How this Beaufort doctor found ‘a nice mental buffer’ on a two-wheeled ride

Buddy Coleman has learned to take the road less traveled.

It comes from years of experience riding his bicycle from his Lady’s Island home to his office at Beaufort Pediatrics. After a day filled with diagnosing the coughs and colds of toddlers, entering their information in electronic medical records and trying to stay on top of the spreading of viruses among young immune systems, Coleman saddles up on his two-wheeler and heads back to the island.

“The ride is a nice mental buffer between work and home,” said Coleman. “I’ve learned to find alternative routes and back roads.”

Those back roads are taken partially out of necessity. Though Coleman started cycling his daily commute over twenty years ago to lessen his dependence on oil and gasoline, traffic in Beaufort has increased over that time, along with the population.

So the ride is not without danger.

Several years ago, a car’s side mirror caught Coleman and knocked him to the ground, breaking two ribs. He’d had taken a lunch break and cycled downtown to buy a Valentine’s Day gift for his wife. One of the nurses at his practice had warned him not to go. He remembered that when he found himself on the ground, another victim of the cruel February holiday.

At least he had taken the precaution of wearing a helmet.

The one time he’d forgotten was burned into memory.

“I got my bike out of my car and realized I’d left the helmet at home, and I just knew that the one time I didn’t have it would be the one time a kid I’d lectured about always wearing a helmet would see me without mine,” said Coleman. “My conscience got the better of me and I turned around.”

Undeterred after the accident, his dedication to cycling never came in more handy than in 2007, when the McTeer Bridge was struck by a barge and rendered useless for several months. While the Woods Bridge downtown was the sole way off and on the islands, Coleman pedaled past many drivers stuck for hours in the ensuing traffic. The new car route also temporarily bypassed Bay Street, so Coleman got to witness life on Bay without vehicles, a scene he described as “right out of Mayberry.”

Since then, he has amended his own bipedal route in a concession to time and traffic. Instead of the full ride from his home, he now drives his car over the bridge and parks before riding his bicycle for the duration of the journey to his office. It cuts his bike route in half, but perhaps saves a little time and energy.

Either way, he’s far from alone among those who commute to work via bicycle in Beaufort. He’s not even the only biker in his own office. Fellow pediatrician Chip Floyd also gets in an occasional ride to work. They and others like them are an inspiration to would-be cyclers across the Lowcountry, no matter their usual excuses to “just drive.”

In fact, there are several advantages to biking to your job:

▪  No errands to run on the way home. “Sorry honey, I can’t fit the new dishwasher on the back of my Schwinn.”

▪  You get your exercise done before you even get home, negating the calories in the beer you drink once you’re safely there.

▪  People will assume you are part of some secret cycling club. Or that you’re slightly crazy. Either way, you’ve got them talking.

▪  You notice things you may not have noticed while driving in the car — birds singing, fresh dew on a newly-formed leaf, traffic lights.

▪  You can probably start skipping leg day at the gym, which most of us do anyway.

But there are one or two minor drawbacks.

You’ll get caught in the winter dark after 5 p.m.

There’s also the occasional summer thunderstorm in July.

Both are small prices to pay for the lower emissions, better exercise and the mental buffer most of us could use.

You might even find yourself alone on a back road for a while.

And that’s something worth the ride.

This story was originally published September 21, 2017 at 6:26 AM with the headline "How this Beaufort doctor found ‘a nice mental buffer’ on a two-wheeled ride."