the commenters are comparing living in an extremely dangerous neighborhood to living in the perfect one, and saying you'd rather live in the perfect one than the very dangerous one even if the risk of getting into a minor accident going to work is higher.
i believe the writer is trying to say that our "perceived" risk of a violent crime is simply much higher than our perceived risk of a major traffic accident. it's like people who are terrified of flying because they are afraid of crashing, but the risk of crashing in an airplane is so much lower than getting killed in a car accident. but those same people get into a car with no qualms, but refuse to fly.
he said there are "1.5 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles" whereas in the most dangerous neighborhood, the rate of violent crimes is 225 out of a population of 9324. he's not comparing getting whiplash from a minor collision to a violent crime. he's comparing DEATH to violent crime.
there is no advocation of living in the most dangerous neighborhood to save on commute. he's just pointing out that because our perceived risk of violent crime is so much higher than the real risk of DYING in a car accident, we often end up putting ourselves at a higher risk of a major traffic accident because we think we're avoiding the risk of a violent crime.
guinness416 said it well that people are riled up because they feel personally attacked for the choices they made for their families.
i'm really happy to see that for the most part everyone is calm and reasonable still. thank you for that.
It's a drag when your kid comes home from school and lets you know that the neighbors offered him some weed on the way into the apartments. And while the guy upstairs who jumped out of his window to evade the police was entertaining, the violence necessitating the call to the police was irksome, to say the least. I'd rather put myself at risk in traffic than subject my kiddos to this nonsense. Still, interesting analysis.
i'm not even going to pretend that i understand the stats in this article. i'm not even sure i care to. i find statistics obnoxious and these particular statistics distract from the main gist of the article because they provide people a silly minor detail to argue over.
often these so called "dangerous" areas aren't so dangerous that developers can't bulldoze and throw up ridiculously expensive condos or warehouse lofts. i live in a city that has a lot of row housing and old warehouses, and many developers and amateur house flippers/ real estate investors, are doing that very thing. the value of the surrounding property shoots up, and hip trendy restaurants and many other amenities clamor for space, until it's time to move on to the next trendy area. i'm sure it's nothing that isn't happening elsewhere in the country. most of these areas are areas people wouldn't have dreamed of walking around in 10 years ago. in fact, someone who grew up with me in the suburbs who would often make ignorant references towards "the ghetto" now lives in such an area and has discovered that the people there(the original neighbors, not just the hipsters)are just hard working people trying to live life.
my point is be ahead of the curve. in addition to the immediate benefits such as living closer to work, it may pay off in the long run when you're ready to sell your house and it's in the neighborhood that has become the hippest in town.
I don't really take this as a recommendation to live in the a very high crime area. In fact, Philip says "None of this is to suggest that you ought to live in a dangerous neighborhood."
The whole point is to think about the decisions we make. There must be balance between commute time and crime rate, and I think the author did a good job of pointing out a potential flaw in our thinking.
I fully understand what your analysis was comparing, my concern is what you excluded. You excluded far too many variables for this article to be credible...for your own sake you should yank the article.
A couple examples of what you forgot...
Since you didn't note it specifically, and I don't have the time to verify your statistics, I'll assume that your traffic stats were for the entire country. Your crime stats for 440100 are looking at only 9324 people. I don't want to make any grand assumptions...but here I'll assume that the Chicago area mentioned is most likely ethnically/racially homogeneous and probably poverty stricken.
Another big factor you missed is that not everyone drives alike. I pride myself on being a good driver. With no accidents, I feel that the probability of myself getting into an accident is far less than say Joe down the street who drives like a maniac.
Personal story:
A number of years ago I went with a group of people on a missions trip to inner city Chicago...long story short, I wouldn't want to live there no matter how close to work I was. Fact of the matter is that the gangsters that flooded the streets wanted what they thought I had...even though I brought nothing with me but the clothes on my back...and a toothbrush.
I wish I had the time and resources to truly analyze this, but my guess is that commuting is still far safer when all the facts are presented and all the variables are taken into account.
