Day 1: Hoofing it

Dear Travel Diary,

Whew! I need an oxygen tent, stat! Im all out of breath!

Commute Options Week starts Monday. As the name implies, the annual event is a weeklong affair in which we all cheat on our automobiles and flirt with other modes of transport. To prepare, Ive decided to try a personal Countdown to Commute Options Week, a sort of one-dude mission to forsake Harrison Fords invention (thats a joke, diary. Everyone knows it was Gerald R. Ford who invented the car). For one whole workweek I am trying different ways of getting to and from work. And Im going to journal about it, Diary!

For the first leg of my first day, I opted to use mans earliest transportation method. Can you guess what Im talking about?

Yes, Diary, I used human legs (mine). As bipeds, we humans have the ability to walk, upright even. Its just that, most of the time, the majority of us opt not to use them very much other than for sitting cross-legged while we write contemplatively in our journals, or push our feet down on accelerators as we drive to buy shoes.

I packed my work clothes and a water bottle in my backpack and put on sunscreen, a hat, running shoes and an iPod (technically speaking, an MP3 player is not clothing its more important). I figured it would take me about an hour to walk the slightly more than three miles to work.

My urban safari along Murphy Road began pleasantly, even though I was already running five minutes behind schedule. I saw things I dont typically notice while driving, like sprinklers along the sidewalks edge slowly percolating to life, working to keep the thirst of many weeds at bay.

It took what felt to be three days to get past Wal-Mart, but eventually I turned west on Badger Road, a street that is briefly interrupted by a little something called the Bend Parkway. Here, east-west and west-east commuters may want to tread carefully, or risk getting squished in a car tires treads.

There are crosswalk stripes painted into the surface of the Parkway at Badger, but nobody notices them, at least not the most important nobodies: drivers of fast-moving vehicles, potentially lethal to pedestrians. None of the passing drivers deigned to stop for this patient pedestrian. If any had, I would have been afraid for their vehicles rear-end.

Finally, I made like Frogger and entered the gap between zooming cars. I next headed north on Blakely. Bikers and hikers, courtesy of a short trail, can take it to Brookswood.

Another interesting sight: the time on my watch. I was going to be late for the 9 a.m. meeting, Diary! Suddenly, my casual walk from Southeast Bend to The Bulletin turned into something I hate: an uphill jog. (Downhill jogs are aces in my book; in other words, aces in you, Diary.)

Theres a steep grade above the Bill Healy Bridge that could make a mountaineer weep and put on his or her crampons. The rapid ascent caused an effect: sweating. But I made the trip in about 50 minutes.

No, said a colleague as we waited for the stragglers to come to the meeting. You cant walk here from where you live, can you?

Apparently, my athletic aroma and breathless post-marathon demeanor wasnt answer enough.

The truth is, you can walk anywhere, if youre willing to (1) leave early enough to allow time, and (2) walk.

The meeting finally began at about 9:05 after our automotively inclined colleagues waltzed in late. Must have been a long line at the coffee kiosk.

Dear Diary,

Clouds gathered late in the afternoon, forcing me to wait a bit and head home between downpours.

Fortunately, when youre on foot, sidewalks become a rule of thumb. If I could cut a corner across a lawn or parking lot, I usually did. The last stretch, with clouds gathering, was boring. Boredom is probably the reason people invented the wheel.

Fortunately, when I arrived home, hungry and exhausted, my wife was off to work, leaving me with three hungry kids. Theres probably a country music hit in there somewhere if I knew anything about songwriting, Diary.

Day 2: On the uphill scoot

Whee, Travel Diary! Human-powered wheeled transportation is awesome. Except up hills.

And Bendinians are more tolerant than a hippie commune. I rode a purple and flowery Huffy Sun Dancer push scooter this morning, and it triggered not one thrown object, rude remark or riot. Although, as my editor observed, the hecklers were probably still asleep.

I shaved about 20 minutes off yesterdays walk. I probably could have gone faster if I hadnt let my scooter-pushing muscles atrophy over the last, oh, 30 years of not pushing scooters. If youre thinking about trying a scooter for your Commute Options Week trips, bear in mind that scooters are great on level ground and even better when going downhill. The downhill parts made me question the sanity rhymes with vanity of leaving the helmet at home.

You might want to lock your scooter up outside, because your buildings custodian might not like seeing your scooter inside the building. If he does, he might tell you to keep it hidden in your cubicle. And you might be glad if he does not see you ride it down the hallway.

Confidential to Huffy: You could redesign these scooters and build them with lighter materials. Also, if you could raise the handlebar a little more, it would save my back, which is right now killing me. I hope I can score a ride on a bike tomorrow, or car pool. So far, the options are wearing me out.

Hey Diary,

A co-worker just scolded me for not wearing a helmet. She said I should have my wife bring me a helmet. I said that would defeat the purpose of riding a scooter. In terms of gas consumption, I might as well have driven.

She said, No, it wouldnt because then youd have a helmet.

I dont want to leave that big a carbon footprint, I said, vaguely recalling reading something about carbon footprints somewhere once. What size shoes do you think carbon wears, Diary?

