I prefer getting to work on my bike.
Sitting in a car in traffic is not fun, and while too often a necessary evil, not especially healthy. This is axiomatic. To add insult to injury, it’s 2.5 miles from our house to my office, and a significant majority of the stop lights in Kalispell lie in between. We also have, in my jaundiced opinion, excessively egregious traffic for a city so modest. Where does it come from (that no one who works in Whitefish lives there)? If we had good food, I could put up with traffic, but the number of decent eateries fits on one hand, and thus when faced with car commuting I despair.
Occasionally I have to drive to work, but as often as possible I try to ride. Yet in winter, my commute becomes rather unpleasant. Most of it can be done on quiet back streets, with many detours down urban singletrack for variety, but on one stretch a golf course sits between a four lane highway and a river with no alternatives but the shoulder of the former. Sans snow this is fine, but once the shoulder is plowed in that 200 meter stretch of hogging a lane removes a lot of the mentally and spiritually productivity of riding to work. Back in December I resolved to find an alternative, and after too much searching in the wrong spots found an unlocked gate which allowed a sneak across the golf course, and opened up an infinitely more enjoyable route, to which the Mukluk is at the moment ideally suited.
Riding to work and riding back home isn’t a very sexy adventure, but many days during the week is all the outside time for which I have space. It’s nice to be able to make it count.
Bedrock & Paradox 
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