Here comes the Challenge

Drive Less:

Brrrr. It's cold this morning. 28 degrees with frost on the grass and the car when I left the house. It was the kind of morning when I spend 15 seconds debating whether to wear my bike helmet or my knit winter hat. Only 15 seconds because the obvious choice this morning was the winter hat!

It is obvious to me today that this Green Faster Challenge is going to become a much bigger challenge in the up-coming months. It's easy to stand tall and declare, "I bike to work everyday", when it's 75 degrees and sunny. It is a bit harder to do that with a smile on your face when the temperatures dip below 35 degrees in the morning. Luckily today it should hit 65 for the commute home...so my cold-weather bike challenge is cut in half, as only one leg of the ride is uncomfortable. I'm not sure how long I'll be able to continue biking to work, but I'm going to try to go as many days this fall and into the Winter as possible. I'll keep you posted. :}

My co-worker, Aaron, is trying to promote winter biking in Madison. Chicago has an established community of winter bicycle commuters who promote winter biking by holding frequent meetings and workshops. They also put on fun events like the "Santa Rampage", in which bikers dress in their finest Santa inspired costumes and bike around down-town Chicago on one of the busiest shopping days of the year. http://bikewinter.org/main.php
Chicago's group is quite intense and it seems that Milwaukee has a decent size group as well. However Madison, which has been coined one of the best biking communities in the country hasn't established itself as a powerful winter bicycling community. My co-worker Aaron is trying to help change this and he has set up a kick-off meeting on November 3rd. Check it out! See the Madison link on this page. http://bikewinter.org/




Reduce Energy Use:

We've not yet turned on the heat, which has lead to some cold mornings getting ready for work. Again, the day will warm up and the house will be comfortable when we get home, so it hasn't been too much of an issue to date. Mike and I haven't discussed yet exactly when we will turn on the heat this year, but I'd like to try to make it through October at least without! I'm tempted to turn it on to a minimum of 55 degrees or so just to keep my sanity.

I received our MGE utility bill on Wednesday and was surprised to see that it was $20.00 less than it has been all summer! We only used 233 kwh last month, where we had been standing strong at 320 kwh each month this summer. I think the power-strips have been paying off! (plugging multiple appliances into one strip and shutting the whole strip off when not in use). We have also been unplugging the television when it's not on to kill the small light. . Another thing we've been working on is using task-based lighting in the kitchen. When I'm working at the stove or kitchen sink, instead of turning the over-head kitchen light on, I will work with only the stove light or the kitchen sink light on. As the sun sets earlier in the evening...the lighting challenges in the house will begin...but I think we're ready!