I have tried to remain respectful, but for the record, I am disgusted at the irresponsibility you have shown in this article. Lord willing, no one will heed your advice.
While this is great and all, most of us probably don't work in high crime areas. Certainly the business cores I've worked (and lived!) in in Dublin, NYC and Toronto are extremely safe. I'm sympathetic to the idea that getting rid of the car is a positive (for financial, stress and time reasons) and walk the talk, but these "city vs suburbs" posts never end well because people feel you're questioning their life choices and get their backs up right from the start. It's an argument nobody can win.
While the author of this article may be correct statistically, the quality of life in the high crime areas are terrible. Walking to a nice restaurant on a nice summer evening is impossible because their are no nice restaurants. Movies? No good. Local banks? maybe not. In my experience, finding a local doctor or dentist is difficult. Sending your child to a local school; forget it! In short life in a high crime area SUCKS!
The ultimate irony for me: I now pay far less for health care and prescription medication than I did when I was employeed full time at a Fortune 500 company with a full benefit package. Back then, I had to pay $50 monthly out of my paycheck for the healthcare portion of my benefit package. I also had a $25 co-pay for all office visits, and a $100 co-pay for any hospital or medical procedure.
Now, without medical coverage, my doctor deeply discounts my office visits. I pay $50 a visit. My doctor also gave me 2 months of my prescription free because she had samples from the drug company. She also told me to call ahead when I ran out of the meds, and if she had more free samples she would give them to me. I have yet to pay for the prescription. Under my former health plan, I paid $25 a month for the medication.
Here is the ultimate kick in the pants. I had to have a colonoscopy (this was when I had full health coverage). My doctor arranged for it with a gastro Dr. and it was scheduled within a matter of days. Several weeks after the procedure, I received a bill for $1000. I disregarded the bill, thinking the insurance company was delayed in paying it. The bill kept coming, though, and I finally called my insurance company. They denied the claim because they had not been notified prior to the procedure. I was stuck with this bill. I was infuriated. I called the Dr.'s office and explained what was going on. They immediately cut the bill to $350. I paid it - grudgingly.
Because of my experiences above, I am convinced that the problem with health care in this country is not the doctors, it is the insurance companies. The doctors I have dealt with seem to prefer cash customers, and offer substantial discounts to cash customers. I paid far more when I had so called "full coverage" under my former employers health plan.
I think the readers made some excellent points. Personal violence just scares people in a "gut" level kind of way. While I'm sure part of that disparity is natural, we also have to consider the role of the media.
Look at what dominates the news. Every couple of months we have a media frenzy over some poor attractive woman who got abducted, raped, or murdered. These incidents, while tragic, often got a lot more coverage than other events that are likely to kill a LOT more people.
Homicide coverage on network news increased 473% from 1990 to 1998, while homicides decreased 32.9% during that time, the report said. While homicides committed by youth declined by 68% from 1993 to 1999, 62% of the public reported they believed youth crime was on the rise.
So maybe our fear of personal violence isn't as "natural" as we think it is.
I was only comparing deaths to deaths and injuries to violent crimes. If you live in a low-crime area, your stuff is probably safer, and my analysis didn't take that into account.
But I stand by my analysis. It's true that being a victim of a violent crime seems terrifying in a way that being in a car accident doesn't, but that's exactly my point. It doesn't mean you can trivialize the car accidents. The statistics only include the injury-producing accidents, so the minor fender-benders and parking-lot collisions are already left out of the data.
People can be scarred for life by a car accident, too--they can lose limbs, be paralyzed, suffer brain damage.
As far as how the analysis applies to other members of the family, it really comes down to how far they end up traveling by car each day. If shopping, school, and errands can all be done close to home, then the danger of the neighborhood starts to dominate. But a lot of the safe neighborhoods are a long way from other necessities of life besides the job. When your spouse and children have to drive a lot, they face the same traffic risks as you.
I'd rather die in a car accident than be murdered. And I'd rather suffer a hospital stay than be raped. And when I get home from my commute? I'm pretty sure my home hasn't been broken into.
