There & Back Again: A journey to and from the doctor.

One philosophy I subscribe to is that, in an urban setting, our worlds are as big or small as we want them to be. In order to avoid using a car, I have scaled down the radius in which my daily or weekly errands occur. The Publix down the road from my townhome is easily accessible via cargo bike. The bank is downtown. My business is well within a bike's ride and most of my social events are, too. These are all deliberate decisions that I've made over the past few years. They have increased my quality of life tremendously.

One snowy day during my final week of work at the City, I rode my bike the whole five minutes to my primary care physician's office which I'd selected for its proximity to my home. I figured I'd just go get things checked out before leaving the warm embrace of The Man to get serious about The Bike Library.

The appointment went well, but I had some additional questions and they referred me to a specialist about ten miles away, in Cary. The morning of my appointment was 15°F so I caved and used my car (🤢) because the bus would have taken over 60 minutes longer each way. Boo. End of story.

Or is it?

The morning of the follow-up appointment a week later was a balmy 55°F and I was ready to log my 20 mile utilitarian ride. I mounted my trusty Trek 950 and flipped my flip-flop pedals to the seldom-used clipless side. I meant business and had somewhere to be.

I planned my route using a combination of Google Maps and Strava. This made me feel like I at least would somewhat know where I was going as I trekked a town and a half over. I also brought a spare battery pack and plugged it into my phone, which would serve as my GPS for the trip. Quadlock FTW.

The trip started out easy and smooth, rolling through the neighborhoods. Hillsborough took me past the State Fair. Eventually I passed the forest near Western & Buck Jones, soon to be deforested for the Western BRT since there are no other roads nearby that could be good candidates for a Raleigh-Cary BRT line.

The next few miles were open roads with bike lanes, not great but not terrible either. As expected, there were a few close calls with cars out on the roads, but thankfully my GPS was pretty good about routing me where there was decent infrastructure.

I could tell I was near the interstate when the bike lanes evaporated and I was out into traffic with a lot of drivers who seemed to lack interest in what was happening outside of their cabins. Knowing I was in their shoes (er, seats) a week prior, I tried to have grace. This was made slightly difficult by a mild concern for my own safety. Hey, at least I hadn't lost my insurance yet.

After the mildly harrowing journey, I locked my bike to a rack which was undoubtedly happy deep down to find use.

The appointment went well and before I knew it, I was on my way home once more. This time, I took the scenic route. Five miles longer, but with plenty of greenway trails and down roads. I even routed through Lake Raleigh Woods and past The Bike Library. Much more scenic and pleasurable than the shoulder of a road. Maybe we should try to preserve these types of roads.

Overall, it was a solid day. I felt safe enough – albeit occasionally uncomfortable – and made it there and back in one piece. I avoided driving, breathed the fresh air, spun my legs, and best of all: got a good story from it.