Goodbye Fat Jeans. Hello Skinny!

This post isn't exactly about cycling, but cycling plays such an important role in the subject.

Two and one-half years ago I started commuting to work by bicycle to save money and to attempt to get into shape.  I enjoyed bike commuting, but also began incorporating cycling into my daily life.  I learned to ride my bike, not only to work, but for grocery shopping, errands, and for fun.  I made many cycling friends and have since been on many long rides, as many as 120 miles in a day.  I've since moved closer to town and in addition to cycling to work, I can easily walk to work, the grocery store, movies, bars, restaurants, etc. Basically, I've tried to simplify and orient my lifestyle around active transportation.

When I started cycling to work, I weighed about 213 pounds.  I was able to get down to 188 within a year by cycling alone.  Then this summer, I decided to shift fitness into high gear by joining Weight Watchers.

After five months, I am now down to 165 pounds.  As an aside, I weighed 250 pounds about 10 years ago, and lost a lot of that by switching to a vegan diet.

Between cycling and sensible eating using the Weight Watcher system, I have lost almost 50 pounds.

If I count back to 2001, when I was at my heaviest, I have lost a total of  85 pounds, most of it lost by diet.

So now that I'm at a weight I like (perhaps even lighter than I was when I graduated high school), my plan now is to perform regular workouts to get into a better form and shape, both for cycling and general fitness.  So far, my sessions with a personal trainer are proving to be both fun, and productive.  I've lost another inch around my waist, and gained a little around my chest and arms.

If you've made it this far into my seemingly self-gratifying post, please note that this isn't about bragging.  Simply, I want to pass along to anyone reading this that weight loss is, indeed, possible, and within reach.  As a lifelong pudgy guy, I always thought the natural order of things was to get fatter and fatter as I aged.  Between my diet and exercise, I'm finding that it's not only possible to lose and keep off weight, but once the proper mind frame and motivation is found, it's not as hard and I imagined.

Many pairs of fat jeans are going to Goodwill. 

I much prefer the new skinny ones.

Weight Watchers tool help me track my progress.

I'd be remiss if I didn't shout out to my brother, Jason, who, over the past year, has lost 118 pounds through cycling.  He really put the fire under me and inspired me to get more serious with my weight loss plans.  Thanks, bro.

Biking After A Blizzard

First Blizzard of the Season




Heck, yeah! I'm riding!

Technically, the blizzard was overnight, and while there were still 30 MPH winds in the morning, the snow had stopped and most of the blowing snow had settled. There were still some wicked drifts and plow wakes on the neighborhood and side streets. I don't think it was ever warmer than 10 degrees Fahrenheit.

AM Commute

There was lots of pushing in the neighborhoods and side streets. It took me about 30 minutes to go 2 miles.

PM Commute

I only had to dismount once, and riding on the main streets was pretty easy. It took me 15 minutes to go 2 miles.

I halfway considered taking the bus home, but as the day went on, MAT kept pushing back the time they were going to resume service. Finally they announced that they weren't going to run any buses. So much for dependable public transportation.

Photos

Here are some photos I took in the morning and around lunch time. You'll notice the large wakes in the center lanes. The city is experimenting with pushing snow to the center to ease parking and pedestrian access to sidewalks. I think it's working, but it seemed to make for some awkward moments when traffic needed to move from one side of the street to the other.

Cycling home on Farnam Street, also with a huge wake in the middle, made me believe that the one way street might serve better as a two way street, especially if there were bike lanes along either side.

Young Professionals Provide Feedback For Omaha's Bus Transit Authority

The masthead for this blog reads:

One man's attempt at opting out of the total car culture
by walking, busing, and cycling in Omaha, Nebraska.

There hasn't been much talk of busing here lately, as I'm been so taken with all that the world of cycling has to offer. This post is about busing in Omaha.

Today, the Omaha Young Professionals Council is presenting to Metro Area Transit the results of the survey that followed the YP Bus Challenge earlier this spring. I participated in the Challenge by buying a monthly pass and using the bus every day for commuting (with bicycle in tow) and some errand running. I formed a team at work and we came in at third place.

Yesterday I got an email from Omaha World-Herald reporter, Tom Shaw, looking for some quotes on a story. I was happy to oblige, as I see helping to develop a top-notch transit system in Omaha as vital to helping to check suburban sprawl, and to attract (and retain!) smart, hardworking folks (young and old) to Omaha.

The text of the story is below. Be sure to check out the paper or the Omaha.com web site for updates after the YP Council presents their report to MAT.

---

Published Thursday August 27, 2009

Group backs later MAT service

By Tom Shaw
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

From: http://omaha.com/article/20090827/NEWS01/708279924

It's 1 a.m.

You and your friends just had a great time in the Old Market. Now you want to get back to Dundee.

If only you could hop on a bus.

Expanding Metro Area Transit bus service to include late-night hours is one of several recommendations from the Greater Omaha Young Professionals.

The recommendations come from participants in the group's spring Bus Challenge. Nearly 200 people rode MAT buses over a three-week period in April and May and then took an online survey about their experiences.

Young Professionals, which is affiliated with the Greater Omaha Chamber of Commerce, seeks to improve Omaha so the city can continue to attract and retain young professionals.

MAT executive director Curt Simon welcomes the recommendations, which will be formally presented to the MAT board today.

Some of the group's suggestions, such as improving MAT's bus signs and Web site, are being done already, Simon said. Other ideas, including the late night bus service, will require more study. Currently, buses serving main routes quit running at 11:30 p.m.

