Where's the Bus?

In 2001 I accepted a job that was 35 miles from my home. The distance created an impossibility to cycle to my office on a regular basis. I started to commute by car. I could count on one hand the number of times I rode my bicycle to that office because it was just too far. Unfortunately even when I transferred offices to a site within 15 miles of my home I continued to drive instead of ride. During those years I added a certain girth to my frame.

Once I recognized the changes to my body, I began to consider ways to remedy the situation. I obtained a home gym weight station and even borrowed a rowing machine that my parents had but never used. Although I now had the equipment, I failed to maintain a regular workout regimen and so I realized almost no improvement in my physical condition. About seven years ago I again changed offices to the Matheson Courthouse in downtown Salt Lake City. My employer offered me either a parking place or a bus pass. Being ecologically minded I opted for the bus pass, especially because there was a stop that picked me up two minutes from my home and let me off a block from my work.

For almost a year I loved this commute routine and I increased the amount of reading that I was doing significantly. I was also getting to the point where my stomach was a nice shelf for my books. I reevaluated my choices and came up with the decision to return to cycling. I didn't want to arrive to the office too sweaty, so I planned to ride to the office on the bus placing my bicycle on the bus bike rack and then cycle home. For  a year or so that routine helped me return to a more healthy weight and improved my general health.

One morning I was waiting by the bus stop and looking up the street. I could not even see the bus. I decided to go ahead and ride my bicycle to the next stop rather than wait for the bus to arrive. As I reached the next stop I looked back and could still not see the bus. I repeated this step over and over until I realized that I was going to make it all the way in to town before the bus arrived. Technically, I was wrong. The bus I was waiting for passed me two stops before my destination.

The only reason it caught up to me on that day was because I kept looking back to see where it was.  If I had simply ridden straight to the office without regard to the bus that should have been coming, I am confident that I would have beat the bus on that day as well. A couple years later I purchased a legitimate road bike, rather than my mountain bike, and since then the bus has provided no competition.