I started commuting to work by bike about a month ago. I do it primarily for exercise (sorry to disappoint the hard core environmentalists out there) and putting in miles to train for the longer touring rides that Mark and I want to do this summer. I had to chuckle at my mom's reaction when I first told her about riding my bike to work -- "Was this Mark's idea?" Actually, I told her, I wanted to bike commute for a long time but was daunted by heavy traffic, sketchy city neighborhoods, and a busy schedule. But now, being free of all those barriers, I decided to give it a try.
Since the distance from Fort Collins (where we live) to Greeley where I work is roughly 30 miles, I started with a modified commute. I can drive to Windsor (15 minutes from Fort Collins), park at the trail head of the Poudre River Trail on County Road 13 and then bike the 18 or so miles to work almost completely on the bike path. It is a beautiful trail -- even the few sections that pass by mines, factories and light industrial areas.
The designers made the trail so that the concrete curves and follows the shape of the river in most places -- this makes things a little more slow going for me since I don't corner very well on my bike -- but I am usually not going very fast anyway. Going slow gives me time to look at the scenery -- snow covered Longs' Peak, the river, and the amazing variety of birds (eagles, hawks, pelicans, flycatchers, turkeys, pheasants, herons, meadowlarks ...) that live in this area of grassland. I am pretty sure the habitat surrounding the river is the equivalent of the Old Country Buffet if you are a bird -- bugs are abundant. On one section of the trail, I have to take a deep breathe, shut my mouth tight and squint hard for about 100 yards to avoid getting bugs in my eyes and teeth. Unfortunately, there is nothing I can do about them getting in my ears.
I found out that I should not take the warnings about falling rocks and high water lightly. Yikes! (Believe it or not, this pile of rocks that fell in the morning was completely cleaned off the trail by the afternoon.) Yesterday, I waded through several spans of shin-deep water that covered the trail in low areas -- between the snow melt and lots of rain that we've had here the river is running high.
Also, I have learned that just like some of the drivers that I see on I-25 when I am commuting by car, some of the animals are becoming familiar faces. Almost every morning I have been commuting, I run into the same AWOL cow that has managed to find his way to the outside of the pasture fence and onto the trail. The first time I was a little scared to pass AWOL cow, but she seems rather indifferent to me now. The baby cows seem pretty curious about bicycles, though. They usually stop and stare and stare as I go by.
There is also a skittish coyote that lives in the fields around the Lafarge mine near Greeley -- the prairie dogs and bunnies in the neighborhood are none too happy about it either. When the coyote shows up, the prairie dogs stand up on their mounds and all sound the alarm call (which sounded something like a dog bark to early settlers -- so that's why they are called prairie dogs.) A researcher named Slobodchikoff has done studies that suggest prairie dogs have a complex communication system to describe predators and alert each other to danger that resembles language. There are five kinds of prairie dogs: white-tailed, black-tailed, Gunnison, Utah, and Mexican. I am pretty sure the prairie dogs living around the trail are black-tailed prairie dogs. The small blur below is a prairie dog (in case you were wondering).
When I am biking on the trail, the surroundings often remind me of being near the beach. Maybe it's the huge sky, the constant wind, or large numbers of pelicans, geese, and other water birds -- I am not sure. (As it turns out, Colorado has been covered by shallow seas for a lot of its geologic history. )
Yesterday I made the full one-way 30 mile trip to work -- it took me about 2 and a half hours. Yes, I am not quite competing with Lance Armstrong at that pace -- but I bet I could
kick the butt of most of the four-wheeled commuters that pass me by. Biking to the trail from our house is not hard since Fort Collins has an extensive network of bike lanes. My goal is to make the round trip to work by bike at least once by the end of June.
