A funny thing happened when I sat down to write this blog: I didn’t know what to write.

Wait. Let me rephrase that. I didn’t know which to write, because I haven’t run out of ideas for this blog just yet.

And that comes as something of a surprise.

This is my 101st blog.

When I was approached by Someone in Authority in July 2008 about blogging about commuting by bike, I was hesitant. I didn’t know how much material I could come up with for a blog, but I agreed.

“How often should I blog?” I asked, figuring once or twice a month, at most.

“Oh, at least twice a week,” Someone in Authority responded.

Gulp.

So with Someone in Authority’s marching orders in my ear, I dutifully blogged close to twice a week for more than a year and … voila, 100 blogs.

Funny thing is, I found I had more material than I ever imagined.

I don’t think I could write 100 words about commuting by car, unless I take the fifth-grade cop-out and string together “It sucks” 50 times.

But stuff happens to us two-wheeled travelers.

Stuff happens to those who commute by car, too, but something about being on two wheels makes it more intimate, or at least personal.

Pardon me if I wax rhapsodic, but just about weekly I’ll start out the conversation with my kids around the breakfast table with, “Guess what happened on my ride home last night?”

As they get older and more sophisticated, I know, they’ll be less impressed with my stories of spectacular earth-grazer meteor sightings or tales that I saw a herd of deer in our neighborhood.

But I can’t recall — ever — asking my kids over their Froot Loops to guess what I saw/did/heard on my drive home the night before.

When I drive, ensconced behind glass and steel with the radio going, I tend to lose touch with my surroundings.

On a bike, though, I’m in tune with the weather, the road, the “feel” of everything around me.

The night I wrote this blog, for instance, I was chased by a raccoon. Think about that for a minute. A huge raccoon, bigger than a house cat, crossed in front of me, then doubled back to chase me for half a block. He wasn’t gnashing his little teeth or frothing at his little mouth, just loping along as if he were out for a middle-of-the-night jog.

That’s something I wouldn’t have been aware of had I been in my car, and though it’s not exactly a reason to ride a bike instead, I somehow find it strangely fulfilling.

So as long as Someone in Authority thinks it’s still a good idea, and as long as there are drivers to harass me and ring-tailed rodents to run alongside, I figure I can crank out another 100 or so blogs without breaking a sweat.