Bike Rides & Traffic
Last week one of Holland’s main water pipes broke due to some miscalculations from a city contracter. The pipe that broke was 1 of 3 main pipes that bring Holland the majority of it’s water with this particular pipe bringing close to 15 million gallons of water a day to the South Side of Holland.
On top of that the pipe broke right by Holland’s main bridge that connects the south side with the north side. If you’re from Holland or have every been to Holland you’ll quickly find out that this bridge can’t be plugged up. People need to get across that bridge and in mass quanity.
Monday morning I was a part of the group of people that needed to make it across that bridge. I’m usually running late and hold ups in traffic don’t sit well when you need to be to work in 5 minutes.
What seemed like hours later I finally pulled into the Sentinel parking lot and strolled into work 10 minutes late.
When it was time to go home I had to retrace my steps across the bridge only this time it took me over 30 minutes to get to my house. That’s 30 minutes to drive a little over 2 miles.
After hitting my sterring wheel, listening to random crap on the radio, and yelling at other cars trying to cut in line I decided that I wasn’t going to take my car to work the next day. My bike has been sitting in the hallway for a little while and had only been used to run here and there for small trips to the store. Tomorrow I was going to leave my car in the driveway and pull out the 2 wheel.
I got to work that next day in 15 minutes and got home in about the same. Since then I’ve been able to drop that time and get to and from work in close to 10 minutes. In fact, my roommate and I had coffee downtown and when it was time to leave he hopped into his car and I onto my bike. We ended up at home on the other side of town at the same time. I would have beat him but my chain came off halfway through my ride.
So What Now?
I would really like to continue riding my bike to work. It’s such a refreshing feeling early in the morning and it wakes me up for when I get into work. It’s been almost a whole work week and I haven’t taken my car to work since that horrible day on Monday.
So if you see some guy whipping down the streets then just be kind to him and try not to run him off the rode. He’ll appriciate it.
russell Says:
i gotta get me a bike