Almost Halfway - Looks Like I Might Ride My Bike More Than I Commute To and from Work in 2K12

At the beginning of the year, I thought of a fun goal. Seeing on how I like to track how long it takes me to get home from work each day, and how I like to track how much I ride my bike for fun exercise, I saw that last year I totally rode my bike for more time than it took me to get home each day.

So I started wondering, what if I tracked how long it took me to drive into work as well? Would my bicycling time still be more than my round-trip commutes to and from work in the Mighty Corolla? A few quick calculations made it a clear "no." But happily, 2012 would be a strange year in that my office is moving from where it is now to a new building that's about 12 miles closer to my home.

The new building would reduce my trips home by probably about 30 minutes per day, as the 12 miles on the interstate generally were where the worst most heavily-travelled and slowest part of my trip happened.

The move would be in September, making for four months of shorter round trip commutes, and the possibility of riding my bike some days to and from the office, as the new building is equipped with exercise rooms with lockers and shower facilities.

Numbers were estimated and the goal was created: I'd spend more time riding my bike in 2012 than I would spend commuting to and from work in my car. Because of the move, I'd spend the first 8 months riding a deficit situation, and then after the move in September I'd be riding my bike for more time than commuting and I'd eat away at the gap and probably close the gap and end the year triumphantly with more hours logged in the saddle than in the driver's seat.

With two commuting days left in June, I'm about 33.5 hours short with the bike riding. A couple months ago, I'd have predicted I'd be about 42 hours down. But with recent developments with the office move, my Thursdays from here on out will be ending at the new building (where there's a weekly meeting to status all the facets of the new office construction), so my Thursday commutes home will be shorter.

Indeed, my last two Thursday commutes home have been 33 minutes each. The three before that averaged more than 75 minutes.

And the goal lives on. I continue to enjoy riding my bike for healthy wellness exercise, I continue to obsessively track my commute times and gas mileage, and I get to make nifty pie charts and graphs to keep track of all my data.

Thank you for reading this most boring blog on the planet.