should i still consider commuting and how?

thekgb

just wanted to run a situation by you guys/gals to see what you would do. a little background: i've been commuting by bike (50 miles round trip) for about a year and a half now from my new home. My general routine is to drive in one day with my bike in the back, leave the car, ride the bike home...ride in the next morning, repeat again,etc. usually i get three days of commuting in total (spread over 4 days). this has been working great for a few reasons:

1.) i always have the option of driving home if i want to...i have kids, and work a pretty hectic job so it's nice if i have unexpected plans, etc..
2.) i can change/clean up quickly in the back of the car (think hatchback style) while stuffing my bike in a guarded parking lot. this saves me from having to walk through my workplace, which happens to be a hospital, without my kit and being all sweaty.
3.)it's a killer 150 miles of training per week i would otherwise have to forego

I don't want to give it up, but here's what happened: upon riding in this morning i found my car windows smashed. turns out that the parking lot isn't guarded overnight! i live in a big city so i guess it goes with the territory but it still sucks. so now, i'm concerned that i'll have to give this up for fear of the suspects coming back or someone else jacking my car, etc. when i talked to the security guard about it today, he's looked suprised and said it's "very rare" for any vandalism to happen up there, and all the other practicioners i spoke to who leave their cars there when on-call have never had problems.

I'm thinking i should just let it go, consider it a fluke (guard said it was "rare")and not be intimidated, but i also don't want to be stupid either and just put myself right back in the situation. I would love to be able to leave my care at home and just ride up to the hospital without all the rigamarole of stopping at my car, but in my position i feel uncomfortable trapsing through the hospital in my bike kit with my bike (it's expensive and the bike rack would be the last place i would leave it!) i know it probably sounds self-conscious to say it but i feel sorta unprofessional in my position walking around like that. anyone who works in a teaching hospital will know what i mean. so basically that means my options are to stop the 1.) stop the commuting (which is my sanity) 2.) ride without parking my care ahead of time andd find a place to stop and throw some "real people" clothes on before i walk in 3.) just continue what i was doing.

what would you all do?

Mike

GeekCyclist

Doesn't the hospital have a locker room and shower area? We do at my office, and no one seems to think twice about it when I take an elevator to the 6th floor, walk to my desk 'kitted out' to grab some clothes, and then ride back to the first where the showers are. I believe two points:
1. Everyone realizes that everyone else has lives that may include 'quirks' like this.
2. Everyone is *way* too worried about their own quirks to spend more than a seccond or two thinking about mine.

On the break-in - that sucks. If you don't have an alarm I would get one. I know they are largely ignored, but if I had to leave my car overnight in a accesible area I would want to make it just a little less attractive to mess with than the other cars in the lot. I would trust the security guard and keep on with your routine until you have another indicator that you should change.

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GeekCyclist

Sorry for the double post, but one other point.

You are probably not the only cyclist in the building, and others probably don't like the bike rack either. In our building we cyclists started talking and formed a 'club' to lobby the administration. The first issue we took up was bike storage, and we were able to convince the administration to convert a storage room into a bike room in which we could store around 25 bicyles.

There is probably a room, or a corner somehere in your building that could be converted. We eventually got moved out of our room and into the parking garage. We convinced the admins to pay for fencing in a cage in the garage where we store our bikes now.

__________________
A new bike fixes everything.
The GeekCyclist Blog

velofanatic

As already mentioned, I wouldn't care what people thought if they saw me fitted out for riding... and I am a high school teacher. In fact, my kids have seen me coming and going. Yeah, they see cycling clothing and snicker. Of course, in a matter of days they ask me about riding. At least 10 kids are riding regularly now. Some are considering riding to school. Worth the snicker? Well, a few less cars on the road seem to for me.

They don't see me as less professional, but more human. That has helped in other ways. I could help a 16 year-old confide in me to get her to return home after running away; and things like that.

Who would have ever thought cycling could do this?

thekgb

thanks for the input. i figured i'd let this one sit for a bit and think it through. to be honest, the commuting is just too important to let go of it. i commuted for the first time today to work from home without the car there, and it was fine. i'm over it i think. the other poster was correct, everyone has their quirks and in the end noone really cares as much as we think they care about stuff like that. i guess in a weird way, it's a load off my mind to not have to think about my car sitting there overnight. lesson learned i think.

thanks for the input.

-Mike