Author: Katie Cunningham
Biological Sciences

I love my alternative commute!

My roommate and I did not make the housing lottery cutoff for our second year of graduate school. We relocated from our Rains apartment to another apartment through the off-campus subsidized housing program. Unfortunately, our new apartment is about 7 miles from campus, on Shoreline Blvd in Mountain View. I had a 14-year-old mountain bike that I used to commute from Rains to my lab and classes. When we moved off campus, I continued to ride my old mountain bike each day to work. I joined the Commute Club, which helped to subsidize my flat tires, new brake pads, etc. Each day I would arrive at lab all sweaty and gross, which led to my lab nickname, "SweatyBack".

I got so into my riding routine that I would even ride back and forth in the rain, which led to a new nickname of "SkunkButt". For passing my qualifying exam, I received a bike fender from my labmate with the note: "Congratulations for passing your goal and no more skunk butt!". (He has no idea how much I love having that fender!)

One day, it was raining really hard out and I just didn't want to ride, so I hopped in my car and drove to campus. After stopping for a parking scratcher and finally finding a parking spot (a 15 minute walk from my lab!), I made it to school in about 30 minutes more than the time it would have taken me to ride my bike. That was the last time I drove to campus on a weekday.

Last year, I used some Commute Club money to help buy a new, nicer bike. Just last month, I had to replace the worn out tires—in a year, they made it almost 4000 miles, most of which was from commuting to and from school. Maybe I'm just too stubborn to give in and drive, but I really do enjoy my ride to school each day. It helps me to clear my head, it gives me time to either prepare for or unwind from the workday, and it keeps me in great shape!

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