May Bike Totals
Yesterday, I went into my nifty GPS software and tabulated my biking totals for May. I've gotten better about starting/stopping the watch at the appropriate times, but the numbers from the beginning of the month are probably short by a mile or two roundtrip due to me not starting the watch until it found the satellites (sometimes it wouldn't find them until a few minutes into the ride). Now, I just start regardless, and it seems to figure out the distance properly. Anyways, here are my stats:
Driving roundtrips: 8
Biking roundtrips: 12
Bike mileage: 169.58 miles
Average speed: 12.2 mph (I believe this unfortunately includes the 0 mph while I am stuck at the two traffic lights on my route)
Top speed: 32.1 mph (yes, on a big downhill)
Since I usually average about 35-40 mpg in the Civic hybrid, at $4/gallon, I've only saved about $20 in gas money, but I'm in a LOT better shape than I was when I first started. And now that I've figured out my routine pretty well, the numbers can only go up from here.
Grilling Pizza
Earlier this week, the Washington Post devoted nearly their entire Food section to pizza. Frozen pizza taste tests, carryout recommendations (Church Street NY-style for the win!), and so on (pizza flavored beer?). But I was most intrigued by the article on grilling pizza. It was the second article on grilling pizza I had read in a week, so I had to give it a try.
Last night, we invited our neighbor over for a sanity-saving dinner (her husband is out of town, so she's going bonkers with two kids all to herself). We had grilled pizza and leftover mojitos from our BBQ Monday. Lisa made the dough in advance, giving it plenty of time to rise and such. While she was off at the chiropractor, I got the toppings ready, grilling some asparagus, slicing some fresh mozzarella, and mincing garlic. Then it was time to test it out.
Despite my worries about the dough falling through the grill slats, it actually worked almost as advertised. I got better about holding the dough at "10 and 2" as I cooked more pizzas (five total), but the first couple of pizzas were more rectangular than round. Luckily the kids and parents didn't care about style points, more about taste. The crust was nicely crisp, and the pizza was delicious. We had one pepperoni, two margherita, and two asparagus, prosciutto and fresh mozz (one had garlic too).
If you're looking for a way to liven up your boring steak/burger/chicken grilling routine, definitely click some of the links above to find out more. It's a fun experience for the whole family. Just don't let the kids get too close to the grill!
Memorial Day BBQ Success!
I got a little bit worried last week when I started totaling up the RSVPs for our barbecue and found we were going to get upwards of 40 people attending. That's a lot of people to feed! Luckily, our local Whole Foods was having a sale where they gave you $10 off your $40 meat purchase. We stocked up on a bunch of sausages: chicken spinach feta, chicken apple, hot italian turkey, veal bratwurst and pork bratwurst. And of course the obligatory hot dogs for the kids. We also got a whole bunch of corn (12 ears for $2, what price increase?). Our guests brought a bunch of side dishes to help us out. We also provided Grandma Kazmer's sweet tea, mojitos, strawberry margaritas, Bell's Oberon Ale, and juice boxes to drink.
Everything went very well. I was able to handle the grilling duties and all the sausages came out great. I personally thought the mojitos were great as well as the beer. I probably enjoyed those a little too much.
The kids had a good time with the kiddie pool (at least two naked kids spotted in there) and sprinkler, and they loved when we brought out a nifty new ice shaver for snow cones. It was a great way to kick off the summer season.
Sport Utility Biking
We had a lot of fun this weekend. Much of it was spent cleaning up the patio and carport so that we would have room for our barbecue yesterday, but we did manage to squeeze in a fun side trip to Viva Vienna, our local carnival. We decided to bike up there, but Lisa also wanted to bring a stroller so that we wouldn't have to carry both kids around when they inevitably got tired. The solution? Strap it to the trailer!
It's no Kona Ute, but it'll do.
It just took a bit of rope to tie it to the top of the trailer, and we were good to go. We made it there and back with no problems (except for Lisa's bike not shifting properly at first, which was fixed by the guy at the bikes@vienna booth in less than 2 seconds), and got a little exercise too. We're hoping that we might be able to ride up to the farmer's market on upcoming weekends too, though we may need to get a wire basket for the eggs and milk (I don't quite trust the kids to carry them for us!).
Travel Light
With the news that American Airlines is now going to charge $15 for the first bag you check (which is actually not new, Spirit Airlines does it, as does RyanAir in Europe. The difference is that they are discount carriers), you might find traveling lighter useful. I highly recommend the One Bag website, which teaches you how to efficiently pack your bag, and recommends carry-on compatible travel packs. You also might find the One Bag, One World blog useful, as well as this handy comparison chart of travel packs. And don't forget the packing cubes!
Real Savings
This morning, I was reading this article titled "What are your REAL savings?" and it reminded me a lot of my weekend.
