BUILD UP #LIFEMILES

I moved to Boulder, Colorado, at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, when I was 25 – mostly broke, newly jobless, and totally car-less. So I rode everywhere. I trundled around to the supermarket, to wholesalers, to courier companies (one-handed, with a box under my arm). To the bus depot hauling heavy gear for long camping trips. To the photo studio to get actual film developed (it was 1998). I’d sometimes ride 30km to my then- girlfriend’s house, acutely aware that boyfriends are a lot less appealing if you always have to pick them up. (Spoiler: we broke up.) And of course, I rode road bikes and mountain bikes for fun. ¶ These errand kays weren’t ‘ junk miles’. A 10-minute sprint to the photo shop was a nice interval workout. Riding up a long hill with 10kg of groceries on my back, in wind, was pretty good resistance training. As a result of all that riding, I got fit. Really fit. That spring, on my ‘ fun’ rides, I could pedal for hours. I could keep up with riders who had dropped me before. And it was a virtuous cycle: the fitter I was, the more I could ride. ¶ I got a car from a friend six months after I moved; when I went to pick it up, I discovered that a bear had broken in through the back window and denned there for the winter. So, the car needed to be fixed, and I needed to save up the money to do it. No biggie: in the meantime, I had my bike and my fitness. – Joe Lindsey, contributing writer