Day 4

Tomorrow is bike to work day, so I rode in today! There’s a chance of thunderstorms today, but this morning was just cloudy and cool, so I made the trek anyway. It’s really just day 3.5, as the last time I rode in Jeff picked me up in the afternoon. If it’s storming this afternoon, that’s what we’ll do again.

Jeff was out of town last week (even aside from the rain) and he had off site meetings the first part of this week so I had to pick up the boys. I’m hoping that in the next couple of weeks I’ll be able to ride almost every day, so I have more energy for all of that walking in Belgium.

There are a couple of local people that bike in all of the time. One of them works in my building and he is BAD ASS. He rides, every day, rain, shine, or snow. During the last snowstorm, I followed his bike tracks into the office. This morning I turned onto the main road just a few hundred yards ahead of him. I stayed ahead for a bit, as I blasted down the hill, but going up the other side, he breezed right by me as if we were on flat. He wasn’t the least out of breath as he greeted me with a cheery “good morning!”

I’m in awe.

( Cut in random place for more bike rambling )

Link parking in honor of Bike to Work day

Heh. No pun intended.

http://www.carfreediet.com/

I don’t think we could ever be a car free family, but it’s interesting to think about going car-lite. If Jeff and/or I worked in Crystal City (not at all out of the question), and we lived in Arlington or someplace central, I could see dropping down to one car. Sure, Arlington is expensive to live in, but owning that second and third car is expensive too.

http://www.bikesatwork.com/carfree/cost-of-car-ownership.html

This link has a calculator that estimates the monthly cost of car ownership*. If I leave in their defaults, but cut the gas and oil way down (since I live close to work), and the repairs and maintenance (since Jeff does most of it), we could still afford almost $100k more worth of house. Which, handy enough, makes living in Arlington *almost* within reach.

Illuminating.

I’d keep the minivan. It’s handy for almost all of our needs – hauling my new wood floor home from Lowes, going to events, carrying the boys and another person, whatever we need. I like that the Jetta gets 50 mpg, but if we were car-lite, the goal would be to drive as little as possible anyway.

*Yep, it’s from a pro-bike site, and therefore suspect. But the numbers correspond well to info that I’ve seen elsewhere.