In line with Lee's comment, you also have to consider who exactly is being put at risk. Assuming your math is right (and I have no reason to doubt it), it would be safer for Mr. Jones to live in the 440100 tract than it would be for him to commute 50 miles from the suburbs. Statistically-speaking, I'll give you that.
However, if you assume that Mr. Jones has a wife and kid, you also have to figure out their respective risk factors to make it work out. While the analysis you presented works if, for whatever reason, Mrs. Jones and Baby Jones join Mr. Jones on his commute every day, that is probably not the case, and so putting them in a dangerous neighborhood creates a wholly unnecessary level of risk.
While I don't disagree with your math, I think that you are comparing apples and oranges here. I would much rather get rear-ended than mugged, or worse. I have a wife and young child, I would rather they get side-swiped than attacked, or worse. A minor traffic accident doesn't typically scar a person for life. Often times these commutes in large cities are long...slow commutes so we can typically rule out high-speed incidents, so death or permanent damage isn't likely.
When living in Chicagoland (and I will be moving back very soon), I chose to drive over an hour to work so that my wife would feel safe and comfortable taking our child for a walk.
I will politely add that the contrasting nature of the dangers means your research and math was a waste of time. I think any rational person would rather be the victim of a traffic accident over a violent crime any day.
can you buy one of these and share it? not to get it free, but surely it's cheaper than buying a load of separate burgers. Would be more of a fun night out too. Almost like cutting slices of a birthday cake.
I do a lot of mystery shopping for various companies. When I find a new company I generally try only one shop first and work it through til the end just to see if it is real. I have eliminated a lot of fly by night scam companies. The last experience was with Maritz. They pay $5.00 for the shop, $5.00 toward a fuel purchase and $1.00 toward a purchase inside. Then you need to take 5 or more pictures (can be up to 36 pictures) You are required to fill out a survey of 18 or more questions, up load the picture in a certain order and wait to see if it is accepted. Which it wasn't of course, they wanted me to go back and get more pictures. I pulled the plug right away. It was 17 miles to the station I spent 45 minutes at the station and returned to fill out the survey which took another 50 minutes. You do the math it wasn't worth it in any way. The only reason I picked that station was that it was on my way to work 22 miles away, where I make around $45.00 an hour as CAD Operator.
Oh by the way we need to do spell checks o our work.
I've been using PearBudget for the past two months, and it is the simplest spreadsheet possible. All it asks for is 10 minutes a week, and it has helped me enormously. I no longer buy a small $2.50 jug of chocolate milk because I've realized just how much it adds up.
Dennis, the whole idea of this is to do something with the other 45 mins of your lunch hour that you don't use, for those of us that get hour lunches.
My problem is I work night shift at an IT company, and when I got the job I agreed to work 10 hour nights, 3 days off. Fine, it's cool. But the worst thing is I don't get a lunch. I can't tell you how many times I go to microwave some food, start eating, and get a phone call. Usually I haven't had one in like 3 hours, so that's when it sucks.
But I really do like the idea of the Wii-Fit thing. I might use that for personal time at home. Now if only I could figure out a way to play World of Warcraft while riding an exercise bike!
I'd wanted to try one of these for years but never had the opportunity. My mom finally bought me a large, stainless-steel looking one for $40 and I'm hooked. Heats in five minutes, and cooks fast, without drying out food. And I can grill any time, no matter what the weather is. My beloved Weber grill hasn't been used once since I got the George Foreman. And think of all the money I'm saving on charcoal! I like cooking and the GF grill is indispensable, along with some good pans, tongs, and kitchen timers (and a few dozen other things).
If it were just the cold, I think I could face winter cycling. What daunts me is the darkness and the ice. Good tires should help. Get a good light as well.
The place I work does have showers, which, as you say, is perfect. Most people seem to bring stuff in a backpack. I have bags that go on a rack on my bike, which I find much more satisfactory.
Most of the other cyclists in my office, don't seem to use the shower. I guess they just ride at an easy pace to avoid getting sweaty. Some change clothes in the bathroom, others just ride in their street clothes. One friend used to drive in once a week and bring four changes of clothes that he kept locked up in his office.
