sunrise bike commute
I’ve never fully understood Daylight Savings. In theory, I guess I understand wanting to best use energy/light for working purposes, but why don’t we adjust the work day instead of the clock? Like most people, I enjoy having lighter mornings, but find it wildly depressing to have it completely dark at 5pm. And we still have over a month before days start getting longer again. Regardless, I’ve been trying to commute to work (35 miles) by bike as much as possible. For a while I was doing one day a week commuting both to and from work, which made for a 72-mile, 12-hour day, but man…seeing the sunrise and sunset was pretty great.
after work sunset rides
Now that we’ve changed the clocks, and we’re setting into winter, I likely won’t commute home until the spring. I don’t like being out at dusk when the air drops drastically with the loss of the sun. But I hope to still bike to work when we get above-20-degree mornings. And I’ll sneak in some quick after-work rides as often as possible. At People For Bikes, we’ve got a standing Thursday (and sometimes Friday) group lunch ride.
My other method of battling seasonal depression is swimming at a year-round outdoor pool. After swimming all summer/fall outdoors, the prospect of moving indoors seems awful. Luckily, Boulder has a great little old-school gym, with die-hard swimmers who love cold air matched with the heated water. I’ve done a few really cold/snowy swims, and it’s like being a kid. Plus you get to dash to the hot tub immediately after your set.
I’m still contemplating different ski-ticket packages, and setting plans in motion for some trips to the mountains to snowshoe/fat-bike/winter adventure. One thing I’ve come to love about Colorado is, you’ve got to embrace what the day gives you, because tomorrow will almost definitely be totally different.