RTW - a weeklong!

11th - 15th January 2010. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Cycle Friday.

A week that was, my first weeklong RTW. Herein I etch to record it as a personal milestone.

The whole of last week I was without a car. The trusty Avanza being traded for a bigger brother - an upgrade that insyaAllah would make everyone in the household happy. Cycling wise, that means easier loading of bikes. The other car was with Naza, her transport for work and ferry children to/from school and the babysitter.

That also means I could do a weeklong RTW, a feat I have wished to attempt. And so I did it last week. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. It was not a working Saturday, so I skipped Saturday. I collected the new Innova on Friday, hence I have to skip the ride back home. Naza fetched me from work and we headed off to Plentong with my bike and Umar in the car as well.

I have to say that it was not easy, doing the RTW day by day. Cycling out to work at about 7am in the morning, and going back home after 6pm every day. That means I cycled about 12km in 40 minutes, at intervals of about 12 hours, for 5 days (now that numbers are included, it sounds like a great feat, huh?). It also means that I have to recover from each ride within 12 hours - at work during the day, and in my sleep at night. Oh, and my odometer registered an addition of 107km due to that weeklong RTW.

I know that there are many, many people around the world who commute every day by bike, for years. Daily commuting is second nature for them. A guy who lives in Iowa rides his bike everyday, even in thick snow during winter, too. Another guy I know rides his bike halfway and take a boat the other half of the journey. Perhaps with time, this weeklong RTW would be no ordeal anymore. Admittedly in my case, it was partly forced, but mostly intentional. After this, I hope it would be fully motivational and without the external push.

To look at it in a perspective, I did my RTW progressively. First I started out only on working Saturdays i.e. 2nd and 4th (and 5th, if any) Sats of the month. Then I started to try it on a weekday, during school holiday when the traffic is not as heavy. Then it became on a regular weekday. After that I progressed on two days per normal weekdays and on working Saturdays. Then I graduated to 3 weekdays. Finally it came to the last week's weeklong feat. Perhaps one weeklong in a month after this? I never plan to do it, but who'll know, I'd be a daily bike commuter someday. It was a pretty big thing when I started out - needed meticulous planning and mental preparation. Nowadays, I could decide whether to RTW in a snap, even at 7am in the morning - usually if I didn't iron my shirt and slacks :).

All in all, I'm quite satisfied with my progression thus far, and hope that I could do better hereafter. Here I would like to register my thanks to people who supported my RTW directly or otherwise, especially my workplace.

Alhamdulillah. Thank you very much!