Preface: I commute from Northeast Portland to Wilsonville, every day to go to work. According to Google maps, I have a 22 mile commute. Although I rode my bike every day last summer, I eventually broke down and bought a car when the rain started. I rode one time to work during the winter and promptly came down with a cold.
Since it’s June, and every part of me wants the weather to be better, oh yes - and gas prices are soaring! - I’ve been riding my bike to work lately. Although I’ve ridden multiple times the last few weeks, somehow I have invariably been caught in a rainstorm every single ride, which could be worse if it were colder, so I’ll refrain from complaining.
Yesterday I rode downtown to catch the bus at the usual time. I did the smart thing and wore all my rain gear: rain pants, rain jacket, and booties over my shoes. I felt soaking wet anyway by the time I got to the stop and felt grateful I only had 15 minutes to wait. Unfortunately, the bus never came. 20 minutes after the bus was due (and 15 minutes before the next one was supposed to arrive), I gathered up all my commuting gear and headed over to my only other option, a slower bus that only takes me a third of the way to Wilsonville. Unbeknownst to me, it’s also one of the most crowded buses. There I was, soaking wet with all this crap I have to carry around cause I ride a bike, bumping into people and making them very uncomfortable.
Eventually, the bus arrived at Barber Transit Center and let me and my bike off. I checked the schedule and found, to my dismay, that I had missed my connecting bus by 4 minutes. The rain had slowed to a drizzle, and the next bus wasn’t coming for 35 minutes. I thought to myself “It can’t be that bad - it won’t take me that long”, and headed out on the long road to work.
Unfortunately, it was that bad and it did take me that long. I haven’t ridden much over the long winter months and I’m not quite as in shape as I used to be. I dragged the pedals around, sweating into a t-shirt I knew I wouldn’t change, panting up hills that don’t compare at all to what I could scale effortlessly in San Francisco. I was approaching the Tualatin Park and Ride (still 7 miles from work!) and realized I just wasn’t going to be able to make it all the way on my own.
I had just dismounted from my bike, ready (and willing) to spend at least a half an hour stuck waiting for the bus, when the bus I should have caught in the first place rolled up to the stop. Relieved, I climbed aboard, using my purchased transfer to go another 5 miles. I did have to ride the last couple of miles to work, but I was so thankful to finally be there that I barely noticed my own fatigue.
I don’t know why I enjoy this kind of torture. Riding my bike, my commute takes 90 minutes, each way, on a good day with no traffic. In a car, I arrive at work in under 30. I figure I use 2 gallons of gas total every day on my commute. This equates to about 8 bucks (right now). Taking the bus costs at least four dollars a day, sometimes five if I’m real lazy and I take a Wilsonville bus part way. So I’m saving between 3 and 4 dollars a day, a few times a week (10 bucks maybe?) to spend three hours in the rain, suffering horribly as I ride up and down the hills. And that’s not all. I am forced to rely on an inconsistent bus (that may or may not already have the maximum number of bikes on board).
I guess part of me thinks that any day now the sun is going to come out and I will experience the pure bliss of freedom only found on my bicycle. I love going days without having to be behind the wheel of the car. Driving is stressful, even more so than those ridiculous rides to work. I’m saving a little bit of money, but the best part about that is that I don’t have to go to the gas station as often, so I don’t have to get all depressed about how fast prices are going up. Mostly I think that I just really love riding my bike, and doing it for a few hours a day is pretty much as good as it gets, even if I do get soaking wet from the oh-so-typical Northwest rain.
