As Biketober Day 10 comes to a close it is warm here in Louisville – the high topped out at 80-something today. Even the mornings are 60+ and I’m left wanting a chill in the air. It’s been a good second week of Biketober, and you can read more about it after the jump…

Let’s start off with a little levity… one of those “man bites dog” stories:

Bicyclist Runs into TARC bus. A bicyclist ran into a TARC bus this morning near Meyzeek Middle School…The cyclist had a coffee cup in one hand and lost control, causing the accident, Russell said…The bicyclist suffered minor injuries and was taken to an area hospital, Russell said. Courier Journal, Oct 13 2008

A coffee cup? Seriously? Did he have the saucer in his back pocket? Sigh.

And before we move on – I linked to the Courier-Journal’s website even though it is A) terrible and B) needs to get rid of its comment section. Let me go on record as saying it is a terrible place to read news.

On riding 5 days a week. It is hard. Despite the fact that our ride is only 6 miles or so each way, it takes a good toll on a man (and his legs). I don’t necessarily feel it in my legs like I do when I run, but I am definitely feeling spent at the end of the day and by the end of the week I was pretty wiped. We (Matt and I) can feel a definite decrease from  Monday to Friday.

I am making things tough on myself a bit, though – I’m riding a singlespeed (no changing gears for me on the hills) and I’ve attached a rack and fenders and normally have a Nashbar grocery pannier attached. I carry cans of soup and my clothes in there – uphill to work.

And yet, the graph show us what? Matt has been keeping track of his stats (heart rate, cadence, speed, time, even GPS tracks) and has been using Google Spreadsheets and it’s new charting geegaws to show in graphical form his improvement. Our speed is trending up and hence our time is trending down (yay). Matt’s cadence (pedal revolutions per minute) is trending up as well (that’s a good thing). But, perhaps the best news of all is that his heart rate is on a downward trend as well!

So, speed up, time down, heart rate down too means that he’s in better shape and considering I’ve been right there alongside him I’m probably close to those trends as well. Huzzah!

I’ve seen evidence of Matt’s improvement as well – whereas I used to leave Matt behind on hills, he is more often now right close by – partially due to the fitness thing, but also because I think he’s learned to ride his bike “better” (more efficiently). Again, huzzah.

And therefore… It would follow that this whole ordeal has so far been pretty beneficial for the both of us. And with all due respect to Mateo, I think this shows that anybody could ride a bike to work. Matt didn’t exactly train for Biketober, and has so far done 10 days of cyclocommuting and hasn’t audibly complained once. I think he even called it “fun” at one point.