After 8 weeks in the Republic of Boulder, I took some time off work to go back to the Boston area and pay a visit to my family (read: remind them of my pathetic existence in a shitty apartment out west and beg for money). I like to think I've seen a fair amount of this country - growing up in Massachusetts we took lots of trips around New England, and then I moved out to southern California for college, and in my time at USC I've seen quite a bit of the golden coast. But Boulder is nothing like anywhere else I've been - it's an isolated little bubble of awesome running trails, people riding bikes all the time, and pretty views everywhere you look. So it was a little bit shocking to leave the bubble and I've been noticing a lot of the differences.
First of all, the lack of bike lanes in MA made for a completely different riding experience. All the streets seem so narrow and dangerous that I find myself unable to remember how I ever felt safe riding here. It comes as no surprise that in my eight days home in a Boston suburb, I counted a grand total of three cyclists (note: anyone wearing spandex bike shorts was deemed a "cyclist." sorry, grocery bag guy turning 5 rpms through downtown on a mountain bike).
In contrast, Boulder has been named the number 4 city in the WORLD for bikers. As a result, the city is abound with avid cyclists (in just a quick trip outside my apartment to get the mail, I am likely to see 6 or 7 of them whizz by me) who truly value this characteristic in their community and work hard to maintain it. The result: 15% of the city's annual transportation budget goes toward building and maintaining bike lanes!
Second, for all my complaining of traffic in Boulder, the truth is that there is none. True, I do have to wait for the light to turn green when I'm driving to the grocery store, but if I start to count that as traffic, even Lyons (a small town outside of Boulder) has heavy traffic. Last Thursday, I drove into Boston from my house in the suburbs. Leaving around 6:00am, I thought I would beat the 9-to-5ers on the highway. Wrong. Apparently, the 9-to-5ers have adapted and become 7-to-3ers; it was ridiculous how many cars were on the road. I was reminded of my hellish commute to high school and my internship last summer. Yet still, I remind myself, while watching news coverage of "Carmageddon", a recent California weekend during which a 10-mile stretch of the 405 freeway was closed for three days, it could be even worse. In 4 weeks, I'm going back to a place that will truly put Boulder "traffic" in perspective, a place where the light turns from red to green five times and you still don't move.
Lastly, Boston is generally considered to be a town with a great running culture, and its true that I haven't been the only one swimming laps at my local pool and when I go running I do cross paths with other people, but it still has nothing on Boulder's level of dedication to fitness. Here, it seems everyone I talk to does Ironmans and runs a five-minute mile. You can't go riding in Boulder without seeing some guy on his P4 using Zipp 1080's for a training ride. That same guy on the streets in Boston, would have people in a wild frenzy taking pictures and saying they saw Lance Armstrong. Personally, I don't really know whether the hyperactive culture of Boulder is a good or bad thing for my self esteem. In Boulder, it's a rest day if all I did was an hour swim set and a 20 mile bike commute. Admittedly, it's kind of nice to go home and do my one workout a day, still feeling like a big fish in my hometown's relatively small pond of athletes.
Of course, New England will always have a certain nostalgic effect on me, and it did make me feel a bit homesick to walk down the beach in Maine knowing that the next time I'd be there, it'll be 20F outside and there will be snow on the sand. But being in a house full of furniture, appliances, and general household paraphernalia made me realize that right now it's really cool to be able to fit everything I need in Gladys's trunk.* And even though New England will always feel like home, the Boulder bubble is suiting me really well. So I'm ready to go back for the last few weeks of summer, and even though I have to go to work tomorrow, I'm really looking forward to my commute.
*if you haven't picked up on it by now, Gladys is my beautiful navy blue 1999 Honda Accord. (for some excellent Gladys footage, see previous post)
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