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According to AAA, the monthly cost of owning and operating a sedan is approximately $700 a month.

First Time Commuter

Apr 20, 2009 | by Active Trans

The posting below is from my sister Lisa who lives in a suburb just outside of Las Vegas and works on the Strip. After hearing about her amazing experience I asked her to write something to share on our blog. Her story is exciting  because she is a first time commuter in a city with less-than-ideal conditions who took the plunge and rode home from work, even when all of her coworkers called her crazy.

Lisa

Yesterday was my first bike ride home from work. It was a 9.5 mile journey that I have been building up to. My sister, Katherine, has inspired me to start riding again. I honestly have not ridden my bike since high school. But, with the way economy is and my love for health and fitness I decided it was time to start riding again.

For my birthday I decided to buy myself and my husband bikes, nice little cruisers, so we could start riding together.  We started our bike rides down this nicely paved path by our house.  We were a little shaky at first, but it all came back to us after a few rides.  Once we felt comfortable on it, we decided to start riding to the gym which is about 2.5 miles from our house.  My husband and I will even ride our bikes to go grab a bite to eat.  It is so much more economical and saves just that little bit of gas that you probably don’t even think about and really doesn’t take much more time to ride than drive.

I’ve been doing this now for about 3 months and decided that I wanted to try riding my bike to work before the Las Vegas summer heat kicks in.  It took a little while for me to build up the courage to ride the streets of Vegas, but I mapped out a pretty good route and it worked!  I put my bike in the back of my car and rode home from work.  I figured this way I could see how long it would take and how I would feel before attempting to bike the 9.5 miles to work for the first time.  What is usually a 30-35 minute drive home in traffic, took me about 50 minutes to ride home.  Let me tell you I was so high on endorphins when I got home.  I was so giggly and hyper, it felt great!!!

Lisa Trask

Las Vegas, NV