inklingfair I recently started bike-commuting to work. It’s a 500-meter ride from the house to the train station, where I fold my bike and roll it onto the platform then onto the train. I exit at Katipunan and bike down toward Tandang Sora, turn right at Capitol Hills Drive, left at Zuzuarregui and right again at Commonwealth. I haven’t tried cycling more than 300 meters along Commonwealth because the bus and jeepney drivers swerve like madmen and I’d rather not die, thank you very much.
It’s a short ride, 8km tops, and the whole thing including the train ride takes 45 minutes — even faster than my usual train-jeepney route. Right now I’m doing it twice a week, and I hope to bump it up to thrice a week next month.
We don’t have a shower at work, but what we do have in our team room is a private toilet with a spray bidet. No one’s in until 8, so I usually have it all to myself — and I can be out of my cycling clothes and fresh as a daisy in less than 15 minutes.
So far, the only accident I’ve been (almost) involved in was when a truck blew a tire (or lost a nut) in the middle of Katipunan. The truck was at my 8:00, about ten meters away with a motorcycle between us. I was at the rightmost lane (no bike lane) when I heard a loud boom and a screeching sound behind me. I swerved my bike as close to the curb as I could (and hit my shin with a pedal — ow). When I looked back, the motorcycle was down, its rider sitting on the curb (not hurt but visibly shaken), and people were helping him up. A wheel bounced down the direction I had swerved out of. The truck was stopped at the dead center of the road, missing a front wheel. Someone caught the wayward wheel and traffic enforcers who were watching from the intersection I was stopped at approached the truck.
I was already running late, so I didn’t linger, but when I got to the office I discovered my shin was skinned and bleeding. Pops cleaned the wound up, and I didn’t think much of it until that evening when I told Josh about it. He was alarmed at first, then relieved, then he tried to persuade me not to bike to work again (weakly, because of course I’d still bike). I promised to jump bike next time like the motorcycle rider did — and good thing he did or he’d probably have broken a leg.
Let’s hope I’ll never have to, though!
