Going Shopping

I have of late been inspired by my friend Nancy who rides her bike everywhere she needs to go, whether to church three miles away, or to visit a friend in an assisted living facility in a neighboring city. Many of us avid cyclists are trying to take a page from Nancy’s book and use our bicycles not just for recreation, but for transportation as well.

In fact, here’s where I put in a plug for my son Tim, who has a gig writing for Bike Life Cities magazine. Check out his column where he describes the challenges he encounters when he decides to permanently garage his car (actually, our car) in favor of riding his bicycle everywhere he needs to go while living and working in Boulder, Colorado. It’s good writing, a whole lot funnier than mine.

So today I decided to combine a trip to Wildcat Fitness in Durham with an errand to a farm in Lee to pick up eggs and some meat. I was curious to find out how a couple dozen eggs would fare traveling in a pannier.

I checked out the distance to Coppal House Farm on googlemaps and it came up as 7 ½ miles. The ride to Durham is about 6, so I expected the total to be around 20 miles, just right for a training ride. And I’d feel good about not burning fossil fuels while supporting a local farm that raises happy animals. The chickens get to roam on 78 acres and the other animals get to run around in pastures, just like in the old days.

I recruited Nancy and another friend, Maura, to meet me at the gym for the ride to the farm.

Too cold for shorts but not so cold that I needed mittens when I left my house at 7:30 this morning, it wasn’t much warmer at 9 o’clock when I met up with Nancy and Maura. The trees haven’t greened up yet, but there are occasional hints of spring green here and there.  

Coppal House Farm in Lee, New Hampshire

From Durham we took an indirect route to the farm to avoid the state highway, staying on country roads, which is not hard to do in this corner of New Hampshire. Having been on only two short bike rides this spring I wasn’t too excited when some hills loomed ahead, but it all turned out okay.

When we arrived at the farm, Nancy said she’d pop over to Blue Bell Greenhouse across the road to pick up some pansies for her church. I wondered how she was going to get them on her bike, but she assured me they'd fit in her panniers just fine. I guess the people who sold them to her worried how they'd do riding on the back of her bike. But when we parted ways and she had just three miles left to go they were still looking pretty good. And my eggs arrived home unbroken.