Wednesday, March 24, 2010

The Bike-to-Work Challenge


The thing about living in Wyoming is there's always an excuse NOT to do something. It's too far ... it's too cold ... it's too windy ... blah blah blah.
In the past, I rode my bike to work in Florida (13 miles each way) and Missouri (1.5 miles each way - with a monstrous hill and a creek in the middle), but I have found LOTS of excuses not to ride the 3 miles from my house to work in my year's worth of living in Wyoming, where it starts snowing in September and doesn't stop until June.
Thinking about what a whining little sissie I've become in a place where people are supposed to be "cowboy tough," I decided it was time to make some goals.

Goal 1: Get off thy (increasingly) big butt and register for some bicycling races this summer.

Accomplished. With the help of my riding buddy in Missouri, we have signed up to do the Laramie Enduro, a 70+ mountain bike race on the trails of my mountainous backyard on July 31, and the very next week the Copper Triangle, a 78-mile road ride that crosses Fremont, Tennessee and Vail passes in Colorado. I was planning on jumping without looking when a friend said, "Vail pass - whoa. When's the last time you drove over that?" Shut up. I don't want to think about it.

Goal 2: Put together a plan to train for said races and stick to it.

Thanks to Amazon.com, I got some great books to help out with Goal 2, and I think I've been about 70 percent compliant with the plan I've set up, so I feel confident that I'll be ready for these races in a little more than four month's time.

Goal 3: Bike to work at least 200 days this year, beginning March 15.

Let me start by saying that this a completely arbitrary number. I thought it would be challenging. I have no idea of how attainable this goal is, and I didn't really think about it that hard. Now looking at it, I'm kind of scared, but 200 is a nice, round, ambitious figure that will sound super cool if I can say "last year I biked to work 200 days." Not that I would :-)

From a geeky perspective, if I accomplish Goal 3, that means I will save 6 miles a day from my car's odometer, which is 1,200 miles a year. Given that my car averages about 35 miles per gallon in town in cold weather, that means I will save 35 gallons of gasoline. At a price of about $2.50 per gallon, this will save me about $88 in a year. So as you can see, I'm not doing it for the money. I'm sure there will be times when I will be willing to pay $88 for a ride. But it will save me nearly four trips to the gas station, and considering I only fill up once a month now, that will cut my annual gas bill by about one-third, which I think is impressive.

At this point, I'm happy to report that I have six days of commuting under my belt, and already I have biked through two blizzards and crashed on the ice once. So even if I fail miserably, and drive to work more than 55 days this year, at the very least I will have earned some interesting stories to share. Stay tuned ...


Monday, March 15, 2010

Taking it to the Mattress

Recently, after fits of tossing and turning, and noticing more squeaking and creaking, my husband and I decided to make one of our most adult-feeling purchases to date: We decided it was time for a new mattress.

I have to admit, the impetus for this decision came in two forms: 1.) We finally saw a bedroom set that appealed to our extremely picky style; and 2.) Annoyed with each of us feeling like the other is intruding upon his/her side, and with a 60-pound dog adding herself into the mix about halfway through the night, we realized it was time to upgrade to a king-size bed.

So, with the shipping confirmation of our bedroom set from Crate & Barrel safely in our inbox, we were prepared to conquer the next step: the mattress.

If you haven’t shopped for a mattress in an actual mattress store, I recommend it for experience’s sake alone. There’s something surreal about lying on a bare mattress with your shoes on and your partner next to you, both of you trying to surmise how you’ll feel about lying on this surface for the next decade or so. I mean, how better to contemplate this decision than lying on your back, staring at ceiling-tile stains in a fluorescent-lighted showroom while listening to a taped infomercial explaining the benefits of the coils and padding under you.

If you have had the pleasure of this experience, then you know that the salespeople rank second in voracity only to those found on used-car lots. They insist that you take your time and “get comfortable” to assess the full impact of their products while they stare at you and follow you around from bed to bed, grinning like idiots. Luckily, our salesman was gracious enough to leave us alone as we tested about a half-dozen mattresses.

We started by lying on our backs, then flipping to our sides, facing each other and trying not to laugh — we tried instead to focus intently on how our backs felt, how our hips felt, how our entire body was cradled in layers of some fiber said to be invented by NASA.

Then we’d move to the next and repeat the ritual, which only confused me more. After all, I remember really liking our current bed when we bought it six years ago, only to frown upon it now, with its “compressed” coils and its unsupportive pillowtop. I blame it on my advancing age. I stand by my purchase.

Of course, adding to my confusion was the fact that these mattresses come with a 20-year warranty. Yet at a recent dinner party, former mattress-selling friends of mine told me the longest I’d ever want to keep a mattress was 10 years — tops. With dust mites and sweat and skin particles and all. Gross. They actually informed me that in that time your mattress will double in weight from these things. Super gross.

With all this in my head, who the hell knows what to think? You would think I could just lie down and say “yes” or “no.” After all – who knows what the future holds? Doesn’t every big decision go like this? And don’t all those big decisions turn out to be smaller and smaller with the passage of time?

“You know, with the purchase of this mattress you get two free pillows,” the helpful salesman added as he casually strolled back to check on us.

Turns out, that’s all I needed - Sold. After all, neither of the houses I bought came with free pillows.