Bike to Work

Only one week to go now until Bike to Work Week! We’re super excited and can hardly wait to spend the week celebrating commuter cycling with you all! For further inspiration, visit us every day this week to read about how other commuter cyclists have made Bike to Work work for them.

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I started biking 14 years ago, and it has changed my life…

Years ago, I was eating terribly, not exercising, and was in very bad shape physically. My weight had ballooned up to somewhere near 250 pounds and all the extra weight was fat. In truth, I stopped weighing around 230, so I’m not really sure what I weighed. More than enough.

That changed in 1996 when my (now) wife won a pair of bicycles. I hopped on the men’s and huffed and puffed my way to Camosun, just 3 kilometers away. I had to stop and rest somewhere around six times. I was really out of shape and I simply didn’t know how bad it was.

There weren’t many bike paths and the Galloping Goose as we now know it didn’t exist. In those first days all my forays were into traffic. The story is long, but we can gloss over the details; all the broken glass, bottle caps, and other debris; the repairs; the accidents and near-misses; the bruises and the muscles. Biking in the rain, the snow, the wind, and sometimes, ever so rarely, the sun. Even in the heaviest rains, it could be worse – I could be trapped in traffic.

I have worn out two bikes, five helmets, three jackets, six pairs of gloves, lots of other clothes, countless spokes, cables, brake pads and inner tubes, and tires ranging from ultra-light Kevlar to puncture-proof solid rubber. I kept biking until I finished school, then I biked to work after I graduated.

At first, I had to take my bike into the shop to fix a flat. (Now it takes me 3 minutes, start to finish.) Last winter, I rebuilt my rear wheel after the freewheel froze.

14 years later, I weigh just 165 pounds and I am in excellent physical shape. I bike almost every day to work. It takes less time for me to bike than it does to bus, drive, or even get a ride. It is the fastest way to get home. Even better, the biking lets me mentally transition between work and home.

Biking has really changed my life and my health. I recommend it to anyone, and hope that Bike to Work Week gives you the support and confidence to start biking and stay biking.

Magnus McElroy
Electrical Engineer (EIT)
 

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the second story as part of our final count down inspiration series…

I was a bike to work team leader for 2007 and 2008. I worked at Victoria General Hospital as a nurse on one of the units there. I started biking to work due to not having a car and biking was 10 minutes faster than taking the bus. I had a wonderful commute along the Galloping Goose trail and one day after a 12 hour night shift, saw a large buck on a hill across the highway, in front of the water. He was staring at me and I was staring right back and I felt a little high after the night shift anyway, but that gave me goose bumps!
I moved on to another floor where someone was already a team leader, but I encouraged one of my rookie bikers from my old department to lead that year and she became a year-round cyclist! She lost weight and improved her health big time! I would see her on the way to or from work and we would catch up and that would make my day.
Biking to work is the best way to get there. The way I see it, the only down side is EFFORT, and after a while, that doesn’t even seem to exist.

Caroline Fewkes Mackay

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the first story as part of our final count down inspiration series…

I wanted to take a minute to share with you my bicycle commuting to work story, if I may…

I live in Langford & began working in the Blanshard & Cloverdale area in 2000. After a year of commuting by transit bus, I decided to give cycling to work a try. Note I said TO work. I did this for the first couple of years & had my husband come & pick me up at the end of my work day. Then I convinced myself that I was capable of also riding home. While my ride in to work in the morning is generally about 35 minutes or so, I found that going home was more like a 45 minute endeavour – it really is uphill from about the 6 Mile area, not to mention that there invariably seems to be a brisk head wind as an added bonus! Ok, so I managed to survive doing this for a couple more years. My next step was getting the proper wet weather riding gear so that I wouldn’t wimp out & simply take the bus on rainy days, which tend to be rather numerous in this part of the country! I can now proclaim that I commute to work on a daily basis – it works out to be about 25K a day. I must confess though that I don’t ride from Nov. to Feb. as I will not ride in the dark, by myself, on the Goose, during the winter months. But, I sure do miss it during that time!

Hopefully this will convince others to give it a try! If a mid 50-yr-old can put in 25K a day & thereby stay happily active, not to mention give our environment a break, then surely others can do it too! I sincerely hope to see more & more people on the Goose in the years to come!

Good luck with your Bike to Work activities & celebrations – keep up the good work!

Kind regards,

Denyse Ratcliff

Accounting Clerk, Kinetic Construction Ltd