Cars are Fast

Not having a car in Ithaca forces you to plan well and be creative. Sometimes you also have to be willing to expend some energy and walk farther than thirty feet in the un-air-conditioned outdoors with the sun beating down on your back. Oh, the horrors. I’ve done my share of bus riding – to Wegmans almost every week this past summer and to all three state parks the bus goes to during the summer, but I’ve also branched out into using my bike as transportation instead of just recreation.

It started because I didn’t have a ride to church in the summer. I next found out the church I attend during the school year was closer than I thought (only about 4 miles from Cornell). Thanks to Google maps, I then discovered a way to get there that only had me biking on the highway for about a mile. I decided to test bike the route on the Friday of the Fourth of July weekend because I took the afternoon off from work and didn’t have anything else to do.

It turned out that although the way to church is almost entirely uphill, because most of it isn’t on busy roads, it’s very bikeable, even with my questionable biking ability. For most of the summer, I biked to church every two or three weeks, and besides burning some energy, it was nice being able to leave as late or as early after service as I wanted to.

Arrival at Treman

My next biking destination was Treman State Park, with my roommate. The fellowship I’m in has a lot of people staying in the same apartment building and there was an end of summer picnic planned for a Saturday at the beginning of August. My roommate and I, hearing that the Gorge Trail was finally open, wanted to hike at Treman, and we didn’t have a ride, so we decided to bike. It was about six miles, with a couple miles on a highway (with a very wide shoulder). After biking six miles, we immediately hiked up steep steps, which my legs and lungs absolutely loved. A note about biking to Treman: if you’re looking for the bike rack, it’s by the changing rooms for the swimming area, not by the ranger station, the parking lot, or the bathrooms by the trailhead. Why . . .?

Got a little help from a friend on the way to the Lab of Ornithology

Having gained experience biking to places, my last biking exploit of the summer was to the Lab of Ornithology (4.5 miles). There is something extremely satisfying about reaching your destination and knowing that you made it there under your own power, even as you gasp for breath and your legs want to hurt your brain for putting them through physical activity. There had better be, because it takes two or three times as much time to get anywhere, because cars are fast.