I've done different things for bike storage. There are racks outside (in full view of a whole wall of windows, so a bike locked there is reasonably secure). There's some space under the stairs where a lot of people leave their bikes. In the place I worked before this I just brought my bike into my office and stashed it behind my desk.
We just moved to a new office location out in the suburbs. I wanted to ride before, but with my office being downtown, the traffic was just to heavy to deal with.
I pack a backpack with my work clothes every day. We do have a shower available for employee use. that is a nice benefit.
Interesting note. when I started riding, about two weeks ago, I had the only bike being parked in the bike rack. Now, there's an average of six out there on a daily basis. I hope I started a trend.
Don't know what I'll do when the snow flies, but I plan on riding as long into the winter as I can :)
How do you deal with packing work clothes? Where do you change? How do you handle coming in all sweaty? Do you have a place to store your bike? I'd love to ride my bike to work, but I haven't resolved those issues. Now if there was an employee shower, everything would be perfect.
I didn't know that my son would have what's probably Aspergers. He's years behind in his ability to take care of himself - he might never be able to keep a job. Our daughter was an extreme preemie - no idea how things will go there, but she's got insurance.
When my dad died, my mom entered a long, long cycle of depression. It's one thing to have to pay for funeral costs - it's another to have to have the resources to keep going, to go long enough to get out of the darkness if you lose someone so incredibly precious to you. I hope it won't be me who has to endure the loss of my kids, and I hope that the insurance moneys will help whoever needs the support when I can't be there to hold them myself.
What's up A-Dog? Thanks for linking my "addiction" to your article. While I don't really think I'm addicted to juggling, I do think it is a positive outlet for myself. I mean, I could stop juggling... I just don't want to. All my friends do it too. They do it way more than me. I'm just a lightweight. You should see some of my friends juggle. They're crazy. I'm totally in control. I only juggle for 2 hours, 4 days a week. Really, I'm okay... But seriously, the real deal is doing something you love, even if that changes from time to time. I think all of us will die, but not all of us will live. Check out my new video: 4b Multiplex Families Demonstrational
;-)
the commenters are comparing living in an extremely dangerous neighborhood to living in the perfect one, and saying you'd rather live in the perfect one than the very dangerous one even if the risk of getting into a minor accident going to work is higher.
i believe the writer is trying to say that our "perceived" risk of a violent crime is simply much higher than our perceived risk of a major traffic accident. it's like people who are terrified of flying because they are afraid of crashing, but the risk of crashing in an airplane is so much lower than getting killed in a car accident. but those same people get into a car with no qualms, but refuse to fly.
he said there are "1.5 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles" whereas in the most dangerous neighborhood, the rate of violent crimes is 225 out of a population of 9324. he's not comparing getting whiplash from a minor collision to a violent crime. he's comparing DEATH to violent crime.
there is no advocation of living in the most dangerous neighborhood to save on commute. he's just pointing out that because our perceived risk of violent crime is so much higher than the real risk of DYING in a car accident, we often end up putting ourselves at a higher risk of a major traffic accident because we think we're avoiding the risk of a violent crime.
guinness416 said it well that people are riled up because they feel personally attacked for the choices they made for their families.
i'm really happy to see that for the most part everyone is calm and reasonable still. thank you for that.
It's a drag when your kid comes home from school and lets you know that the neighbors offered him some weed on the way into the apartments. And while the guy upstairs who jumped out of his window to evade the police was entertaining, the violence necessitating the call to the police was irksome, to say the least. I'd rather put myself at risk in traffic than subject my kiddos to this nonsense. Still, interesting analysis.
i'm not even going to pretend that i understand the stats in this article. i'm not even sure i care to. i find statistics obnoxious and these particular statistics distract from the main gist of the article because they provide people a silly minor detail to argue over.
often these so called "dangerous" areas aren't so dangerous that developers can't bulldoze and throw up ridiculously expensive condos or warehouse lofts. i live in a city that has a lot of row housing and old warehouses, and many developers and amateur house flippers/ real estate investors, are doing that very thing. the value of the surrounding property shoots up, and hip trendy restaurants and many other amenities clamor for space, until it's time to move on to the next trendy area. i'm sure it's nothing that isn't happening elsewhere in the country. most of these areas are areas people wouldn't have dreamed of walking around in 10 years ago. in fact, someone who grew up with me in the suburbs who would often make ignorant references towards "the ghetto" now lives in such an area and has discovered that the people there(the original neighbors, not just the hipsters)are just hard working people trying to live life.
my point is be ahead of the curve. in addition to the immediate benefits such as living closer to work, it may pay off in the long run when you're ready to sell your house and it's in the neighborhood that has become the hippest in town.
