4:45pm on a Tuesday. I need to jump off of work a little early. That’s a déjà vu feeling, a fond memory. Just a year ago, this was part of my daily routine. Sign on to work early. Sign out early to get on my bike and go pick up Calvin from daycare.
On this Tuesday, it was raining heavy with strong winds that had some unspoken beef with your umbrella. Apparently, the river was near flooding.
Why was that déjà vu feeling a fond memory, though? Daycare added an extra responsibility on my plate that involved biking uphill both ways with the extra weight of a child. On a stormy day like today surely I would much prefer to stay warm and dry.
But there I was, wishing there was an excuse to do it again.
Routing Between Neighborhoods in Richmond
The daycare was in an adjacent neighborhood to mine. This made the trip about 15 minutes long and broken into 3 segments: my neighborhood, the cut through roads and the daycare’s neighborhood.
Once Calvin was strapped into the trailer, it was time to reverse the route back home. What went up had to come down and vice versa.
The daycare kids sometimes gave me a cheering run to the end of the block. One child shouted at me as he climbed into his car, “I saw you!” He lived along my route and was always seeing me.
Government road’s steady decline had the force of a freight train, slow to accelerate but powerfully fast. Sometimes I saw another biker. Sometimes, it was another parent-child duo. Someone to wave at while we chug pass.
Government road bottomed out and bumped up over the railroad tracks before bringing me to the foot of Glenwood Ave. By this point I had passed the other biker. Next was a race against myself. My bike computer chirped at the start of the hill.
The Glenwood climb was a third of a mile long. It climbed 75ft at an average gradient of 4.5%. The bottom of the hill eased me into the climb before giving me the real work.
Midway through the climb, I was breathing heavy. My heart rate was at its max. If I were biking without cargo, I could stand on my pedals and throw my weight from side to side, “dancing on the pedals.” But that would make for a shaky ride for Calvin. I needed to keep my form mechanically tight, just kicking up and down.
The gradient was forgiving before the final punch. It wasn’t enough to slow my breathing but it gave me a moment to check my bike computer. Could I push for my fastest time? It all came down to this final tenth of a mile.
The final kicks took me to the stop sign at the top of the hill. I turned the pedals as slow as they could go to let my heart beat into my lungs for a solid minute.
Do Tough Hill Climbs Make for Fond Memories?
Perhaps you know or can imagine from my description how good it feels to pick your child up from daycare on a bike.
But perhaps not.
After all, cars tend to be a default for practical trips like this.
When people think of bikes, they think exercise. Talking about bike commuting reminds them of that time they saw a movie about biking across America or read about the first man to bike to the South Pole.
If bikes require exercise to get anywhere and cars can drive the same route a few minutes faster with much less effort, cars win.
Why do anything else?
Why bother with lack of comfort? Why bother with the rain, the sweat, the hills?
Why feel a stronger pull than the conservation of energy, the kindness to myself of pursuing the path of least resistance that still gets the job done?
What could possibly tip the scales of the cost/benefit analysis that calculates the cost of physical exertion against what possible benefit?
I don’t know that, on paper, I could give direct answers to all these whys.
But I can tell you, I miss it terribly.
