I didn’t pledge anything, but found myself biking the first five days of April anyway.
I think #30daysofbiking is awesome for forming habits. It’s great for extra motivation to get out even if you don’t totally feel like it, or if the weather isn’t perfect. It’s often not perfect, but the bike is often still the best way to get there. However, I already have the biking habit, in all (well, most) weather, and I trust myself to choose the best mode on any particular day, so I don’t feel like I need a pledge. And I have no intention of riding every day – I bike to go places, not for the love of biking, and I don’t go places every day. Sometimes I go somewhere for which the bike is not the best mode. I prefer to think about it as one day at a time.
But then April 1st rolled around, and I realized that was our best day to go to the library, and it was just a matter of picking the mode. So I polled the big kids, and one chose the bike and one chose the bus. I’d been leaning towards driving because I just wanted to get it done, but realized that I’d be tempted to leave the kids in the car while I exchanged the books, making the trip a total waste of time for them. I have more respect for their time than that. Okay, why not the bus? Well, there’s a nice playground near the library that’s just annoyingly far enough that I don’t want to carry two babies over there, but if we bike, I’ll ride between with the babies on the bike and the kids will run over there and we’ll get to play. With that, the mode decision was made and I had a ride for day one.
On the second, I didn’t think I was going to bike, because we went on a morning seven four churches visitation, by car. In the evening after bedtime I snuck out to church to visit the Altar of Repose, so I had a ride anyway for day two. On the third, I rode my bike to ride my horse. On the fourth I rode over to a neighbor’s house to pick up an item we were borrowing, and Easter Sunday we rode to Mass, an Easter egg hunt, and Easter dinner with friends – all within three miles of home, so of course we biked!
On the 6th we were in North Kirkland, which is not accessible by bike, and from home, walked to the grocery store. And today I rode my bike to ride my horse again, and we are spending the rest of the day at home. That’s six of seven.
The View from the Crosswalk 