I don't really take this as a recommendation to live in the a very high crime area. In fact, Philip says "None of this is to suggest that you ought to live in a dangerous neighborhood."
The whole point is to think about the decisions we make. There must be balance between commute time and crime rate, and I think the author did a good job of pointing out a potential flaw in our thinking.
@Philip
I fully understand what your analysis was comparing, my concern is what you excluded. You excluded far too many variables for this article to be credible...for your own sake you should yank the article.
A couple examples of what you forgot...
Since you didn't note it specifically, and I don't have the time to verify your statistics, I'll assume that your traffic stats were for the entire country. Your crime stats for 440100 are looking at only 9324 people. I don't want to make any grand assumptions...but here I'll assume that the Chicago area mentioned is most likely ethnically/racially homogeneous and probably poverty stricken.
Another big factor you missed is that not everyone drives alike. I pride myself on being a good driver. With no accidents, I feel that the probability of myself getting into an accident is far less than say Joe down the street who drives like a maniac.
Personal story:
A number of years ago I went with a group of people on a missions trip to inner city Chicago...long story short, I wouldn't want to live there no matter how close to work I was. Fact of the matter is that the gangsters that flooded the streets wanted what they thought I had...even though I brought nothing with me but the clothes on my back...and a toothbrush.
I wish I had the time and resources to truly analyze this, but my guess is that commuting is still far safer when all the facts are presented and all the variables are taken into account.
I have tried to remain respectful, but for the record, I am disgusted at the irresponsibility you have shown in this article. Lord willing, no one will heed your advice.
While this is great and all, most of us probably don't work in high crime areas. Certainly the business cores I've worked (and lived!) in in Dublin, NYC and Toronto are extremely safe. I'm sympathetic to the idea that getting rid of the car is a positive (for financial, stress and time reasons) and walk the talk, but these "city vs suburbs" posts never end well because people feel you're questioning their life choices and get their backs up right from the start. It's an argument nobody can win.
While the author of this article may be correct statistically, the quality of life in the high crime areas are terrible. Walking to a nice restaurant on a nice summer evening is impossible because their are no nice restaurants. Movies? No good. Local banks? maybe not. In my experience, finding a local doctor or dentist is difficult. Sending your child to a local school; forget it! In short life in a high crime area SUCKS!
The ultimate irony for me: I now pay far less for health care and prescription medication than I did when I was employeed full time at a Fortune 500 company with a full benefit package. Back then, I had to pay $50 monthly out of my paycheck for the healthcare portion of my benefit package. I also had a $25 co-pay for all office visits, and a $100 co-pay for any hospital or medical procedure.
Now, without medical coverage, my doctor deeply discounts my office visits. I pay $50 a visit. My doctor also gave me 2 months of my prescription free because she had samples from the drug company. She also told me to call ahead when I ran out of the meds, and if she had more free samples she would give them to me. I have yet to pay for the prescription. Under my former health plan, I paid $25 a month for the medication.
Here is the ultimate kick in the pants. I had to have a colonoscopy (this was when I had full health coverage). My doctor arranged for it with a gastro Dr. and it was scheduled within a matter of days. Several weeks after the procedure, I received a bill for $1000. I disregarded the bill, thinking the insurance company was delayed in paying it. The bill kept coming, though, and I finally called my insurance company. They denied the claim because they had not been notified prior to the procedure. I was stuck with this bill. I was infuriated. I called the Dr.'s office and explained what was going on. They immediately cut the bill to $350. I paid it - grudgingly.