Existential questions: Should you ride a scooter on the sidewalk or in the bike lane? If nobody heckles you, are you still dorky?

Insight 1: If you ride next to and push off the curb instead of the pavement, you save your knee, much like riding a low-slung speedboard.

Insight 2: Whatever youre riding or using seems to become the standard. By my return trip, the ride didnt seem so painfully novel, even though my feet were sore and I shaved five minutes off my time.

Insight 3: No wonder the ancients invented the wheel. Scootering, though difficult (did I mention the hills?) is a vast improvement over walking. I imagine the bike ride tomorrow will feel like another technological leap forward. However, theres a chance of June snow.

Day 3: The power of the pedal

Dear Travel Diary,

Fortunately, theres no snow or frost, but its cold enough for me to put on gloves and a jacket. My old Raleigh hybrid has served me well since I bought it in 1994 (it was a 1993 model on clearance). Not quite a road bike, not quite a mountain bike, but still, a bike, after a fashion. Its heavy by todays standards, but if its exercise you want, then its exercise ye shall receive when you ride an anvil on wheels.

Theres nothing that tells me Im living right quite like a serious biker in comically bright, skin-tight apparel gawking at my creaky old bike as he passes like a speedboat in the night. Of course, it could be my cadaverously white legs and normal-fitting shorts that cause stares.

However, Diary, you want to know whats not so nice about bike riding in Bend? In a city where there are more bike lanes than bikes (maybe), late-night joyriding yahoos enjoy smashing their bottles in them. I assume its idiot males who do this, based solely on my having long ago run with a herd of idiot males myself. If theres one thing more punk-rock in a poorly functioning brain than open containers in moving cars, its smashing the evidence.

We can fight back against the twits, Diary. If you notice piles of glass or other debris in bike lanes, the city of Bend has helpfully put a request form online. You can fill out and send it as an e-mail attachment:

www.ci.bend.or.us/depts/

public_works/docs/Bicycle_Form.pdf.

Even dodging the piles of green and brown glass, I did the ride each way in about 20 minutes.

Day 4: Car pooling or, ‘Vehicular relief

Dear Travel Diary,

I bummed a ride er, I mean, car pooled with Josh Sullivan, a new neighbor of mine. We commiserated about certain yards going to seed and plotted to start a homeowners association. Fortunately for our neighbors, at least one of us is too lazy ever to act on such an impulse. More updates later.

Dear Travel Diary,

Help! Once again, Ive gotten myself into quite a dill pickle. I rode to work with Josh, but theres this guy named Mark in Sports who drives a sporty (apropos, no?) black Honda something-or-other and who says he can give me a ride home. What do I do? I mean, its not just about the cars. Josh drives something safe and kind of a sky-blue color. But Marks working later, and Lord knows I have work to do. But I feel bad about ditching Josh, whos leaving at 5 to go play a softball game.

Dear Travel Diary,

Mark drove me home, but beforehand he was a little uptight whenever I asked when we might be leaving. He was writing a story and had a deadline. First he said it might be 6, then well after 6, then 5:30, then 6 again. We left at about 10 after 6.

Thats probably the bad thing about bumming rides, Car pooling. Whatever. Youre at the mercy of the drivers schedule (see every Blondie comic for the last 50 years) and their deadlines.

The good thing about ride-sharing is that on any given day, only one person pays for gas. And the best thing about that is that, today, that person was not me.

Day 5: The business with buses

Dear Travel Diary,

This morning, I pedaled my bike as fast as I could to the Pine-brook Transit Center, which for all the world looks like a nondescript bus stop in front of Wal-Mart. One of those shorter Dial-A-Ride buses idled at the stop. I rode right up to the open door, like a cowboy astride a saddle, climbed off and, well, heres where that rugged, can-do simile falls apart.

Hi. I dont know how to put my bike on the rack, I said to the driver. She politely extracted herself from the drivers seat and instructed me on putting my bike in the rack on the fold-down carrier on the front of the bus. The bike carrier was actually self-explanatory, literally, as there were instructions on the metal bars that take you through the process.

Boy, did I ever feel stupid, Diary!

I took the No. 2 bus downhill along Brookswood north to the intersection of Brookswood and Reed Market. There were three other riders not counting a photographer who kept stalking me all week like some kind of paparazzi of the eco-friendly transit set and one of them pulled a cord above the windows alerting the driver of my intention of stopping, and I got off at my stop, about a mile from work. I thanked my driver, threw my backpack and helmet on the grass and unloaded my bicycle so as not to hold up traffic.

Oddly enough, I hurried to get my junk off the bus in the same weird way I hurry when Im paying for my groceries. In a distracted hurry. I felt I should stay out of the way of people in cars, or more to the point, the cars themselves. Ive seen pedestrians who seem to feel confident barging through crosswalks, but all week long I was deferential. Even though drivers have all the time in the world to get where theyre going, and the means to do so.

The bike-ride-bus-bike-ride method took me about 20 minutes, the same amount of time it takes me when I just ride my bike. For my return trip home I opted for the bike. When youve been car pooling and riding buses, rolling down the street on a bike feels like freedom.

Even if my helmet looks dorky.