My Name in Print

Two days this week I again resigned myself to the miserable temperatures and bused to work. As annoying as it is to be on someone else’s time, I have enjoyed all the reading I have been able to do.

But yesterday was a bit warmer, and since I had three errands to run after work, all with time frames close to each other that meant biking to each one would be easier, I bundled up and biked. Despite the cold, I was pretty warm by the time I got to work  well, heck it was 17*F by then!

Then I saw a RT of a RT on Twitter – other bike friends were sharing a Tweet that a Washington Post reporter wanted to talk to people who had biked to work that morning. Even though I hadn’t biked Tuesday or Wednesday, I figured, what the heck, and emailed. A short phone conversation followed, and the suggestion that a photographer might meet me to take a picture of me and my bike, and I didn’t think much more of it.

The Mechanic met me after work for dinner at Silver Diner, then we biked to pick up my first ever Relay Foods order, and then voted in a special county election. It was a short, civic- and community-minded bike date. I meant to take pictures of our bikes but didn’t.

Later that evening, I checked my phone, and discovered that other Twitter bike friends had found the article online and Tweeted it to me! Here I am: “Frigid temps are no barrier to the growing number of bicycle riders.” A friend emailed me a picture of the paper this morning, too. I do wish they could have gotten a picture of me on my bike, wearing normal street clothes, to show an even more normal “new normal,” but that’s okay.

Not keen on seeing my age right next to my name, though…

I am excited to be able to represent our bicycle community, and all the people I know who have longer commutes, or bike more consistently on colder and/or snowier days. I consider myself a reluctant activist – I’m more comfortable just doing what I believe in, on my own, than jumping whole hog into a group that does it (although I’m slowly warming up to that idea) – but this gives me warm fuzzies to know that this makes us all look good, and helps promote “the cause” better than some other actions could.

So while I’m reveling in my celebrity status (ha!), I’d like to give a shout out to all of you who bike more than I do. You are the hard-core ones. I just do it to get around town. But I’ll be sure to wave as we pass each other in the bike lanes! Bike on!