My New Car

With gas prices climbing to the high heavens these days, I made a decision to significantly alter my driving habits. Filling up the tank of the trusty honda has become a nightmare on the pocketbook. Gassing-up the v6 started costing 35-37-39-41-43... 45!! dollars each time. Everytime i went to the pump, the price increases never seemed to stop. And to think not that long ago i was appalled at the fact that it was costing me over 30 bucks to fill up the tank. So after realizing that with all the driving to church on the weekends, I needed to cut back on as much driving as I could. Not to say that I'm totally ditching driving anywhere and becoming a hermit, holed up in my house spending all of my awaken hrs staring at a computer monitor. Nope. I just needed to find a more fuel efficient method of transportation. And seeing the gas meter top out over 45 dollar last week, I decided that was it. I had to do something. Enough lip service and empty words. It was time to put my money where my mouth was. I had to get a new set of wheels.

Initially i thought of getting a motorcycle. Those things are super fuel efficient, getting something like 60 mpg, and seeing how i only live about 6.5 miles from work, i could go about week on a single gallon of gas. That's awesome. But after figuring in cost of bike, cost of maintenance, cost of insurance(ouch!!), and not to mention the tirade i got from my mom, had to scratch that idea. Bummer. And since i already had a car, what's the point of getting another car, no matter how fuel efficient it was? It was still insurance money and another struggle to figure out where to park it, etc. So that was a bunk idea. But inspiration had hit earlier in august:



After pedaling across the golden gate bridge with stanford folks and my sister, and seeing how work wasn't that far, i decided to ditch gas altogether. Albiet, there will still be gas involved, but only of the "what i ate for dinner" brand variety of gas. But that's for a whole different post altogether....

So initially budgeting myself $x amount for a bike, I decided to go shopping for a bike. But not just any kind of bike. I wanted to get a road bike. A Lance Armstrong kind of bike. Not that I intend to be lance, but hey, I can dream, right?

So these are my new set of wheels:



So instead of spending x amount of what i was hoping for, i pretty much spent 2x. I had originally anticipated spending x dollars so i could recoup my costs on the bike within a year or less (seeing how gas is still going up, could be faster). But now... *sigh* it's going to take a looooong time to break even on this thing. But hey, at least i'm getting some exercise. 2x a day too boot. But it's pretty sad because the first thing i realized when I got the bike is that man!!! I'm waaaaayyyyyy outta shape. My legs are like jello when i walk through the doors in the morning. And going home? It's all uphill. If you ever see a poor soul pedaling like mad yet not going anywhere in a hurry, that'll probably be me going home.

But the new commuting adventures have officially commenced. So far, no flat tires, no close calls with cars, no spills, and no fingers missing. I'd say i've been fairly successful so far. We'll see how long this holds out. I'm sure before the end of the month, I'm going to get really friendly with a windshield/side panel/bus, either that, or i'm going to shave my knee or end up eating some really gross hospital food for a few weeks (my mom brings home some hospital food sometimes... stuff is really gross).

Pray for my safety so I don't end up looking like pancake squished between a bus and a car. =D But on the other hand, it'll be a good way to instantly slim up my fat ass...