Lowering My Carbon Footprint, One Pedal Push at a Time

So I was thinking of things I could do to maintain a more eco-friendly life. One thing I need to focus on is losing my dependency on driving my car. A nice thing about Eugene is that you can drive anywhere in 20 minutes. With our awesome bike paths you can also ride anywhere almost as quickly!

When Eugene winters roll in , my bike finds a nook in the garage where it hibernates for months on end. The weather, my laziness, and running late are my staple excuses for not riding.

I need to get over this!

I'm in my 20's, able bodied, and it's not like I'm going to catch frostbite or get pnemonia on a three mile ride to school!

So here's my goal:

I want to achieve a 50/50 split in my in-town driving to riding. I will log my miles driven and my miles on bike and record them as a weekly blog entry. On mondays, I'll post my results.

One Catch: I have to count my miles in other peoples cars but, if I'm riding with others, I get to divide the miles by the people in the car. (Two in the car, divide miles by 2, three in car divide by 3 etc) It gives me more motivation to carpool.

This means I must ride my bike to school every day as well as other places. I work late hours so I would prefer not to ride my bike to work. (The bus doesnt come that late) I can make up these miles by carpooling.

The average American drives 12,000 miles per year. If I can average under 30 miles per week around town, even with trips to Portland and elsewhere, there is no reason I can't stay under 5,000 miles in a year!

Wish me luck!
-Nick-

Oh, yeah here's a picture of my hog. Thanks for fixing it up Doug!