Your 2008 Biking Goals

Goals, targets, resolutions.... Whatever you call them, you may be making some this time of the year. And if you are a cyclist, your goals may have something to do with your bike.

I know some people advocate setting big and audacious goals, even hairy ones sometimes. The problem with these types of goals is that you feel like a big failure if you happen to not meet them. Which is quite likely, in large part due to the size and audacity of the goal.
I'd like to advance a concept of small, modest goals. Here are the benefits of setting this type of goals:

• They are easier to reach
• They are easier to modify
• They are not likely to make you feel like a failure

For example, you could set a big, audacious goal like this:
I WILL RIDE MY BIKE TO WORK THIS YEAR EVERY DAY, NO MATTER WHAT, RAIN OR SHINE!
Unless you are already fully committed to a car-free lifestyle, there are several things wrong with this goal.

• It sets you up for failure. Anything could come up, and you know it will, and you have failed.
• There is no middle ground: it's either complete success, or else it's failure.
• There is no way to redeem the failure. If for some reason you cannot, or choose not to ride on a given day, you have already failed for the whole year.

Instead, you could set a small, modest goal like this:
I will ride my bike x-number of miles this year.
This type of goal has some advantages.

• It can be broken up into manageable monthly, weekly and daily chunks.
• You can exceed you goal. If you exceed it temporarily, it's easier to forgive yourself if you fall behind another time.
• Conversely, if you've fallen behind, you can recalculate your monthly and weekly requirements for the remainder of the year, and still catch up.
• Even if you don't catch up, you haven't completely failed. Maybe you've biked 800 miles rather than a thousand. That's not bad!

Don't ruin your biking experience by setting yourself up for failure. Especially if you are a relatively new cyclist. Try some small, modest goals that will help enhance your enjoyment of cycling. Like these:

• I will keep my biking stuff in one place, so it's convenient for me to hop on my bike when I feel like it.
• I will make a list of places that are easy for me to get to by bike, and try to ride there whenever I can.
• I will challenge myself a couple of times a month to do a bike ride that tests my comfort zone (longer distance, bad weather, heavier traffic, etc.)
• When making my daily transportation choices, I will consider my bike as a viable option.

The Commute By Bike blog ran this quote a few days ago, from the transportation alternatives coordinator for the city of Dallas:

“We have this picture of cycling commuters as being like supermen, and that discourages other people from doing it. When I came into this job, our thinking was we needed to enable cyclists to make 40-mile bike trips. Now my thinking is we need to have development in place that allows a cyclist to make a one-mile bike trip.”

Here's to the New Year, and millions of car-bound Chicagoans making the the switch to the one-mile bike trip.

Comments

[alisa]

For those of us that can no longer bike due to health issues (i.e. lower back problems) I propose a NY small, modest goal of trying to walk to work only one day each week, if possible.

Anything under five miles is walkable. A mile is 15 minutes of brisk walking, and a five mile trek is one hour and fifteen minutes. How many of us spend 75 minutes watching television, sending and responding to text messages which can add up, or watching television? You can always bus or take transit home. Or hop on a biker's handlebars.

[Whoops!]

I said the same thing twice! Um... fill in the blank of what you can spend 75 minutes doing! and also consider how long it takes to drive five miles in the city- up to 45 minutes!!