#run31: running and cycling.

As I’ve grown to love running, and explored various running routes around the Boston area, I’ve been doing a similar thing with cycling.

I used to love riding bikes in my neighborhood as a child, and I spent hours on my jade-green bike as a grad student in Oxford. But I’d lived in Boston for eight years before I got up the gumption to try riding the city streets on a bike. The traffic terrified me, and I didn’t have a bike of my own.

My guy (though we were just friends then) convinced me to try out Bluebikes, Boston’s bike-share program, two years ago after I’d started a new job at Berklee. My first dozen or more rides followed the same route between Berklee and Harvard Square – much more pleasant than the 1 bus, except in driving rain. As I got stronger and more confident, I began trying new things occasionally: turning down a side street to see where it would go, trying out part of my commute on a bike, riding around Eastie when I moved here. I began paying more attention to bike lanes and traffic signals, and I’m still trying to make my peace with the hills in certain parts of Boston. This summer, I inherited a bright pink single-speed from a friend, and I’ve participated in several protest rides, plus a number of long rides with my guy (who is a cycling instructor, advocate and general bike fanatic).

As with yoga, I didn’t really think of cycling as having any connection to running. But they inform one another, sometimes in surprising ways. I’ve gained confidence on a bike in a similar way to the confidence I’ve gained with running: in this case, the muscle memory was there, but it needed to be revived. I keep learning that I can go farther, pedal stronger and even ride faster than I think I can. Sometimes I need a rest day after a seriously long ride. And in both cases, the main motivation is the sheer joy of moving through the world in this particular way.

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stages of a Blue Bike addiction

Step 1: eye the docking stations around Boston and Cambridge as you listen to your friends rhapsodize about the freedom, exercise benefits, etc. of urban cycling.

Step 2: remember your days as a cyclist (in Oxford) with fondness. Start following several cycling-related Twitter accounts. Imagine riding through Back Bay, along the Esplanade or around Harvard Square.

Step 3: rent or borrow bikes on vacation, getting reacquainted with cycling through neighborhoods (San Diego and Sevilla) or along two-lane shore roads (PEI).

Step 4: take a buddy ride from Back Bay to Central Square. Three turns, 1.6 miles, afternoon sunshine and the steadying comfort of following a friend.

Step 5: download the app.

Step 6: hop on a bike one morning after prayers at Mem Church, just to see if you can do it. Ride back across the river: two and a half miles down Mass Ave and over the bridge. Feel the wind in your hair, the good honest sweat, the pride in trying something new and brave.

Step 7: repeat step 6 and variants as often as possible. (Start carrying an extra shirt and additional snacks.)

This post is not sponsored – Blue Bikes doesn’t know who I am – and we’ll see how this evolves as the weather changes. But for now, these rides on brisk fall mornings are saving my life each week. 

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