My hospital stay a few months ago resulted in the neurologist invoking a three month driving restriction. My wife thinks I had a seizure. My doctor says it sounds like vasovagal syncope. Regardless, there is no Illinois law restricting driving following such an episode. So doctors tend to follow the laws of neighboring states. It could have been longer. Michigan has a 6 month waiting period. In Wisconsin the wait is 3 months.

I had a followup with the neurologist last week and another EEG. Assuming all’s well, it will be three months next Thursday.

I’ve been bumming rides and biking to work the past three months. So out of curiosity I tallied up my commuter miles and calculated my fuel savings.

484.69 miles

I have to admit, I’m a little discouraged after calculating gas and dollar savings.

My car gets 18mpg. My bicycle commuting has saved 26.93 gallons of gas. At about $3.10/gallon, that’s only $83.48. Almost two fillups

Granted, it’s been fun, I feel great, my recreational riding feels stronger and I’m staying in shape due to the 25 mile round trip commute. I have to get around anyway, and I want to ride my bike. I do plan to continue bike commuting, weather and work schedules permitting, event after returning to driving. So if that’s the goal, then the gas and money savings, however small, is a nice side benefit.

My MacBook Pro contains an accelerometer. It detects motion, like if the computer is knocked off a table and falls to the floor, and locks the hard drive in order to minimize damage to the computer. It turns out there is a similar mechanism in the human body, called the Vegas Nerve, which I discovered this summer.

I woke up early on June 20 for my regular Wednesday mountain bike group ride. I felt nauseous and went to the bathroom to heave. Next thing I know my wife is standing over me, screaming at me to wake up. There I am on all fours and she’s screaming at me to wake up. I went by ambulance to the hospital where I stayed for three days while they ran every kind of test. Two EEG’s, MRI, MRA, heart telemetry, all kinds of blood and urine tests. None turned up anything conclusive. My brother had epilepsy as a teenager, so of course the doctors focus on that and decide, since they can’t figure it out, to cover their ass and say I can’t drive for three months.

As it turns out, for me as an avid bicyclist, a driving restriction is no big deal. I had been talking for months about trying to find a bike friendly commuter route to my office and this was the perfect excuse. I have two routes, one along the Rock River, the other along Perryville Road on the East side of Rockford. Both are mostly paved bike path with some neighborhood streets. It’s about a 12.5 mile commute each way, which makes for a respectable 25 mile ride about three days a week.

My three month driving restriction ends on September 20. I checked the logs from my Garmin Motionbased for the past 90 days since I started commuting. I’ve logged over 750 miles, of which 375 have been back and forth to the office.

Riding has been great. I’ve fitted my old Specialized Expedition with a rear rack and a set of bags. Fully loaded with a change of clothes, tool kit, lock and other stuff, the bike weighs close to 50 lbs, but I feel stronger on the mountain bike and road bike after pushing the commuter to work for a few days.

Of course the drawback has been that the tv show has suffered. I apologize for not releasing a show in the past several months. I have a couple of great segments from a tour at the SRAM HQ and a how-to piece. If you’d like to submit any of your own video of rides you’ve done, interviews, or coverage of a bike event in your area, I’d be happy to include it on TrailTapes.

Meantime, thanks for the comments. I’m working to get another episode out shortly and get back on track.