Tough Commuter

That would not be me, these days. My last ride to Amsterdam was last Friday. I'm planning to do the ride tomorrow, on the winter Klein with computer, so that I'll finally know for sure how far it is (important for when I calculate my annual mileage on New Year's Eve). The tough commuter was at our open house, last weekend. She's Sabina, a former neighbor from the late 1970s and 1980s. From the old days I remember her always riding her bike to work in Amsterdam. She still does. We talked about the Wednesday a couple of weeks ago (the day of my crashes), and of course she had been out that day too. She had crash stories too, and she talked about them, and the resulting injuries, the way hard-core riders do: stuff that happens from time to time in circumstances that are challenging, even a little exciting, but certainly nothing to discourage one from riding. These days she rides an old, crappy bike to work, because there's no safe way to store a good bike. There's no shower at her current work site either, so she has devised ways to minimize the sweating on the way in (just wear one thin layer underneath your jacket so that you are just warm enough). And she has studied the weather patterns around here, discovering that there's often a dividing line near Weesp and the Amsterdam-Rijnkanaal (something I was wondering about this past fall), and also that in recent years rain showers have become more frequent in this part of the Netherlands. Not that this has kept her off the bike. She really always rides, also when she goes speedskating Monday mornings. Then, she rides the 11 miles to the Amsterdam oval, also if this time of year it means riding in the dark (another thing I haven't done yet). And she talks about all this in a very matter-of-fact way. No wonder, perhaps, that she's also the mother of a young woman who a couple of years ago was a national-level speedskater. No wonder, either, that she looks incredibly fit. You can find consistent bike commuters like her over here, but they are still pretty rare. Another model to emulate.