Take It
Believe it or not, I love bike riding.
But, not so unbelievably, I don’t always love riding my bike.
Sometimes, I’m tired, cold, or just lazy, and the prospect of the long pedal home from school doesn’t sound that appealing. Or sometimes, like today, the bus is sitting right there as I come out the door and I think, “Wouldn’t it be pleasant to take a nap on the ride home, why make the effort to do the work myself?”
But then I keep in mind that I’m fifty-fucking-three years old and who knows how much longer I’m going to be able to propel myself by my own power from Bothell to Seattle and that makes me change my mind; it occurs to me that it’s really an amazing privilege to be able to pedal, even if it hurts a bit, and so away I go, spinning my cranks just as slowly as you please.
Assuming I decide to belly up to the public trough for just as long as possible, that means I guess I’ll retire in something like twelve years or so. At about 180 days a year, that’s fewer than two thousand days I’ve got left for my regular two-wheeled commute. Figure twenty or so miles a day on average (I usually take the bus out in the morning and ride home) that gives me barely forty-some thousand miles of riding left.
Every time I decide not to ride, I’m cutting into that; how foolish of me to even consider doing so!
Now, I know of course, that the sun is going to supernova in a few billion years, anyway, so naturally, in the long run, it doesn’t matter whether I ride or not; but given that it’s only a matter of time before the planet is reduced to a smoldering cinder anyway, it seems to be that the prudent thing to do is keep pedaling every chance I get, like it or not.
But, not so unbelievably, I don’t always love riding my bike.
Sometimes, I’m tired, cold, or just lazy, and the prospect of the long pedal home from school doesn’t sound that appealing. Or sometimes, like today, the bus is sitting right there as I come out the door and I think, “Wouldn’t it be pleasant to take a nap on the ride home, why make the effort to do the work myself?”
But then I keep in mind that I’m fifty-fucking-three years old and who knows how much longer I’m going to be able to propel myself by my own power from Bothell to Seattle and that makes me change my mind; it occurs to me that it’s really an amazing privilege to be able to pedal, even if it hurts a bit, and so away I go, spinning my cranks just as slowly as you please.
Assuming I decide to belly up to the public trough for just as long as possible, that means I guess I’ll retire in something like twelve years or so. At about 180 days a year, that’s fewer than two thousand days I’ve got left for my regular two-wheeled commute. Figure twenty or so miles a day on average (I usually take the bus out in the morning and ride home) that gives me barely forty-some thousand miles of riding left.
Every time I decide not to ride, I’m cutting into that; how foolish of me to even consider doing so!
Now, I know of course, that the sun is going to supernova in a few billion years, anyway, so naturally, in the long run, it doesn’t matter whether I ride or not; but given that it’s only a matter of time before the planet is reduced to a smoldering cinder anyway, it seems to be that the prudent thing to do is keep pedaling every chance I get, like it or not.
posted by Professor Dave at 7:31 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home