Because of my experiences above, I am convinced that the problem with health care in this country is not the doctors, it is the insurance companies. The doctors I have dealt with seem to prefer cash customers, and offer substantial discounts to cash customers. I paid far more when I had so called "full coverage" under my former employers health plan.
I think the readers made some excellent points. Personal violence just scares people in a "gut" level kind of way. While I'm sure part of that disparity is natural, we also have to consider the role of the media.
Look at what dominates the news. Every couple of months we have a media frenzy over some poor attractive woman who got abducted, raped, or murdered. These incidents, while tragic, often got a lot more coverage than other events that are likely to kill a LOT more people.
And then there is this:
So maybe our fear of personal violence isn't as "natural" as we think it is.
I was only comparing deaths to deaths and injuries to violent crimes. If you live in a low-crime area, your stuff is probably safer, and my analysis didn't take that into account.
But I stand by my analysis. It's true that being a victim of a violent crime seems terrifying in a way that being in a car accident doesn't, but that's exactly my point. It doesn't mean you can trivialize the car accidents. The statistics only include the injury-producing accidents, so the minor fender-benders and parking-lot collisions are already left out of the data.
People can be scarred for life by a car accident, too--they can lose limbs, be paralyzed, suffer brain damage.
As far as how the analysis applies to other members of the family, it really comes down to how far they end up traveling by car each day. If shopping, school, and errands can all be done close to home, then the danger of the neighborhood starts to dominate. But a lot of the safe neighborhoods are a long way from other necessities of life besides the job. When your spouse and children have to drive a lot, they face the same traffic risks as you.
I'd rather die in a car accident than be murdered. And I'd rather suffer a hospital stay than be raped. And when I get home from my commute? I'm pretty sure my home hasn't been broken into.
In line with Lee's comment, you also have to consider who exactly is being put at risk. Assuming your math is right (and I have no reason to doubt it), it would be safer for Mr. Jones to live in the 440100 tract than it would be for him to commute 50 miles from the suburbs. Statistically-speaking, I'll give you that.
However, if you assume that Mr. Jones has a wife and kid, you also have to figure out their respective risk factors to make it work out. While the analysis you presented works if, for whatever reason, Mrs. Jones and Baby Jones join Mr. Jones on his commute every day, that is probably not the case, and so putting them in a dangerous neighborhood creates a wholly unnecessary level of risk.
While I don't disagree with your math, I think that you are comparing apples and oranges here. I would much rather get rear-ended than mugged, or worse. I have a wife and young child, I would rather they get side-swiped than attacked, or worse. A minor traffic accident doesn't typically scar a person for life. Often times these commutes in large cities are long...slow commutes so we can typically rule out high-speed incidents, so death or permanent damage isn't likely.
When living in Chicagoland (and I will be moving back very soon), I chose to drive over an hour to work so that my wife would feel safe and comfortable taking our child for a walk.
I will politely add that the contrasting nature of the dangers means your research and math was a waste of time. I think any rational person would rather be the victim of a traffic accident over a violent crime any day.
can you buy one of these and share it? not to get it free, but surely it's cheaper than buying a load of separate burgers. Would be more of a fun night out too. Almost like cutting slices of a birthday cake.
Hi Lucio,
I do a lot of mystery shopping for various companies. When I find a new company I generally try only one shop first and work it through til the end just to see if it is real. I have eliminated a lot of fly by night scam companies. The last experience was with Maritz. They pay $5.00 for the shop, $5.00 toward a fuel purchase and $1.00 toward a purchase inside. Then you need to take 5 or more pictures (can be up to 36 pictures) You are required to fill out a survey of 18 or more questions, up load the picture in a certain order and wait to see if it is accepted. Which it wasn't of course, they wanted me to go back and get more pictures. I pulled the plug right away. It was 17 miles to the station I spent 45 minutes at the station and returned to fill out the survey which took another 50 minutes. You do the math it wasn't worth it in any way. The only reason I picked that station was that it was on my way to work 22 miles away, where I make around $45.00 an hour as CAD Operator.
Oh by the way we need to do spell checks o our work.
