For five years, every day, he has ridden his bike to work. Meet Sioux Falls’ supercommuter

By Patrick Lalley, for Pigeon605

A streak gets in your head.

When it’s going right, don’t change.

Baseball players wear the same underwear. Bingo players have those … troll … things.

That works for them. But to be honest, it’s amateur mysticism at best.

You might win the World Series or the progressive pot. But you’re not Terry Mashek.

Terry Mashek has suffered for his streak.

The Sioux Falls software engineer recently passed five years of consecutive days riding his bike to work.

It’s not just that he rode every day.

He rode when it was very, very cold.

He rode when it was very, very painful.

He rode to the office – and back – while working from home during the pandemic.

Every day for several months, Mashek got up from bed, put on his bike commuting armor and rode 8 miles to the Omnitech office building in southwest Sioux Falls.

Then he turned around, rode home and got to work.

“That’s part of the deal,” said Mashek, 51, who started bike commuting in 2007. “You ride when you don’t have to ride.”

Even when it’s snowing, or pouring, or whatever version of calamity may greet a South Dakota morning.

That’s what the streak does to you. It gets you thinking that while it may not be the best idea, it’s certainly something that needs to get done.

Like Pa Ingalls navigating a rope line in a blizzard to see after Ellen, the family cow.

Because if you don’t, what then?

Mashek knows that feeling. This isn’t his first bike rodeo, after all.

In 2009, he decided to see how many days he could ride through the winter.

The goal was 50.

Then 100.

But on the 98th day, about 8 inches of snow turned him around after a quarter mile.

The last day he drove to work – Feb. 10, 2016 – he had been on a run of 40 days.

Then the appliance repair guy, who was supposed to be there at 8, didn’t get there till 9:30.

“I had a client meeting at 10 across town,” Mashek said. “I guess I like eating better than I like riding, so I drove that day.”

Five years later, no snow, or cold, or rain, or moderately unreliable repairman, has derailed the ride.

“There’s been a little bit of luck in it,” he said. “Somehow you make it through.”

There have been a few close calls, however. One day in particular.

It was 26 degrees below zero. Amy Mashek – a reasonable sort by all indications – suggested to her husband that maybe this was just a bit much, from a safety perspective.

“At that point, I had a little over three years. I said, ‘I can’t break the streak now.’ I was gunning for 1,000 days, and I didn’t want to start over. We came to an agreement. I rode a little over a mile to the bus stop and then took the bus downtown. And then rode to the office.”

It was three miles of bike riding total. Enough by Mashek’s rules to keep the streak alive.

“To be honest, when I got to the bus stop, it wasn’t that bad,” he said. “My goggles iced over immediately. If I could have solved that, I could have done it without too much trouble.”

Mashek admits, without much prompting, that there’s a fair degree of “bravado and stupidity” that goes into such a thing.

That’s probably best illustrated by a commute that had nothing to do with work.

It was to the hospital for heart surgery.

Two years ago, Mashek had to have a valve in his heart repaired.

It’s the kind of thing that usually requires six months to fully recover. Certainly, no bike riding.

And maybe a bit of that bravado – or defiance – made him get on his bike rather than get in the car. But he did, with son Tyler riding alongside.

“Just because I’m ornery,” is Mashek’s explanation. “I entertained the idea of riding home. Then the anesthesia wore off.”

Still, the streak and all.

It was supposed to take six months. At six weeks, the surgeon cleared him to ride.

That was just a couple of days before he was scheduled to return to work.

“I healed pretty quick,” Mashek said.  “He looked at me and pressed on things and said, ‘Anything you feel like doing you can do.’ ”

He went home and rode his bike.

“My butt hurt, but my chest didn’t.”

Mashek credits all the bike commuting miles – about 33,000 at this point – with his quick recovery. It’s something that isn’t lost on Amy Mashek, who isn’t too worried about the cold anymore.

It will end. That’s inevitable.

A foot of snow. Sciatic nerve. Huge thunderstorm. An extremely late repairman.

All Mashek knows for sure is that he won’t be happy about it. When a big snow stopped one of the earlier streaks – when he wasn’t as savvy – Mashek came home with his “tail between his legs.”

“I was miserable to be around,” he said. “It really bothered me.”

Family, friends and co-workers don’t always understand. They remind him that eventually the streak will be broken.

“Yeah, I know,” Mashek said.

Then he laughs, because what else can you do.

“But not today.”