Avid Cyclyst/Bike Commuter/History Lover/Outdoorsy

Biking, the ability to interact with your surroundings, nature, the city, everything while getting to where you are going (and not getting stuck in traffic)!

What started off as commuting to class in undergrad has now blossomed into my primary source of transportation and even how i experience the world (as I continue multiple multi-day trips every year!). I have set a goal to ride in every country I visit (so far so good!) because you can really see a place by moving through it and interacting with it, by taking the backroads, the roads less traveled (and being able to stop whenever and 'park' wherever is an added plus :)

How Did I Get Here?

I haven't always been this way!

For me it wasn’t until college when I fell in love with bicycling Starting my first semester at Michigan State University, I was heartbroken at the thought of having to walk or take a bus to class. My car’s transmission had failed one week before I was to make the 50 mile move, and I couldn’t be more upset. “My life was over,” I thought. How would I get to class, get groceries, hang out with friends? Without enough money to get a new one I instead decided to pack up my old bicycle to buzz around from class to class. But I was not happy about it.

Almost immediately though I realized how disconnected from my immediate surroundings I had been while driving. It wasn’t just my waistline that changed, but how I saw the world! Hearing passing peoples voices, feeling and seeing the street, experiencing the changing of the seasons. Bicycling connected me back to the outdoors in a way that I hadn’t experienced since I was a little kid.

On the surface, living in an urban area may seem to inevitably decrease environmental awareness because of the disconnect from the natural world, yet there are many opportunities unique to an urban setting which allow individuals to decrease their impact on the natural world and live in a more harmonious way with it.

We just have to open ourselves to those opportunities, for me thats biking (it helps that I also dont get stuck in traffic or the metro!) :)