Why we "Ride there"

I would like to reiterate something that Kent Peterson said in his "Ready to Ride" blog entry. I'm also pointing it out because it so eloquently states why I'd rather "ride there" even if it takes longer.

"Or maybe, just maybe, the old adage has it wrong. Time is not money. Time is more valuable. You don't save time, you spend it at the same rate as everybody else on this planet. The rate is 24 hours each day. You can never save it, but some ways you spend it may work out as investments. Am I wasting three hours each day by cycling back and forth to work? If I drove a car my commute time would be half that, think of what I could do with that time I saved! But that hour and half each day that I drove, that hour and a half each day that I didn't enjoy, I know that would be wasted. And I know that I love my hours on the bike.

...It's all within biking distance. I learn this one pedal stroke at a time and it's a lesson I get to keep relearning every day. Like Joe, my own power is pretty ordinary. And my own time gets delivered to me at a rate of 24 hours each day. I guess I could waste it racing around in some attempt to save it but mostly I spend it slowly, close to home. But the funny thing is those trips add up. My legs get into the habit of turning and I learn how many sandwiches it takes to go from here to there, even if there is Tiger Mountain or Portland or Minnesota or Mexico. I still don't travel far from home, but home is a lot bigger than it used to be."

Kent Peterson, excerpts from "Ready to Ride"

I wish I could remember Kent's words when someone questions why I ride sometimes instead of driving, especially on what they perceive is a "long ride". My answers often sounds so lame to my ears "it's not so far..." "it only took me an hour"... that "only an hour" one is usually the part that people don't get. They can do it in a car in 20 minutes, maybe 30 and so I'm "wasting time" by riding. I LIKE to ride, and I very very rarely like to drive. Maybe if every road I drove on was a curvy winding swooping road with banked corners and there was no one to get in my way or tailgate me, sure. But it's rarely like that.