As the saying goes, “spring forward, fall back” when it comes to daylight savings time but it seems like the concept is pretty universal.  The first few weeks of September have been rough so far.  Sure in the Worcester/New England Area there have been some boughts of strange weather but it really hasn’t been that bad, I’m talking about something different altogether.  It’s like a seismic shift in attitude and I don’t know if it’s just me or the whole world?

Some things are just obvious, everyone is back from their vacations and hit with the realization that it’s probably another 6 months before they get to go/do any vacation type stuff again.  We all seem to be stuck in the rut, where it’s too far away to start counting down and we don’t have our “work” stamina back yet so we are tired all the time.  For many of us, we don’t have the “it’s summer, no one really expects me to close business” excuse and it’s time to hustle again.

But there are a few encouraging signs around this time.  One of which is the higher level of biking that I see this time of year.  For some reason, the early fall seems to be the peak of cycling in my area.  Maybe it’s the return of the student population to Boston and Worcester (heck, MASS in general) that creates this spike.  But I tend to think it’s the summertime carry-over.  A lot of people have spent the last few months getting used to the weather and thinking/saying “it’s so nice, I should go for a bike ride” but most of us manage to find excuses not to.  It’s too hot, it’s too cold, I’ll go later, maybe this weekend…

Well, it seems that a lot of us have realized that it won’t get any better than this for a LONG TIME and it’s now or never for a bike ride.  The summer carry-over also feeds this trend.  Coming off the summer months, people seems to be more relaxed and have grown more accustomed to activity.  Around here, it takes a few months after the long hard winter with 85% of activity options being confined indoors for riding the bike or other activity to be “normal”.

Whatever the reasons, I’m happy to see more people biking around me.  It will be very interesting to see how things change and the dramatic drop as the weather changes.  Since this will be my first full winter living CarFree, I’m curious to see when the massive drop off occurs.  Will it be at the first sub-zero temp day, the first frost, the first snow……..I’ll just have to wait and see!