Cycle September

Ah, September. The month we were married. The blissful, brief moment between blazing summer and freezing winter (In Idaho at least, Colorado is pretty mild.). It's the best month for biking.

It's a well known fact that Jake and I love our bikes. Love them. Three bikes are currently sitting in our living room. If we had all the money in the world, we'd buy a lot of bikes. The number of bikes we need = n + 1, where n = the number of bikes we currently own.*

While we're huge bike nerds and love to mountain bike for fun on the weekends, biking is also a big part of our everyday lives. About a year ago, we started reading a blog called Mr. Money Mustache. If you don't already read it, you should. He's a huge proponent of biking more and driving less, for good reason. Bikes are the greatest mode of transportation ever invented. So we made the easy transition from just biking to school and work to running most of our errands on our bikes. If we don't get lazy, we can usually go three weeks to a full month between filling the car's gas tank. We're healthier, happier (because endorphins), and richer because we bike everywhere.

But in the last two months or so, we've gotten a little bit lazy. So for the month of September, we're challenging ourselves to use the car only to drive to church on Sunday. Everything else must be done by bicycle or carpooling. We got a bike trailer from a garage sale for $20, so we can haul groceries and other things from shopping trips (Side note: We not only save money in gas, but we're much less tempted to run to the store for something or make an impulse purchase because so much more work is required). You're welcome to join us for Cycle September, even if it's just to step outside your comfort zone a little bit by riding to work for a day or running an errand. It's so fun, you'll never go back.

*I realize that it may seem like I undermined my own point. "Oh, so you save money and just buy more bikes?" Sort of, but not really. We each have a mountain bike, a road bike, and a unicycle. All our bikes were purchased used from Craigslist at a small fraction of the original price. And we put enough miles on them to justify the purchases, especially considering the health and happiness gained.