HOSmall
I've been using PearBudget for the past two months, and it is the simplest spreadsheet possible. All it asks for is 10 minutes a week, and it has helped me enormously. I no longer buy a small $2.50 jug of chocolate milk because I've realized just how much it adds up.
Link: http://pearbudget.com/
Dennis, the whole idea of this is to do something with the other 45 mins of your lunch hour that you don't use, for those of us that get hour lunches.
My problem is I work night shift at an IT company, and when I got the job I agreed to work 10 hour nights, 3 days off. Fine, it's cool. But the worst thing is I don't get a lunch. I can't tell you how many times I go to microwave some food, start eating, and get a phone call. Usually I haven't had one in like 3 hours, so that's when it sucks.
But I really do like the idea of the Wii-Fit thing. I might use that for personal time at home. Now if only I could figure out a way to play World of Warcraft while riding an exercise bike!
I'd wanted to try one of these for years but never had the opportunity. My mom finally bought me a large, stainless-steel looking one for $40 and I'm hooked. Heats in five minutes, and cooks fast, without drying out food. And I can grill any time, no matter what the weather is. My beloved Weber grill hasn't been used once since I got the George Foreman. And think of all the money I'm saving on charcoal! I like cooking and the GF grill is indispensable, along with some good pans, tongs, and kitchen timers (and a few dozen other things).
If it were just the cold, I think I could face winter cycling. What daunts me is the darkness and the ice. Good tires should help. Get a good light as well.
The place I work does have showers, which, as you say, is perfect. Most people seem to bring stuff in a backpack. I have bags that go on a rack on my bike, which I find much more satisfactory.
Most of the other cyclists in my office, don't seem to use the shower. I guess they just ride at an easy pace to avoid getting sweaty. Some change clothes in the bathroom, others just ride in their street clothes. One friend used to drive in once a week and bring four changes of clothes that he kept locked up in his office.
I've done different things for bike storage. There are racks outside (in full view of a whole wall of windows, so a bike locked there is reasonably secure). There's some space under the stairs where a lot of people leave their bikes. In the place I worked before this I just brought my bike into my office and stashed it behind my desk.
We just moved to a new office location out in the suburbs. I wanted to ride before, but with my office being downtown, the traffic was just to heavy to deal with.
I pack a backpack with my work clothes every day. We do have a shower available for employee use. that is a nice benefit.
Interesting note. when I started riding, about two weeks ago, I had the only bike being parked in the bike rack. Now, there's an average of six out there on a daily basis. I hope I started a trend.
Don't know what I'll do when the snow flies, but I plan on riding as long into the winter as I can :)
Later!
How do you deal with packing work clothes? Where do you change? How do you handle coming in all sweaty? Do you have a place to store your bike? I'd love to ride my bike to work, but I haven't resolved those issues. Now if there was an employee shower, everything would be perfect.
I'm glad you noted that it was gradual. I expect to be able to just jump in and go. But the clothing and carrying stuff issues take time to resolve.
I didn't know that my son would have what's probably Aspergers. He's years behind in his ability to take care of himself - he might never be able to keep a job. Our daughter was an extreme preemie - no idea how things will go there, but she's got insurance.
When my dad died, my mom entered a long, long cycle of depression. It's one thing to have to pay for funeral costs - it's another to have to have the resources to keep going, to go long enough to get out of the darkness if you lose someone so incredibly precious to you. I hope it won't be me who has to endure the loss of my kids, and I hope that the insurance moneys will help whoever needs the support when I can't be there to hold them myself.
What's up A-Dog? Thanks for linking my "addiction" to your article. While I don't really think I'm addicted to juggling, I do think it is a positive outlet for myself. I mean, I could stop juggling... I just don't want to. All my friends do it too. They do it way more than me. I'm just a lightweight. You should see some of my friends juggle. They're crazy. I'm totally in control. I only juggle for 2 hours, 4 days a week. Really, I'm okay... But seriously, the real deal is doing something you love, even if that changes from time to time. I think all of us will die, but not all of us will live. Check out my new video: 4b Multiplex Families Demonstrational
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