Biking Incident This Morning

For the past couple of months, I have been biking regularly to work. The trip is about 3 miles in the morning and the same in the evening (I take the same route) --so cumulatively I bike 6 miles a day. On a weekly basis, the total miles biked ranges anywhere from 18 miles to 30 miles. Pretty impressive stuff, huh?

The main reason I bike is to enjoy the outdoors and avoid the traffic. Amongst the things that really displeases me is being stuck in traffic; another is paying for parking. So by biking to work, I am able to resolve both these grievances. The added benefit is saving on gas costs and getting a good workout. It has been a very good experience thus far -- so much so that I am determined that my next housing location should be within biking distance to work.

But alas I digress from the title of this blog post. After numerous close encounters with both moving and stationary traffic, I finally (not relieved in any way) fell from my bike this morning. It happened while I was waiting to cross an intersection, brake my bike, tried to tilt on my right foot (which couldn't really touch the ground), and so I fell sideways onto the pavement. Didn't sustain any injuries --just a small cut on my forearm-- but I laughed about it afterward. My main concern after falling was that my bike (Trek!) was somehow busted. Fortunately, it was not and I biked on.

I guess one thing to take away from this is that biking can be a very worthwhile endeavor to take on, especially in commuting instances. Of course it will depend on the availability of bike trails or amount of road traffic. For me, there are only upsides and no downsides.