Meet Mike Gallagher, Bike Commuter

Mike Gallagher is not your typical commuter. He travels 13 miles roundtrip to work every day from his home in Hartford on a three wheel recumbent bike.

Mike started biking at a young age, but in his early adult years he stopped peddling and rode a motorcycle instead. He jogged for exercise until his early 30s but gave that up to return to bicycling when his legs began to bother him. At age 38 he had his first heart attack. Then there was another attack followed by open heart surgery.  Today at 54 he is trim, active and staying fit by bicycling.

In 1999 Mike bought his first recumbent bike. Four years later he switched to a three-wheeler which weighs 46 pounds, though other models available weigh as little as 22 pounds. He likes the heavier, “SUV model”, because it allows him to carry things like shoes for work or the groceries he buys on the commute home.

Mike has bought many groceries for his family over the years. He’s been the primary cook and caregiver to his four children and wife, Maggie Girard. He’s taught all of his children to bicycle and even gotten his wife on the road too. He and Maggie have pedaled—twice--across the state of Iowa twice in a tandem recumbent as part of the legendary RAGBRAI annual ride (the Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa).

Mike says biking is very good for his health. “It’s a lot like traveling by foot. I can go slow or bike briskly. I usually don't go fast enough to arrive at work panting and dripping sweat.” It usually takes him 35 minutes to travel the six and a half miles between home and work.

He uses mostly urban and suburban arteries to get to work – Quaker Lane and Boulevard in West Hartford, Newington Road and Cedar Street in Newington—though none of these roads have a bike lane. Mike says he considers his recumbent trike as a vehicle and, in bicycling parlance “takes the lane” in the street if there isn’t room on the shoulder, meaning that it’s safer to ride in the travel lane than to squeeze over to the right unless there’s a good wide shoulder. He advises staying in sight of vehicles and prefers to say out in the travel lane, rather than pulling over to the right in between parked cars in spots where there that might be possible.

Mike feels safer on his trike than behind the wheel of his 15-passenger van. “I’m not a fast driver but every other time I drive it seems like I have to make a quick, evasive maneuver to avoid an accident. This kind of maneuver happens on my bike every three years. Interestingly, statistics bear this out. I’m almost ten times more likely to be in an accident driving my van.”

Sometimes when he stops at a traffic light people driving a car will pull up aside him and ask, “Are you crazy?”

Mike has one response to people who yell at him or blow their horns. He gives his best smile and a wave. He can’t hear what people are saying and is never sure if he’s responding to a friend or neighbor or to a rude driver who wants him off the road. Either way, Mike thinks friendliness is the best response.

What does Mike see as the biggest challenge to biking to work?  Getting on the bike when he doesn’t feel like it. Some days he struggles to overcome inertia. On those days Mike thinks about the reasons not to put on his gear and start peddling – it’s too cold or it might rain. But, according to Mike, if he is able to overcome the excuses and get past the first mile or so when his body moans and groans, he feels great.

Although he has waterproof gear, he finds biking in the rain unpleasant, so he won’t start a bike commute if it’s already raining. Mike doesn’t mind cold weather but won’t ride when there is snow on the street – about 15 days a year, he claims.

Mike thinks he is not as consistent a bike commuter as he could be. On a good month he rides to work four out of five days a week. When he “slacks off” he still peddles about two days a week.

Mike is a member of the Central Connecticut Bicycle Alliance, a group that promotes biking to work. But then he didn’t need a lot of persuading……Mike Gallagher’s job is selling bikes!