bike to work day

Bike Everywhere Day!

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Today is #bikeeverywhere day! The warm, spring air and sunshine blessed all cyclists this morning in Seattle. I got up early with grand plans to ride by 10 stations on the way to work. This is one of the greatest advantages of working downtown and commuting along a major (if not the most popular) bike corridor in a large and largely bike-friendly city. 

The first 2 stations I planned to visit couldn’t be found. Either I read the map incorrectly, or they simply weren’t there. I began to wonder if getting up early was such a good idea. Then I stopped at the F5/Cascade Station. I danced around to some fun tunes from the DJ and filled my face with energy food. I passed the PEMCO station across the street, but made it to the Facebook Station. Facebook nonchalantly handed over a high quality bag full of high-quality goodies. I made a point to engage with other riders. This is community building, right? I’m usually rushing into work. The sooner I get to work, the better the day! The harder I ride, the better the work out! No time for chatting! Today, I had to concentrate on kicking bakc in pointless banter. Then I got some fun snacks at the next station. Kilroy made my day, though. They had a large banter that said something about “Bike to Work Day”! Sometime back, the name of this celebration changed to “Bike Everywhere Day”. But I’m biking to work! I’d I were simply biking everywhere, I wouldn’t need doughnuts to entice me, the ride in itself is reward enough. Biking to work everyday is a different kind of hard. I stopped at Oculus Eye Care and entered a raffle to win a pair of sunglasses. I could really use a pair of prescription glasses for biking, so I am secretly crossing my fingers for the win on that one. I veered one block off my route for the SubPop stop. They tried to give me a CD and I instantly didn’t feel cool enough to get a free CD from SubPop. But they gave me one anyway. All in all, it was a wonderful morning. I could have veered even more off course and gotten cans of cold brew coffee and other wonderful things, but I am happy that so many people and businesses are out there supporting cycling and cyclists. Thanks for the loot, Bike Everywhere Day!

Big Data for Urban Planners

I just learned that Strava sends aggregate commute data to urban planners. That means I'm sopposed to tag my commutes as commutes. That sounds so simple, right? Not so much in our tech-dependant era! See, my Wahoo devices are connected to my Garmin activity watch which sends the data to the Garmin Connect Mobile app, which automatically shares the data to Strava and MyFitnessPal. To tag my commutes as commutes, I'd have to log into Strava and click that option on each ride. It sounds so simple. But between all my lights and trackers, I'm already pushing a lot of buttons. Multiply that two times a day, nearly every day, and that's a lot of button pushing! I want my activities to be heard for a better urban future...But do I want that bad enough to go back and tag my commutes?