My route to work is roughly 15 miles. Most days I get there in an hour to an hour and a half. My route starts in Ypsilanti. I ride over the big river and tracks, pass by EMU campus, ride through downtown (depot town!), and then ride through a long and boring commercial stretch of road. Fast food, grocery stores, post office, gas stations and car dealerships, and all that crap. It's a fast road too, with heavy traffic midday. Eventually that boring stretch ends, and then it's a nice long ride through the country, before finally arriving at work.

I ride a Trek 7.2FX hybrid. I carry everything I need, minus my water bottle, in an old LL Bean backpack. In the pack are my work clothes, repair thingies, and a u-lock with cable for making other stops. If it might rain, I put all of my backpacks contents inside of plastic grocery bags, tied shut, since my backpack isn't very waterproof.

I've been doing this for roughly 3/4 of a year now. Admittedly I don't always ride to work, but I'm trying to work up to doing it all the time. I gave in for most of the winter and just drove, and then a little over a month ago I had my appendix removed, forcing me to use the car for all my commutes and errands for a while there. Getting back in the zone and cycling more and more again, though. I love it.

For the future, my goals are to be riding to work every day, and doing most of my errands on bike too. If money permits, I may purchase a road bike and some roadie clothing this summer. I'm not really interested in getting into road racing, but you never know.

I'm not so much aiming to be car-free anymore, as I do like having a car and driving every now and then. But using my bike for most of my person-moving needs is where I'd like to be.

Oh yeah, I'd also like to get a helmet cam and start posting vids. Probably won't be as cool as Joey's stuff, but I'd still like to do it. There's some cool stuff around Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor.