Friday, September 4, 2009

Why I should blog for Globe bicycles, and a bit of who I am.








Some people have a talent for singing, some for dancing, or painting, or playing hockey. I have been told that I have a talent for writing. I wish that I hadn’t let practical concerns get in my way so much that pushed me a way from it. I try here and there to write, and I get a definite and joyful thrill from it. Too often, however, it is hard to find the reason to write that will push all the other concerns away and allow me to simply sit and write because nothing else can claim a higher priority.

I am writing this post today for three reasons. I love to write, I love to ride, and if the folks at Globe bikes like what I have written, I’ll be committed to write about riding. I will have to do it, and cannot make excuses. Sometimes, it takes just a little nudge to set great things in motion. It took a nudge like this to make me a bike commuter.

Just over two years ago, I had an ill fitting bike someone had given me and I seldom rode it. I had ridden to work a little in the past but had never truly gotten into it. We had recently moved and I had changed employment, taking a position in a city nearly thirty miles away. My wife and I had one car and it was not a good time to acquire another, nor did I feel that it was worth the disruption to my domestic tranquility to take the car every day, let alone that the cost of driving would negate the pay benefits of taking the new job.

A public transit district ran between the two communities, but no bus ran to where I was living or to where I would be working. It was a classic last mile dilemma. My wife suggested the bike. I groaned and protested. The local bus stop was four miles from home, and the closest stop to work was two miles away. This seemed like an uncomfortable amount of riding to me.

In the name of making long stories short, however, my wife got her way and I am glad she did. I fell in love with my bike commute, found all sorts of online resources and support to make my commute better, and built a thrift store mountain bike into a decent all-rounder with a rack, fenders and midge bars.

I commute in rural and midsized urban areas of northern Utah and southern Idaho. I ride through beautiful mountain vistas and crowded rush hour traffic. I have been surprised by deer, scorned by motorists, and snuffled by a Labrador in the back of a pickup that passed too close. I have been known to ride with merchandise of all sizes and shapes strapped to my bike. My cargo bike carries a ladder quite well.

I ride with my family. I have a cargo bike that was specifically designed to carry children and is quite good at it. My wife likes to carry kids in a trailer behind her pink cruiser. My youngest son needs special care to ride with us because of the effects of a series of small strokes he has suffered and is working to recover from. We have found a front mounted child seat that works well for him. My kids all love to ride and we often run errands together by bike or even all ride to an event or a restaurant.



When I look at Globe bicycles I see bikes designed for the bicycle lifestyle that I am trying to live and to hand down to my children. I need a bike that can handle the extreme climate of the Intermountain west under a committed year-round cyclist. I need a bike that can handle being hefted up onto a bus rack without being overly concerned about the novice at the next stop banging it with his huffy. The commuter bike of my dreams needs very little maintenance and can easily haul my daily load of a laptop, lunch, a paper and maybe a jacket or change of clothes.

To me a Globe Live 3 makes a lot of sense, disc brakes and internal gears eliminate most of the biggest winter commuting headaches, and the belt drive helps with the rusty chain blues that tend to rule January. I like the front carrier for packing my load around and for making lunch runs or small grocery stops. The Haul might also be a good option for me, but where my heavy hauling needs are addressed by another bike in my small stable, getting a dedicated city bike like the Live makes a lot of sense.

In short, I think Globe and I are an excellent match. I am into a green, low impact lifestyle, I commute by bike and mass transit, I even haul my kids on two wheels. I mow my lawn with a manual reel mower. I can put the Globe through its paces in morning rush traffic with a laptop bag in the front rack and blog about the commute on the bus ride home. I have the outlook of a guy trying to raise a family into a cycling lifestyle and a green mentality. I also look at this as the perfect chance to reawaken my somewhat dormant writing talent.

More than I am interested in a free bike I am interested in being rewarded for writing. I want to write about something I love and get something worthwhile in return. Thanks for reading my blog. Next time maybe I’ll tell you about commuting through school zones alongside dogs in the back of pickup trucks.

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