30 Days of Biking update

I'm keeping up with the biking, but not the blogging, so here's a recap:
April 2nd--rode to and from work. Seeing the sun rise on the way in is just so much better from a bike than from in a car. I can feel the sun on my face. The ride home was chillier than the ride in. Cold front coming in. I tweeted about my ride home:
Bare branches, brown ground, 
Oil trains leaving North Dakota-- 
Season between winter and spring. 
Riding my bike home.

April 3rd--no work today, so I just took Enrico's bike to the bikeshop for a tune-up.
April 4th--rode on the bike path with Enrico and Noko. I got to see, for the first time, how Enrico exercises Noko on the bike. I'm too scared to do it myself, but they have a good routine going. Noko ran further because I was with them. Here are a couple of photos from our outing.

April 5th--Easter. I stayed home and cooked and ate all day. I SHOULD have gone for a bike ride, but didn't. 

April 6th--Biked to work this morning. It is a holiday in Fargo--very little traffic. On campus, there was a wild turkey strutting around. Wish I had remembered to bring my phone so I could snap a photo. I rode home on University. Chilly. Love riding my MB-0, but I need to ride a bike with racks so I can carry more stuff. Enrico wanted me to grocery shop on the way home, but my backpack was already stuffed. 

30 Days of Biking

I signed the pledge to ride my bike every day in April this year. I heard about 30 Days of Biking from my friend Barb Kelly, who lives in Hayward, Wisconsin. For every 30 pledges, they donate one bike to Free Bikes for Kids. Super!

April 1st was warm and pleasant in Fargo, so it was a great day to start biking to work again. I decided to use my Bridgestone MB-0, which had been repainted last fall by Larry at Great Northern Bicycle Company in Fargo. I didn't have my rack put on it, so after carefully packing my bike bag with everything needed for a day at NDSU, I had to repack everything into a backpack. I wore my work clothes, since my commute is short and flat. This photo doesn't show it very well, but my beige blazer matches the paint job on my bike. I had to wear a scarf to protect against a slight chill in the air. My leather ski gloves and a helmet completed my outfit. I just tucked my pant leg into my sock, since I couldn't find any of my straps to keep the pant leg out of my chain.

I appreciate how the City of Fargo has created bike lanes on several major roads. Riding in the bike lane on 12th Ave N saved my bacon today. As I passed a cross street, I saw a large SUV coast through a stop sign while the driver  was looking down at the cell phone in her hand. I'm glad I wasn't in the crosswalk, but on the road, otherwise we would have had a collision. I prefer not to ride with the car traffic, but counterintuitively, I have found it to be safer than riding on the sidewalk because I always have these kind of near-accidents as I ride in the crosswalk. Most drivers don't stop at the stop sign, but cruise right through the crosswalk to the corner. 

First day of riding went well--no problems!