On Saturday, I spent most of the morning, into the afternoon looking for a bike. In the morning, I went up to the swap meet. They had some decent bikes there, but nothing I was quite in love with (except for maybe the one that guy had already bought). Next, I went over to City Bikes, where I really loved the Specialized Tricross Comp, at the bargain basement price of $2000. Sweet ride though, fast, and I couldn't feel any of the gravel under the tires at all like I could with some of the other bikes. I also stopped by Big Wheel Bikes to test ride some others. In the end, I was really no closer to making a decision than I had before, so I kind of felt like I wasted a few gallons of gas and 4+ hours of my time looking for a bike.
On Sunday, we went out hunting for new Crocs for Ellie. She wore the treads off her old ones, and she wanted the Mary Jane style, in pink, size 10/11. A couple of places had the Skechers version of Crocs, which were not quite right. Other places had plenty of Crocs, but either not the right size or not the right style. We looked for probably a good hour and a half in the mall trying to figure out which store might have them until we stumbled across the fact that Hallmark carried every style, size and color you could ever want. As a bonus, they also had every Disney Princess Jibbit that Ellie wanted too. So we did finally get what we needed, but I couldn't help feeling like it would have been easier and less hassle to just order them over the Internet and have them delivered.
Were those trips worth the time and effort? Judging from Ellie's giddiness at her new Crocs, that may have been worth it, but it also would have been just as gratifying if we had never taken the trip and ordered them. Test riding the bikes did give me a little more insight as to where I am willing to make compromises when it comes to speed and comfort of a bike, but didn't get me much closer to a decision. Before I go out on any more test rides, I really need to decide where my priorities lie (and what my budget is!) so that I can be better prepared in the store. At any rate, I'm certainly going to think more about what it's costing me to make these trips in the future and whether they are truly worth it.
Wet and Wild
Just a little bit wet for Bike to Work Day this morning. Luckily, it was nowhere near the downpours we had last weekend, or even Monday. Hopefully it stays that way for the evening commute too!
I got to chat with a guy from Fairfax Advocates for Better Bicycling and a woman from Potomac Pedalers Touring Club, and even got taped by a Fox 5 news crew hopping on my bike to leave. Not sure if it actually aired or not though. There were about a dozen people there at any given time, with 2 or 3 leaving, then 2 or 3 more arriving to take their place. I stayed until they did the raffle, which meant that everyone there got a prize. I picked out the rain cover for my helmet, useful today!
The ride in was mainly wet, and drivers were very careful driving past me, thankfully. Unfortunately I wasn't as careful, and had to jump off my bike while riding too fast down an unfamiliar path through a park. Luckily, I wasn't street riding at the time, and I tried to be more careful on the roads.
The forecast called for the rain to taper off and from the looks of the radar, it's already moved through the area. So hopefully the roads and paths will have the chance to dry up a little bit and make for a smoother commute back home.
Next week, I'll probably be writing less about biking though. Last night, my back wheel popped right off while I was crossing a street and cranking down hard to get going. I have no idea how that happened (possibly because of the bike trailer attachment I had on the rear axle), but it emphasized that I need to get the bike in for a tuneup, including getting the wheels trued and gears tuned. Then again, I might just have a new bike by then, so we'll see!
My Picture in the Paper!
As previously mentioned, last week there was a photographer for the Washington Post out taking pictures of people riding their bikes to work, myself included. And lo and behold, my picture did make it into the paper today!
How to Live Well Without Owning a Car
How to Live Well Without Owning a Car: Save Money, Breathe Easier, and Get More Mileage Out of Life by Chris Balish
My review
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Since I started riding my bike to work more often recently, I have started pondering an everyday bike commute, ditching our second car completely. This book has some valuable tips for people like me, and even more for people who want to go completely car-free, instead of car-lite like me. Some of the choices he presents are hard: move closer to work, closer to services like the grocery store, choose doctors, dentists, churches that are closer to your house, and so on. The author focuses on the financial benefits of going car-free: no car payments, insurance, maintenance, and so on, and does present a compelling case to someone looking to buy a car, or who is still paying for one. My Civic hybrid is paid off, so I don't have the car payments on that to worry about, but it is still costly enough to make it worth looking at.
For me, he convinced me to look closer at public transportation as an alternative/backup to biking, and it actually does look feasible. We only live a mile or so from a Metro station, and my work provides a shuttle bus from another Metro station. I could also take a bus, though I would have to plan in advance to catch it on schedule. Still, both are valid options if I couldn't ride my bike. My work even provides pre-tax paycheck deductions for transit, which I didn't know about before.
I'm going to keep riding for a few more weeks to see if it's really something I want to do all the time, but after reading this book, I can definitely picture our family cutting down to one car in the not-so-distant future.
Next up is Divorce Your Car by Katharine T. Alvord.
Bike to Work Week Day One: Aborted!
Despite the chilly, rainy weather, I really did have all intention of riding home from work today. I changed into my bike gear, got my bike from the rack, and went to my car to drop off clothes and grab my helmet. Only to find, no helmet! I called my wife at home and discovered that I had managed to leave it there after carting it around all weekend to test ride new bikes. Hence, no bike riding home today. Instead, I took all my work clothes inside and drove home in a comfy car.
So instead of biking two half days and three full days, I'll be biking each day for the last four days of this week. Hopefully it goes better than day one.
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