Bike Riding vs. Car Commuting Challenge: One-Third Year Update

I finished April with 81 tracked bike rides totaling 96.25 hours, and 150 commuting trips to and from work in my car, totaling 123.0 hours. Due to rounding that happens on my chart posted here, my total difference between riding and driving was 26.84 hours.

Coming into April, the bike riding was about 25 hours short (25.22 hours short on April 4), so losing less than two hours over the course of the month is a good development. Clearly this is due in great part to my 6-hour century ride on 21 April. Ordinarily on a Saturday, I'd ride 2 or 2 and a half hours, so the extra four hours is what really helped this effort to remain on plan.

As we enter into May, the weather report calls for rain each of the next 4 days, so opportunities to ride the bike will be limited. So, my happy situation of being ahead of schedule (running a deficit of 7 hours per month) will probably take a change in the wrong direction. Also in May are a Saturday graduation I will be attending, and Mother's Day that will likely preclude me from a bike ride.

However, I plan on the "ride your bike home from work day" on Thursday 17 May to look forward to, and that ride will probably be more than two hours, plus I will avoid driving home in the car that day, so the commuting by car time will not increase on that day either.

Of course, the official "ride your bike to work day" is that Friday, 18 May, but that's a scheduled day off for me so my little way to participate will be that day before, and since it's more than a 30-mile trip in each direction, I'm cheating a little by just riding my bike home.

But next year, as my office will be in a new location closer to my home, I just may be able to ride my bike both ways on that day. We'll see about that and remain optimistic.