While on our family vacation in Santa Barbara, I was able to squeeze in some bike commuting around town. And LOVED it. Riding around my own home turf is great and allows me to enjoy the commute to and from work. Similarly, riding while on vacation gave me a chance to experience the town in a more intimate and immediate way.

I uploaded the GPS track so that you can see where I rode on the google map above. Even though I only rode 3 miles or so, it was still a lot of fun to be able to move through the city on two wheels.

Here is the list of my stops and errands: Radio Shack (A/V coupler), Cost Plus (wine glasses), Ralphs (kids allergy meds), Lilly’s Tacos (duh). I was really happy with how well my new pannier worked taking it on and off the bike and carrying everything including my helmet and lock along with all the other items I picked up, without breaking the wine glasses .

Now that summer is here and Juliette is out of school, I can take up bike commuting to work again. This year, I toyed with the idea of getting a bike dedicated to commuting, possibly picking up a used bike to fix up. But turns out, Elijah had converted my very first mountain bike, which I had purchased from Performance over 20 years ago! He made it into a nice commuting bike with racks and slick tires. Everything has been replaced except for the frame, which he had painted a dark green. So I have come full circle returning to my first bike, now re-tasked as a commuter.

Of course, I couldn’t not get some new gear. So this time, I decided to try out using a pannier, and ended up splitting a pair of Ortlieb Packer Plus Panniers from REIs with Elijah. The irony is that when the panniers were delivered to the Santa Ana REI, we didn’t have a car to go pick them up. Anyways, Elijah ended up borrowing our dad’s car to go get them. Elijah configured them on my bike and got them dialed in just right. Thanks bro.

It takes a little bit to get used to riding with the pannier, especially just one-side, since the weight is unbalanced and makes the bike wobble. My first ride with them, I was following Elijah too close when a car turned right into a driveway in front of us, I hit the brakes too late and ended up jumping off my bike so that I wouldn’t crash into Elijah. So I technically didn’t crash .

It’s only been my first week back to bike commuting but so far it’s been great. I definitely enjoy the riding time, rather than sitting in traffic on the freeway and saving a bit of money on crazy gas prices is a good thing too. Hopefully, I’ll be able to make this a regular part of my week over the course of the summer.

On Sunday, we were over at my parents’ house for dinner and afterwards, we let the kids ride their bikes in front of the house. It’s pretty cool to see how they are starting to feel more comfortable on two wheels.

Well, I had messed around on Micah’s little BMX bike a couple of weeks ago, and I got to try it again. It reminded me of the biggest reason that I ride bikes, all the way from when we were kids their age to now… because it’s FUN!

Thanks Micah-man for letting me experience the FUN again on your cool little ride. And thanks Moses for taking the great pics (I’m using it as my latest Facebook profile pic). Check out pics of Elijah enjoying a ride of his own.

This morning, I got to ride to work for my very first time. Elijah was kind enough to meet me at my house and make sure I was properly geared and prepped. The ride itself was pretty easy and very enjoyable, considering most of it was on a bike path away from the traffic. We were even able to chat along most of the ride.

On the way back, there were a lot more people on the trail, walking and riding, which served to be a minor obstacle, but we just had to be careful to weave our way through all of them without causing any major disruptions or accidents.

One thing I noticed was that when I am riding, I feel more connected to the people and communities that I am passing through, in comparison to driving along the freeways, zipping from destination to destination with my windows rolled up and radio playing.

Considering how well this first ride went, I would like to try riding once or twice a week, at least during the summer while we have the extra daylight and also while Juliette is not in school. As for my equipment, I was very happy with how my bike and gear worked, maybe some minor tweaks and upgrades to get everything to a happy medium. But more importantly, just get out there and ride!

In case anyone’s interested, you can click on the picture at the top of the post and it will take you to Google Maps which shows the GPS track route that we rode on our commute. Also, if you’re really curious, you can right-click and download the KML file to open in Google Earth and literally replay our ride. Of course, it won’t be nearly as fun as actually doing it .