Transport made me a morning person - temporarily
Trip Start
Sep 19, 2006
1
12
36
Trip End
Ongoing
Cambridge,
United Kingdom
Sunday, October 22, 2006
It also makes me feel better about going to work in the morning when I see all of the rowers struggling along the river, as clearly they got out of bed much earlier than me, and whereas I'm actually cycling somewhere, they're just training! The suckers.
On my first morning riding along Midsummer Common there were cows grazing and ducks pottering about, so many that I almost ran over a duck. I think Cambridge ducks are particularly coddled, because rather than having the sense to waddle out of the way they all waddled closer to the centre of the bike track forcing me to skid to halt
at my new work
. Then they turned their heads to look at me with their one-side-of-head eyes as if to say "what the hell do you think you're doing? This is our turf!" before shuffling off the track. It's quite endearing actually, the way the ducks take ownership of the riverside.Once I got to work, after having forty minutes of oxygen pumped through my brain, I was super alert and chirpy, didn't require any coffee and amazingly didn't even feel hungry until lunchtime! A new me! Just think how skinny I'd get cycling more than an hour a day and eating nothing for half of it!?
Then one morning I woke up to a grey, windy and misty day and decided I'd take the 20 minute-longer (and three pounds more expensive) bus ride. It was glorious being so lazy, listening to my iPod while I gazed out of the blurry rain-spotted windows. I think as the weather gets worse I'm going to take the bus more. It means two hours of sitting on buses and walking in the rain a day, rather than and hour and twenty minutes of free fitness (also in the rain).
The dilemma is that while cycling is faster, you can't carry an umbrella whilst cycling so you sacrifice slow dryness for speedy wetness (that sounds like a sanitary napkin ad)
Birds facing homewards
. People are really into cycling here, it's crazy. There are so many cycles with those baby seats on the back in our bike shed that it's near impossible to lift my bike out. Now me precariously cycling and risking my own life is one thing, but tagging along a toddler is another thing altogether! Helmets aren't compulsory here, which I find a little strange. It would kind of ruin the charm of the academics cycling around in their gowns if they had to wear helmets, but safety wise, I'm surprised England hasn't enforced it. I mean, I can't even buy two packets of pain killers at the supermarket at once in case I go home and overdose on them, but I can cycle freely on the roads without any precautions whatsoever. And what would do more damage - two dozen nurofens or a car-force blow to the head?
