Beginning biking 2.0

This time of year I have more people talk to me about biking.  Of course they wonder about staying warm, but then a lot of time is spent discussing their cycling habits, or the ones they tried to develop.  There are a lot garage ornaments hanging in the rafters in this country and part of it is the perception.  As I noted in the previous post, many people take up cycling for a short period intending to get regular exercise,  but like any exercise regimen it gets boring, then seems time consuming and the bike becomes garage decoration.  After all, going the same place at the same time on the same route is pretty boring no matter who you are with.  I recently made a convert by telling him to take a map of the city (off google or mapquest) and draw circles around his house to scale

like  this with 3,5 and 8 mile concentric circles.  I recommended that whenever he needed to go somewhere withing the 2 mile radius that he substitute his bike for the car.  It ended up being a 5 mile ride and took 10-15 minutes each way.  That way he had a purpose,  it didn't interfere with his schedule and would make his cycling and his day a little more challenging  and fun.  After he became comfortable with that , he reached out to the 5 mile area and soon realized that he rarely needed to use the car at all, and is finding more and more reasons to ride, rather than excuses not to.