Why I Bike To Work

One of the many reasons I love living where I do is how alternative-transportation friendly the area is. I can metro, run, walk or bike just about anywhere I want to go, including my office.  I grew up in a typical suburban area and hence grew up as a typical suburban brat who required chauffeuring every where and believed it beneath me to walk any where.  Between college (where you walk everywhere) and living in the greater metro area (where non-car transportation is totally normal), I've gotten my attitude very nicely adjusted. Where I once felt trapped or limited by not having a car or someone to drive me everywhere, I now consider it very freeing to not rely on a personal vehicle unless I choose to.

I started biking to work last year as a way to fit exercise in my day without having to dash out to a gym class at lunch or give up happy hour after work.  I'm fortunate that my company supplies a full locker room with towels AND a hair dryer, which helps make biking to work possible. Getting the exercise was great, but I kept biking to work because it's just SO FREAKING ZEN. There is just no other way to describe it.

For those of you who have experienced the Metro system here, I'm sure you can understand what I mean when I say a bad commute to the office can botch a whole day.  I mean, one rude, sans deodorant person, or a gaggle of tourists from Indiana rubbing you (figuratively or literally) the wrong way and your whole day is toast. I won't get into all the ways other riders can mar my commute (I admit, I'm over sensitive), but let me assure you, there are many.

Other things that make biking to work awesome: 

• The delightful sensation of whizzing by standing traffic on Memorial Bridge as you cross the Potomac, wind in your hair: ZEN. ZEN, I tell you. It's awesome.

• Feeling like you are part of a secret society of bike riders. No one is really out and about on the mall at 7:30am except runners and cyclists.  It always makes me feel like slapping hi-fives and saying things like, right on Brother, because you know, were all in the brotherhood/sisterhood of people who bike to work and we're all underground and hip and stuff.

• It saves a lot of money.  If I bike, I give [Husband] my SmartTrip because I get SmartBenefits (my metro money comes out of my paycheck pre-tax) and he doesn't. Paying for one person, pre-tax to bus/metro to work is cheaper than us both doing it.  And if we'd get our act together and both bike, we'd save about $210 a month. Wild, isn't it?

• Eliminating a metro commute from my day and getting to spend some time outside does wonders for my sanity and attitude.

It took me awhile to finally try biking in to the office--I wasn't sure what route to take, how long it would take me, what the rules of the road are, etc. There are a lot of resources online that can provide this information, but I wasn't comfortable trying it cold on a work day.  It took testing it out on a Saturday afternoon to see how easy it was and that it was 100% do-able for me to get comfortable with it.  Now I frequently bike (and sometimes even run) to and from work instead of taking the metro.  I even got [Husband] to bike into his office once he was working a bike-able distance from our house.

If you can, give it a shot. You can't lose: biking is good for your health, the environment and your sanity.