Living Well With Diabetes

It was another sunny day in Salt Lake City. I couldn’t resist the 60-mile ride from my house out the the Great Salt Lake Marina. It’s a flat ride and about half of it is on the Interstate 80 frontage road (read: almost no traffic).

So, off I went at about noon. I wasn’t sure I had the fitness for a 60-mile ride, especially with the brisk 15 mile per hour headwind, but I was determined to get there.

By 2 PM, I was there. I expected the marina to be a pretty quiet place in February, but I was wrong. I could see a number of sailboats on the horizon.

After checking out the boats on the lake, I checked out the marina. I found this poster outside the restrooms:

After a half hour at the marina, I headed home…without any mice. I made the return 30-mile trip in an hour and a half. Ya gotta love a 15 mile an hour tailwind!

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Salt Lake City had a bunch of new snow this morning. The wet, sloppy, springtime kind. With the heavy snowing falling and covering the roads, it was, as the kids say these days, “sketchy” riding my bike to work this morning.

By this afternoon though, the sun was out and it all was melting. On my ride home from work, I was enjoying the sun and doing my best to avoid piles of snow left by snowplows and snow blowers. There’s an intersection at the bottom of a hill near where I live and from a few blocks away I could see a couple of kids playing at that intersection. I got closer and saw why. It was filled with water. The road I was on wasn’t filled with water, but there was an ten or twelve-foot wide puddle in the intersection between the road I was on and the road I was going to be turning on to.

As I was setting up for my left-hand turn, the girls at the intersection yelled “Hey biker, hey biker, I dare ya to ride through the water!”

“You dare me?” I yelled back. They didn’t know I was going to ride through it anyway.

“Yeah, come on!”

Alright then. I gathered some speed and picked a line, hoping I had picked one without the pothole. The splash as I rode through water up to the hubs was much bigger than I thought it would be. My shoes were soaked, but I kept my my forward momentum and started pedaling again at the far side.

“Oh, cool!” I heard one of the girls yell.

Yeah, I had to agree. It was pretty cool.

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Most people can ride a bicycle. It’s one of those rituals most of us go though at an early age. We spend an afternoon, or a day, or a week with the assistance of a parent to learn how to balance and pedal to keep those wheels turning which, in turn, helps with the balance. I’m sure I’m oversimplifying this complicated miracle of learning, parental support, and stubbornness, but you get the idea. In any case, for many people. learning the basics of balance and pedaling and braking is about as far as they go in the area of bicycling as a “skill.”

But, bicycling safely should be a requirement too. And not just for people who do a lot of bicycling. According to the Alliance for Bicycling and Walking, relative to the number of miles traveled, bicyclists in the United States have a greater probability of being involved in a fatal accident (see their report here).

So, I was very pleased when a friend of mine forwarded a link to a web site dedicated to safe travel by bicycle. It’s been around in book form since about 1988, but it’s been kept up-to-date and customized for the needs and particular laws of a number of states. It has sold over 300,000 copies. Generously, they offer an online version here:

Bicycling Street Smarts: Riding Confidently, Legally and Safely

I’ve read through the chapters on riding safely in traffic since it’s something I do nearly every day. I was pleased to learn they supported my instinct that riding at the very far right edge of the pavement is not always the safest strategy. As my friend put it, their advice is “nuanced” for a wide variety of situations commonly encountered on the roads today.

If that “nuance” helps keep me out of the front grill of an SUV, I’m all for it.

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The Alliance for Biking and Walking has a new report out titled “Bicycling and Walking in the United States: 2010 Benchmarking Report.” In it, there are facts and statistics on the status of bicycling and walking in the United States and a state-by-state ranking of the levels of bicycling and walking, pedestrian safety, and the percentage of federal transportation dollars spent in support of bicycling and walking.

There were some very interesting — even shockig — tidbits in the report. For example, with regard to the number of people who bicycle and walk:

• Nationwide, only 0.9% of trips (a “trip” is commuting, going to the store, going to the movies or a restaurant, etc..) are by bicycle. Walking makes up 8.7% of trips. For comparison, in the Netherlands, 27% of trips are by bicycle and 22% are by walking.
• Nationwide, only 0.5% of commuters are bicyclists. If this isn’t shocking enough, consider that this number is a 42% increase from the percentage of bicycle commuters in 2000.
• Of all the federal transportation dollars states receive, only 1.2% of those dollars go to support bicycling and walking. That’s about $1.29 per person.

But the real shocking data is in the area of public health:

• Between 1960 and 2000, bicycling and walking levels fell by 67%. During the same time period, obesity levels rose by 241%.
• Between 1966 and 2001, the number of children who walked or bicycled to school dropped by 68%. During the same period, the percentage of obese children rose 367%.
• Quoting the report: “In general, states with the highest levels of bicycling and walking have the lowest levels of obesity, hypertension (high blood pressure), and diabetes and have the greatest percentage of adults who meet the recommended 30-plus minutes a day of physical activity.”

Interesting stuff, I thought. Here’s a link to the Alliance for Biking and Walking web site:

Alliance for Biking and Walking

Bicycling and Walking in the U.S.: 2010 Benchmarking Report

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Today, instead of my usual bicycling attire, I rode my bike to and from work in street clothes.

I had a jacket on, of course, because it was pretty cold this morning (about 24 degrees F) when I left the house. Also my helmet and cycling shoes, but other than that, I was in my usual work attire: jeans and a pullover shirt or sweater.

As I was getting ready for work this morning, I looked into a closet full of cycling jerseys and a drawer full of cycling shorts and I just said no. It wasn’t that I objected to wearing anything resembling spandex, polyester, or chamois next to my skin. No, it wasn’t that. It was the thought of climbing into a cycling jersey and some cycling shorts, then putting on a fleece cycling jacket and leggings and finally, over all that, a windproof, high visibility jacket and pants. Then, when I got to work forty-five minutes later, I would take it all off and throw on my jeans and shirt for a day at work. At the end of the day, after returning home, I’d repeat the process. In total, I’m getting dressed four times each day. That’s what I don’t like about bicycle commuting.

Of course, the alternative is to dress once and drive the car to work and that’s just crazy talk. No, dressing four times a day isn’t so bad after all.

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