Dori the eco-warrior gets an e-bike for his commute

The newsroom at KIRO Radio was surprised on Monday morning to see Dori Monson — longtime opponent of bike lanes and the corrupt bike share lobby — to arrive not with his car, but with a new two-wheeled mode of transportation.

“I got a new toy this weekend — because you know, I’m a very environmentally-conscious person,” Dori said at the beginning of Monday’s show.

Dori said that while he used to ride to work quite frequently in the past, the homeward ride at the end of the day began to get to him.

“I truly enjoyed riding in in the morning,” he recalled. “But I have no energy after the show.”

Time for Bikes and Bagels, hooray

The solution? Dori bought himself an e-bike, which uses a battery to help assist riders on tougher stretches like hills.

“I used it very little coming in — I’m guessing very lot going home,” Dori laughed. “But I’m thrilled with it.”

With the ability to charge the bike at the office, Dori resembled a cross between an ecologically-minded electric vehicle driver and a liberal, congestion-pricing-advocating Seattle cyclist who belongs to the Cascade Bicycle Club and voted for Rob Johnson.

However, Dori admitted on his first day of bike-commuting that he “made a tactical error.”

“Here’s the problem — I usually go to the gym on the way to work and I have a gym duffel bag, and that’s got my shampoo and my body wash and my deodorant and all of that,” he explained. “Well, I needed a backpack today, so I borrowed one of my daughter’s backpacks and brought a change of clothes and lunch — I forgot to bring soap, shampoo, deodorant, towel.”

Ursula laughed, recalling how Dori did not return her hug that morning, even though she had just come back after being gone from the show for a few days.

“I gave Dori a hug, and I could see that you were starting to turn your body, giving me the indication like, ‘Not today,'” she said.

“I’m stinky and I’m going to be stinky throughout the show and I feel bad about that,” Dori said with a chuckle.

But there was a bright side.

“I don’t have to change back into my bike clothes for the ride home because I’m already wearing them,” he said.

Listen to the Dori Monson Show weekday afternoons from 12-3 p.m. on KIRO Radio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.