{"id":643,"date":"2011-02-03T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-02-03T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wabikes.org\/2011\/02\/03\/i-bike-mare-sullivan\/"},"modified":"2011-02-03T16:00:00","modified_gmt":"2011-02-03T16:00:00","slug":"i-bike-mare-sullivan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wabikes.org\/index.php\/2011\/02\/03\/i-bike-mare-sullivan\/","title":{"rendered":"I Bike: Mare Sullivan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mare Sullivan, a self-described suburban matron from Kirkland, never had a bicycle as a child.\u00a0 Her parents offered to buy each of their children a bike for their 10th birthday, but Mare bargained for a guitar of equal value instead.\u00a0 She finally purchased a Sears Free Spirit 10 speed before heading off to college and rode it a lot during her undergrad and graduate years.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n

After marriage, Mare embarked on a career that required her to drive all over Western Washington so her biking time was reduced to recreational rides with her eldest daughter.\u00a0 Her bike eventually was relegated to the garage when her second daughter could\/would not learn to ride.<\/p>\n

Fast forward a couple of decades to February 2008.\u00a0 Mare was teaching an Environmental Science course and challenged her students to commit to one lifestyle change that would make a positive impact on the environment.\u00a0 She joined them in the challenge by taking up bike\/bus commuting.<\/p>\n

“The first day was terrifying,” Mare recalled.\u00a0 “The bus driver was kind enough to show me how to put my bike on the bus and I was scared riding in downtown Bellevue.\u00a0 With intermittent walking breaks, I rode my bike home that afternoon.”<\/p>\n

Surprisingly to Mare, her family and friends, by May 2008 she was a fulltime bike commuter and had entered the Group Health Commute Challenge.\u00a0 She finished in the top 31% of all riders; top 15% of all female riders; top 13% of new bike commuters; and top 6% of all new female commuters!\u00a0 By the end of the year, she had logged over 2600 miles on her bike.<\/p>\n

“I like the pace of biking–stopping to visit or ponder or observe along the way,” explained Mare.\u00a0 “I like having more energy, being stronger, and 30 pounds lighter than I was three years ago.\u00a0 I never envisioned myself–an overweight, 50-something matron from the ‘burbs–ending up biking more miles than I drive each year.\u00a0 Crazy.\u00a0 And fun!”<\/p>\n

\u00a0–\u00a0\u00a0 –\u00a0\u00a0 –\u00a0\u00a0 –\u00a0\u00a0 –\u00a0\u00a0 –<\/div>\n

Tell us your story!\u00a0 I Bike<\/b> is a project of the Bicycle Alliance of Washington to put a personal face on bicycling when we talk to elected officials and the public.\u00a0 Contact Louise McGrody<\/b><\/a> if you’d like to share your I Bike story with us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mare Sullivan, a self-described suburban matron from Kirkland, never had a bicycle as a child.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[69,38,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-i-bike","category-people","category-seattle-king-county-wa"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nI Bike: Mare Sullivan - Washington Bikes<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/wabikes.org\/index.php\/2011\/02\/03\/i-bike-mare-sullivan\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"I Bike: Mare Sullivan - 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