Comfort Comes with Consistency
By Jay Snowdon
Recently, after a six year hiatus, I started bike commuting again, and at first I didn’t love it. I remembered what it was like biking through the rainy streets of Eugene OR, having to arrive at work and take off an entire husk of waterproof layers before being able to feel comfortable and mentally able to engage with office life. Coffee helped, but I never really fell into a rhythm because of the nature of what I did for a job. I spent large chunks of time out in the woods (and not able to bike commute to our worksites) teaching students about nature, conservation, and leadership, then I’d spend short chunks of time back in the office. After a couple days riding my bike three miles to work – or two miles if I chose to go over the largest hill in town – I would get tired of shucking my layers twice a day and take the bus to mix things up. I’d listen to my podcasts (I can’t ride with headphones like I can’t ride without a helmet, some things are just engrained from an early age), and watch some different people and scenery from the windows.
As a Bay Stater growing up just outside of Boston, I loved, and still love public transit, and have spent probably a couple lifetimes on the Green Line light rail, so taking a bus was the closest thing I could get to a metro in Eugene. You couldn’t convince me not to take the bus. The bus was going to happen. My passion for multiple modes of transportation (not finding out there was a term for this until last year might still be my most embarrassing moment – especially when the term is made by simply shortening each of those words: multimodal transit) would not be fettered, so it was my own doing that I didn’t enjoy bike commuting to the extent I could have. I found many of my coworkers and friends in the community didn’t have this problem because their bikes got them where they wanted to go every single time and they had been doing it long enough and consistently enough that the layer-shedding-dance was a part of their commute and process. Just like a four-wheeled commuter might park their hunk of metal, sip their coffee during a driveway moment, grab all their belongings for the day, open their umbrella, lock their precious baby, boop BOOP, and stroll into the office; everyone has their morning commute process.
I am just now realizing the beauty of bike commuting and how the process is part of the pleasure, not an obstacle as I had thought in Eugene. Six years and three gas-guzzlers later, I have taken the plunge into carlessness yet again. Now that I live in Durango, I have fully embraced the waltz of the wrapping, though in my current climate, I truly am like a little burrito rather than a human Gore-Tex advertisement. My current commute is 2.8 miles gaining under 100 feet of elevation and takes about 15 minutes, depending on how much loligagging I do (something that cannot truly be appreciated as an artform if you’re driving a two-ton killing machine). I am also fortunate enough in Durango to have a very basic transit system with 5 lines, one only operating during college classes, and one only operating during global pandemics to get to the hospital, so that I don’t feel as inclined to take my bus lines. Of course, I still do take the bus, but much less frequently than I have when living in larger cities – it’s still transit! Like many things in life, sometimes you must give up one love to ensure the continuation of another; I have given up trains in order to feel the wind in my helmet, hear the whistle along my spokes, and actually be able to look around unless I get stuck in bike-traffic, which has really only happened a couple times. This isn’t Amsterdam…..yet.