Terrible Efficiency...

Hello, friends!

A few weeks ago, I bought a new bike, replacing my old one, and shutting down the Penny Peddling blog. I said that I'd still occassionally post about my riding exploits on this blog, so here's my triumphant (or not...) return to me writing about biking. Hooray!

One blog post I did a while back was entitled Beautiful Inefficiency, talking about how much I've enjoyed working from home to be with Ezra. I'm considerably more efficient at getting stuff done away from home but the time I get to spend with my son is well worth the inefficiencies of working from home.

I've found that when it comes to biking, however, I've run into the opposite problem... I'm not too efficient for my own good.

Sulu, the bike that started it all for me, was stolen in September of 2012. For the next 3 years, I was riding my old bike, which I bought for $40 on Craigslist. It had thick, half-mountain/half road tires, was a little bit too tall for me, and only let me shift to 6 of the 18 gears it possessed. It got me where I needed to go but biking was a struggle. I earned every inch of every mile that I biked with that bad boy.

My new bike is like riding Sulu all over again. All the gears work. The tires are nice and thin (although not so thin that handling is a problem). It fits just right so I'm not having to strain to pedal. Last weekend I did a 40 mile ride with some guys from my church and I was feeling spectacular afterwards. If I'd tried to do 40 miles with my old bike, it would have taken forever.

Here's the thing though. A fast bike is GREAT for commuting for the obvious reason you get places faster. From a commuting standpoint, buying the new bike was a no-brainer.

From an EXERCISE standpoint though, having a faster bike doesn't actually help me, and kind of hurts in some ways. My goal is to do some sort of exercising for 45 minutes a day. When I was riding my old bike, it took me roughly 11 minutes to get from my house to campus. Now, it takes me only 7. It used to be that going to campus and back counted for nearly half of my exercise time. Now, it's not even a third!

This doesn't even take into account that I'm not working as hard either. I got a fitness tracker over the summer that also takes my heart rate. When I used to ride my old bike, I was breathing hard and definitely getting my cardio going. Now, I get to campus without even breaking a sweat and my heartrate in a barely elevated state. It's like I'm not working at all!

Am I bummed about the new bike? Of course not! It's so much better to ride and well worth the investment. I just think maybe I didn't consider the negative implications of being a much more efficient rider now. =0).

Have an excellent day!

~Adam