Campus Bike

I have been busy this first couple weeks back at Microsoft. Since starting have had several meetings a day to connect and reconnect with people and groups. In trying to get more dome in less time, I have been trying to reduce the time it takes to get to meetings between buildings.

I can walk briskly to most campus buildings within 20 minutes. If I ask for a shuttle, will wait about 10 minutes and ride for about 10 minutes. So, it still takes about 20 minutes. If I drive, I can spend 5 minutes to walk to my car, drive out of the garage, and across campus, 5 minutes to find a parking space, and 5 minutes to walk out of the garage into the other building.

Even with the hassles, driving is quite often faster than walking or shuttles, and is therefore still a popular choice for cross campus meetings.

Trying another avenue, I have purchased a cheap bike, helmet, and lock at Fred Meyer and rode it to my office to leave. Now I have a bike ready for immediate use to shuttle between buildings even if I drove to work.

I estimate that I can save 30 minutes for each cross campus meeting, or about 1 to 20 hours per week. This makes it easy to justify the cost of the bike. There are also health benefits and ecological benefits to riding over taking the shuttle. On really hot days and during heavy rain, walking is less viable. (Walking 20 minutes in the rain is very different than riding 5 minutes.)

I will post about this again when I have been using the bike for a while.