Ride a Bike to Work Week

Bike Month for 2011 is in May and the Official Ride a Bike to Work day is Friday, May 20th, 2011.  Unfortunately, this is extremely unpractical for most employees who commute what I would consider an extreme distance that is unrealistic for riding a bike, to work.  An unofficial ratio of office staff to production staff is about 3/7.  That means that 30% of your employees, the ones that actually greet and meet the customer, would be a little on the rank or smelly side after riding an average of 18 miles to work, one way.

So, why am I telling you this?  Well, it's simple, I dropped my bike off at the bike shop for a health inspection and installation of some new handlebars and it's ready to pick up today.  I'm pretty excited because I love to ride but my handlebars were pitching me over the front of the bike and placing so much weight on my hands and wrists that I was suffering neck pain as well as hand and wrist stress after about 15 minutes of riding.  Turns out that I could replace the neck of the bike with a taller neck that would raise my riding position a few inches.  Then I decided to add some new handlebars that lifted another two inches so I could achieve a much more upright riding position.  All this fine work was completed by Danville Bike and Footwear for a modest investment.  I decided that it was time for a new riding helmet, since my old helmet had met it's demise a few years ago, and they provided that as well.  I know, I probably paid more to have the work done instead of doing it myself, but I look at it this way.  I have been completing all my own maintenance for the last five years and it was time to have someone else check my work.  I like to send my cars and trucks as well as my bicycles and animals to another health care provider periodically to just to be sure I haven't missed anything.  This is kind of a "check the checker" deal that helps maintain all my stuff.  It works pretty good, especially since I am not afraid to work on my stuff, even if I don't know what I'm doing, and I want the experts to tell me if'n I screwed something up.  As in this case, I needed to modify the setup but didn't know exactly what needed to be changed.

I probably won't be riding to work anytime soon since I am someone that perspires a lot when I exercise.  Some people glisten, I sweat like a pig.  Therefore, even if I wanted to ride to work, my co-workers would probably bar the door to prevent me from getting too close once I arrived.

Thanks for stopping by.  Let's get out there and make it a great day!