bmclaughlin807

Can't ask for better cycling advocacy than this!

https://www.pioneerlocal.com/evanston...008-s2.article

https://www.pioneerlocal.com/evanston...008-s1.article

thdave

What a great article. I agree, bicycle commuting is addictive.

ItsJustMe

I sent her a thanks for an article, and a link to Peter White's studded tire page.

bmclaughlin807

I congratulated her on her riding, and sent her links to bikeforums and bikejournal.

MyPC8MyBrain

what a bunch of self promoters we are.. i did the same thing

Told her about studded tires and gave her a link to bikefourms.

evblazer

Hm. Mentioned where I saw the article and posted a link. Told her how great it was to ride in the ice/snow and gave her a link to some studded snow tires.
Came back here saw y'all did the same now I'm bookmarking their site to see if she writes how she had to quit cycling because we are all a bunch of crazies

bmclaughlin807

*laughs*

She e-mailed me back... we haven't scared her away yet.

She'll be checking out the forums for advice and tips, even if she DOESN'T tell us she's signed up!

mwrobe1

I liked this part especially. Its so true.

selekta

Nice article. I started bicycle commuting 2 years ago. When I started I figured I would just ride to work when the weather was nice, but when winter came I didn't want to stop. The author was right, it is addicting. I'm sure we all work at places where your co-workers think you're crazy for riding in bad weather, I've given up on trying to explain, and I live in CA, we really don't have much of a winter compared to the Midwest or the East Coast! Folks out here act like they'll melt if they get a little water on them.

tate65

I also sent her an email and asked her to join in to find her "snow plow" It's nice to see someone writing this from the after the fact point of view rather than from the "ok I'll do it for the story" point of view.

ItsJustMe

Interestingly enough, I have seen people who have built snow plows to tow behind mountain bikes to clear trails. Obviously you can't clear much snow at once but I guess if you got a couple of inches you could clear it.

abmtnbkr

Great, great articles. I love the part where her son is "rescued" from her by friends driving by. I also like how she describes the whole commuting to work experience. Thanks for sharing bmclaughlin807.

Gojohnnygo.

Nice read!

nashcommguy

Thanks for posting the article. Yeah, I was compelled to e-mail her some links, too. Hope all the love doesn't scare her away. She's got a great forum for advocacy and as a Mom on a bike she can rattle the foundations of the powers that be. Never underestimate the power of a 'Mom on a Mission'. I especially love how she's discovering she can ride her bike to interviews, forums, Q & A sessions, press conferences, etc. Again, thanks alot for posting the article.

TreeUnit

Cycle commuting addictive? Uh-oh. Pretty soon we'll see public service ads telling kids not to try biking just cause it looks cool

markhr

There was a news report about some guy in VA not letting his children ride their bikes on the road (in a rural area) because there were too many cyclists.

Dahon.Steve

What gets me is that she's doing this 20 mile commute on a department store bike! Her accessories are worth more than the bike for crying out loud. I wonder how she managed to keep it up considering the low quality mountain bike with no fenders!

I hope she comes to the forums and educates herself.

markhr

She's pretty much already there buddy. Nice bike does not a cyclst make (wow, that's trite ).

bmclaughlin807

Yeah... I did many thousands of miles on a Walmart bike. My biggest thing is that it's a MOUNTAIN bike that she's doing those miles on... probably still with the knobbies!

Wow. Just Wow.

She said she was definitely going to check out the forums... hopefully she'll become a regular here!

pranavnegandhi

It's difficult not to like an article like this when you identify so much with it. And almost everybody here at BF can easily do that.

Thanks for the link bmclaughlin807.

ItsJustMe

My accessories are worth a LOT more than my bike. My bike cost about $350. I have a $100 rain jacket, a $200 HID headlight, a $50 helmet, that matches my bike cost right there, then add in fenders, rack, panniers, backup headlight, rear blinkies, pump, tool kit, spare tubes, etc and you could exceed the $350 without even adding the HID light. That's not counting most of the clothing either.

I've got about 13,000 miles on my bike. The only major fault was that the rear wheel started breaking spokes almost immediately and had to be replaced, but I ride on 8 miles of rough gravel road per day; if someone were on pavement they probably would be OK. Also, between 11K and now I've replaced the BB and freewheel, and I built a new front wheel so I could go to discs up there, but it's still fine and given the choice I'd probably buy about the same level of bike again.

I've ridden department store bikes for years in the past too (though not thousands of miles like this one); I don't see why they wouldn't last either. Certainly there's some complete junk in dept stores but there are also some that are serviceable.

Neil_B

I rather liked it. It was so much more poetic than, to choose another poster, whatever ILTB-2 would write.

markhr

Thanks

jyossarian

Is she a writer or does she sell stuff?

TRUMPHENT

I started my commuting 05 Dec 2005 on a similar bike, Schwinn bought at Target. Mine was a little pricier than hers. Round trip is 22 miles. I am a little more abusive to machinery than she is and I got a solid 12K miles before the seatpost tube cracked. It went because I used a seatpost rack and constantly overloaded it.

It sounds like her husband may be her bike mechanic.

Hey, she's gotten many times her money's worth out of the bike itself. I know I got very good ROI on my Schwinn department store bike.

Maybe she will find one of the those fabled Craig List golden bikes.

I only have two thumbs, so two thumbs up.