It’s a heartbreaking story of pain and anguish full of love lost and found again. Not really. The short answer is I wanted to ride more without spending more time away from my family.

About 8 years ago, I was fat. I had gone from a relatively tone 180 lbs high school swimmer to a flabby 208 lbs recently married college grad. Most of the weight had come in the one year since I had gotten married and graduated. The combination of being stuck in a cubicle all day and the realization that we now were making enough money to be able to eat out on a regular basis led to an unhealthy lifestyle. At the time, my office was about half a mile from my apartment, yet I still drove to work every morning.

I decided something needed to change.

While on internships in college, I had started mountain biking. It was an activity that I enjoyed doing, but the terrain at Purdue (Northern Indiana) did not exactly inspire awe. I decided to see what Austin had to offer.

Needless to say, I got hooked. Really, I became obsessed.

Within about a year, I had lost all of the weight I had gained and then some. I was mountain biking nearly every day on local trails (of which, we have a surprising amount). My obsession did not fade with the years. It only got stronger. I even tried out the local race scene.

At this point, I still was not riding to work. We had moved to suburbia and honestly, the thought hadn’t really crossed my mind.

Then, on a glorious day in February of 2004, my wife gave birth to a beautiful baby girl (Ella).

While I obviously wanted to spend as much time as possible with Cortney and Ella, I still wanted to be able to ride my bike for fun and fitness. With mountain biking, not only do you spend hours on the trail, but you also spend time getting ready and driving to/from the trails. I thought maybe doing some road riding would be a more efficient way to get some exercise while keeping in bike shape.

I bought a cheap, used road bike from a friend. I did my first road ride while Ella was napping about 1 week after she was born. It was cold, rainy, and windy. I rode by myself and honestly did not have much fun. I didn’t really ride on the road much after that.

Actually, I wasn’t riding much at all for a while.

This was also about the time that gas started to creep up. It was still under $2/gallon, but it was quickly rising. At the time, I was driving a ‘mid-size’ truck which was true in name only. It was really a V-8 power Dodge Dakota. It was a very nice truck and hauled my mountain bike very nicely. It was, however, costing me ~$50/week in gas.

It was almost a revelation. I could save time and money by commuting.

Now, you’re saying “wait…how could you save time by commuting?” Here’s how. I was spending about 1 hour/day in the car getting to/from work and 1 hour/day at the gym. Instead of only getting a 1 hour workout, I could get a nice 2 hour workout on the bike (way better than the gym any day) while getting to/from work. I call that a net win.

I first tried my commute on a Saturday. I wanted time to try out my route without being too late to work.

It went smoothly and I started to occasionally commute by bike almost immediately. I had a healthy 20 mile each way commute on relatively safe roads.

I was also blessed with a very bike friendly work place. The bike racks were located inside the parking garage with a locked fence around them. We had showers available and management did not mind me sticking a drying rack in an empty closet. Furthermore, my hours were flexible so that I could time my commute to remain during daylight hours so that purchasing lights was not immediately necessary.

Since my first commute, I have refined my routes, my equipment, my frequency, and my methods.

I even learned how to enjoy riding my bike on the road.