Riding In

It gets harder to come to work as the days get longer.  It is not harder to leave for work, because I am always anxious to hop on my bicycle, but the act of turning into the parking lot and dismounting my bike becomes less and less likely to happen every day.  I want to turn into the sunrise and hammer down on the pedals. I would love to spend my entire morning climbing Geiger Grade or riding the old highway out to Carson City; it's not that I don't love working with kids, its that I love my bike.

The other day, my boss asked me to attend a meeting off site right after school. The meeting location was a few miles away, and I really wanted to ride my bike, so I told her that I would leave during my prep period in order to get there on time.  She wanted me to put my bike in the back of her car, but the thought of missing a ride made me feel sick.  I think the assumption for most of my colleagues is that I ride my bike to lose weight, to save the environment, or to save gas money.  All those things happen incidentally, but I ride my bike because it is the most fun that I have on any given day.

Woody Guthrie had a sticker on his guitar that said "This Machine Kills Fascists," and I've seen similar stickers on bikes.  I don't know if my bike does anything to eliminate fascism in the world at large, but I certainly believe that my bike kills any impulses in me to do wrong.