Change of Pace

Prior to moving to eugene or even applying to graduate school at UofO one of my good buddies was informing me of how excellent and proactive eugene was with biking in the city. His wife attended graduate school at UofO for a little over three years, so I figured he had a pretty good sense of the city. However, his type of bicycle expertise is with competitive bicycle riding because he used to race professionally. I wasn't quite sure if the bike riding that he was describing was of that highly competitive nature or of a more leisurely kind.

Later that year, I decided to attend the University of Oregon in the summer of 2010 and I started to believe that this might be the perfect opportunity to dust of the old cannondale and get it tuned up to take the road when I arrived in eugene.  I mean if eugene was the way Dan described it then this would be the perfect place to get into the sport/hobby biking.  As soon as I drove (yes, with a car, I couldn't bring all my stuff by bike to eugene.....it just wouldn't be safe!) into eugene I immediately noticed the beautiful September weather along with the abundance of bikers on the roads.  Now I understood why bike lanes where so necessary.  With this volume of bikers on the road it would not be very effective to share lane with automobiles......there where some bike lanes in Boston and I know that they are integrating more when they have the opportunity, but I always thought that the aggressive New England driving style, which translated to bicycle riders as well, was enough to safely navigate the city streets and interact harmoniously with automobiles.  I was wrong!  This bike lane thing was the real deal and seemed so much safer!

So, I moved all my stuff into my apartment and proceeded to get in the habit of riding my bicycle to and from school everyday.  Although I really do love riding public transportation and it was my main way of getting around for the past 6 years that I was living on the east coast, it was a refreshing change of pace to get back on my bicycle and breath some fresh air in the morning...... I think that when your directly engaged with your surroundings, whether it is riding a bike, walking, running, etc. the person is more aware of the inner workings of the place you live in.  There is enough time to notice the type of plant species, wildlife, and activities that are distinct to your neighborhood or route of travel......But, riding on that road bike, it was a little more uncomfortable than I remembered riding stretched forward in that air dynamic position.  Also, some of my classmates noticed that I was riding a nicer bike and they said, "Don't you know that Eugene has more stolen bicycles than New York city?".  I don't know that I believed them, but I took their word and soon came across an old Fuji cruiser bike in that paper that was my size, around 62cm, and had a much more enjoyable ride to it.

Over the course of this first year I continued to ride my bike to campus and around town everyday.  I started look at the way bicycles interacted with automobiles and street infrastructure in a new way