Tuesday 24 August 2010

Four wheels on my wagon...

The second day of commuting by car has come and gone and I have to say - much as I love and adore my Shiny New Bike - this really is the way to get to work.

In the past I've taken the B-roads to Mönchengladbach where I've joined the Autobahn (the A61, then the A52 then the A44) to Willich. It takes around 45 minutes - but this has stretched to more than 2 hours on one or two occasions. Most notably when it has snowed and I was young and keen (I won't be doing that again) and when the Autobahn exchange was being improved (improved no end but what a pain in the neck while it was being built).

But now I have a car that has a better engine and runs on diesel, I've decided to join the autobahn which runs close to my village, and cut my journey time. And what a cut! It took 30 minutes yesterday and today, although I expect that to increase next week when the school holidays finish.

Car-driver's laziness set in on the first day, sadly. The plan was to get up at 6am and get to Willich as early as possible because there were some jackets on offer in Aldi (not very nice, as it turned out so I didn't get one). But I watched the clock click round to 06:45 before I actually managed to schlepp my sorry bones out of bed. Since I got some shopping done before work, lunchtime was coffee and my book.

Yaay.

The drive home was also around 30 minutes but that could have been because I didn't leave work until 19:30 - although today I left at 17:30 and despite a bit of traffic early on, I still managed the journey in 35 minutes.

None of that 2-and-a-half-hour journey with missed buses!

Yaayyy.

Although - I do feel vaguely guilty about my carbon footprint.

2 comments:

Drake Sigar said...

Nature will find a way to compensate. Hopefully without killing us all!

I wasn't aware a 6am existed.

Sho said...

Let's hope that Global Warming and all that just isn't what it's cracked up to me.

Because one thing is clear - 4 days into driving to work and I am wondering how on EARTH I coped with cycling. And it wasn't even raining then!