Rider

Jorge Acevedo


From Sacramento CA


Commutes 10.8 Miles RoundTrip for 13 years and months
Four or Three Days a week, I am a bike commuter Year Round

Currently, I ride 1.5 miles to light rail, use light rail to its end, and ride an additional 4 miles to work and vice-versa. I can store the bike in the office (I never leave site of the rig in Sac). If I want to, I get off sooner/later to make the ride longer. I have ridden the whole way, it's 17 each way.

I am a GIS/CAD specialist for an environmental consulting firm. I'm 28, pre-diabetic (the bike saves me here), and happily married to a worried wife that has nightmares thinking about the evil SUVs and cell phone users attacking her husband :) (I don't have an issue with either unless their both put to use by the same person at the same time). I'm also Latino, making me an instant subject of curiosity with my non-bicycling family members. They of course make fun of the bicycle clothing and nearly have heart attacks when I tell them how much my beloved bike costs. You paid how much for that Thompson seatpost!?

November 11, 1992: I'm riding to high school on a cold southern california morning on San Fernando road (what was I thinkin'), in heavy traffic as always, and a no-insurance driver takes a sudden left in front of me. The bike is wrecked, my shoulder gets separated, but the disgruntled driver did call the police and paramedics. I called my mom and because we had no insurance at the time (we were poor), my mom tells me to call off the paramedics because it would be too expensive. To further save on costs, my mom goes to two low-income clinics that mis-diagnose my separated shoulder for a dislocated shoulder. Seeing that the clinical doctors couldn't figure out what was wrong with my shoulder, she finally takes me to USC-Med center's othopedic division, to put me in a sling. Add insult to injury, I called my long-distance girlfriend, who breaks up with my that night (she planned to do so prior to the accident), and because I spent all day visiting doctors, I missed school, which happened to break my 2.5 year perfect attendance record. Raiders' Football tickets were given away for perfect attendance that year and the 11th was the cutoff day. My high school counselor, who went out driving looking for me since I didn't show up to school, still gave me the tickets...I gave them to a Raiders' fan. In the end, all went well, except for the bump on my left shoulder from fusing cartilage. My dad's car insurance covered me as a pedestrian, so with the pain and suffering settlement, we paid the $1000 worth of x-rays and of course got myself a new bicycle better than the beater that was wrecked. It was a painful day, but after eleven years, I get to laugh about it. Needless to say, I pay for all the insurance I can get now.

Current Bicycle: 2002 Specialized Sirrus Sport Bicycle under restoration: 1969 Windsor touring bike Future Bicycle: Trek 520, Lemond Poprad, or Specialized Sequoia (haven't decided) Dream Bicycle: Rivendell touring bike.

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