.

This morning gave me another great ride. I went bare-legged in my gray silk Ann Taylor suit and new gray Aerosoles (a souvenir of the DC trip—my annual ritual of shoe shopping), which I imagine looked a tad incongruous with my bright yellow high-vis jacket but I like to be visible.

This outfit flashes a fair amount of leg; it’s not a deliberate attempt to look like a high-class “professional woman,” just my effort to ride in regular clothes to prove you don’t have to be a stretchy-pants rider to enjoy bike commuting.

The best part was when I recognized the rider ahead of me on the Southeast Boulevard bike lanes as my best friend Betsy, founder of Belles and Baskets (our “y’all come” women’s bike group) and got to ride part of my route with her, chatting all the way.

I rode to a midday lunch meeting at the wondrous local-food heaven Santé, then back to campus for an event. The coolest part is something I’ve come to expect after years of bike commuting: Everyone I lunched with was headed to the same event in their cars and I beat them all.

Now that I’m rolling again I hope to power through to the end of April. But of course that doesn’t mean stopping—then it’s May, which is Spokane Bike Month. For more on that see our brand-spankin’-new website for the former Bike to Work Spokane, now Spokane Bikes.

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