Simon said support for public transportation from younger Omahans is key.

“They don't just want to see it work,” he said of the bus system. “They want to see it work well.”

Scott Redd, a systems engineer at Union Pacific, took part in the challenge. Usually he rides his bike from home near 50th Street and Interstate 80 to the downtown UP headquarters.

Redd said MAT is convenient for people in the midtown and downtown areas. It also cuts out the expense of downtown parking.

An avid biker, Redd also likes the fact that MAT buses have bike racks on the front.

“That was really progressive,” he said. “I was surprised when they starting doing that.”

But there are limitations.

Redd said he can't catch a bus home after about 5:30 p.m. on weekdays.

Chris Miller, an information technology worker for First National Bank, also pointed to bus schedules as a drawback.

Miller, a midtown resident who took the challenge, has ridden the bus downtown since 2007.

Miller said some of his co-workers don't use the bus because they don't think it's reliable enough.

MAT buses are on schedule close to 90 percent of the time, Simon said, but acknowledged occasional problems.

Miller and Redd said they think some young professionals buy into a stereotype that buses are only for low-income residents. Miller and Redd said the bus can be a good resource for anyone.

One recommendation is for MAT to rebrand itself and expand support for public transportation.

Simon said MAT continuously works to fight the negative images.

The group also recommended that more companies offer financial assistance to employees who use public transportation.

First National Bank subsidizes 25 percent of bus ticket costs for employees and sells them through its human resources department.

Union Pacific lets employees buy bus passes with pre-tax pay, saving some money on the cost.

Young Professionals also would like more bus service aimed at area college students.

Simon said the agency is developing a pilot program with Metro Community College to increase service for its students.

MAT hasn't had much success getting a program started for UNO students, Simon said, because of the varied times and routes students would need.

Simon said there's merit in exploring an after-hours bus that circulates through downtown and midtown. The question, he said, is whether late-night bus service would be economically viable.

MAT has changed some bus signs in response to suggestions from the young professionals group and others.

MAT now displays entire bus schedules on small kiosks at places such as 76th and Dodge Streets. More route information also is being placed at bus shelters.

MAT's Web site will be improved soon, Simon said, so users can click on specific routes and pull up the bus schedule for that route.

Contact the writer:

444-1149, tom.shaw@owh.com

Contact the Omaha World-Herald newsroom

Copyright ©2009 Omaha World-Herald®. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, displayed or redistributed for any purpose without permission from the Omaha World-Herald.

I Think I'll Go For A Walk

Redd-Shifting Isn't Always About Cycling

"I feel happy. I feel happy."

Sunday saw unseasonably warm temperatures in Omaha. It was so nice that I decided to walk down to the local Ace Hardware store to get some chain lube.

The snow over the past couple of weeks has given way to damp streets, and damp streets led to a dried out, rusting chain. I misplaced the Tri-Flow that I've been using, and wanted to go get some more.

I considered cycling, but thought a nice walk was in order. Santa brought me nice set of Shure earbuds for my Zune, and figured a walk was a great way to try out the earbuds, get some exercise, and walk the green talk. I've never considered cycling on the streets while wearing earphones, but don't mind doing so on foot.

The Ace Hardware store is only about one mile from my house. I've biked there many times, but haven't made the walk for a while. While leaving the sidewalk and heading toward the shopping center, I noticed that there are absolutely no sidewalks giving access to the shopping center. In order to get from the walk on the main street to the shopping center, I have to either walk on the soggy grass, or creep along the edges of the access street dodging chunks of ice, snow melt runoff, and mud.

On the way back I snapped this photo of the Union Pacific Railroad tunnel on 50th Street. Navigating this tunnel, both on foot and on bicycle is awkward and sometimes difficult. The tunnel was constructed one hundred years ago in 1908 and leaves no room for widening the street. The sidewalk is only about three feet wide, and the path is completely covered with rail bed ballast, broken glass, and mud. When cycling through this tunnel on the sidewalk, I always dismount and walk, for fear of getting a flat tire, or worse, bumping the wall and falling over the low guard wall and landing right in the street. I've ridden through the tunnel on the street, but find traffic here to be a little fast and unforgiving, especially when going northbound, uphill.

I can't help but think that someday the city will decide to replace this tunnel with a wider one, enabling 50th Street to become a three or four lane road, as it is south of the tunnel. This will be a huge, expensive undertaking and a logistical nightmare, as the UP tracks on top are a double track main line carrying many trains each day. Maybe that's why this tunnel remains here to this day.

In the Summer of 2009, the city will begin the construction of the Keystone Trail/Field Club Trail connector that will cross 50th Street between G and I Streets. It would be nice if the city eventually widened the tunnel to provide easy and safe access to the connector trail to the neighborhoods north of the tunnel.

On the other hand, as a resident of this area, it's nice to have traffic restricted and discouraged due to the low speed limits imposed by this narrow tunnel.

Well, I digressed a little by writing about the 50th Street tunnel, but in summary, I just wanted to say that ditching the car and walking to stores within a mile of my house is just as easy as doing it by bike. It may be a little slower, and I can't carry as much as I can with my rack and panniers, but walking has its own rewards.

So, with the new year looming ahead, consider making walking, in addition to cycling, a part of your own local, active transportation plans.

Photo credits:

• Monty Python and the Holy Grail
• Microsoft Live.Com