Yesterday was three years since we actually sold the car and took up legs and transit and trains to get where we need to go.  I’m probably not much thinner and don’t really have a ton of money saved (I made more money as a grad student than I do as a VISTA), but I’m much happier.

I feel like I should have some reflections on being carfree, but I’m too tired to think of much.  Like how you avoid the guilt that one of my neighbors told me about this morning, of driving everyday alone.  Or how you really do see more of your city and meet more people and stay in at least slightly better physical shape.  Or how you should try it.

But it’s hard to really try being carfree.  We decided to sell our car a few weeks before we actually handed over the keys and $6,600 to a Saturn dealer — because Thanksgiving was coming, and we were on the way to Baltimore, and we couldn’t meet with the car guy to sell it until we got back.  So we had time to get used to the idea.  How will I get here?  Should I stock up on stuff because I don’t get there as often?  If I still owned a car, I don’t think I’d be able to think very creatively about transportation and fun because the four wheels would always be there to make that commute quicker or that trip a little more comfortable.  That could certainly be my own weakness speaking, but it’s like imagining what it’s like to be a vegetarian.  Until you’re faced with what to eat at a steakhouse you go to with a family member (and when, like the car  in the garage, you could just eat the meat), there are alternatives that are fun and alternatives which are just unpleasant that are hard to imagine unless you have to.  It’s not a matter of weakness or strength or ethics.  It’s hard to imagine the tight spot that vegetarianism and being carfree can each be unless you’re in it.

I’m certainly not trying to get preachy or anything.  Even with the rise of cycling as transportation, I don’t actually know anyone in my family or circle of friends who is intentionally carfree.  I do know some car-light folks who cycle as much as possible, and that’s more awesome than I can say.  But there’s still the car when you “need” it and the difficulty in imagining being very carfree.  I know people without a car because of money or a lack of license.  But swearing off the auto is hard business. I think I’m stubborn enough to be able to stick with it, that stubbornness being a weakness dressed up like a strength in this instance.  But there are definitely times when a car would make some things easier.  With the way things are laid out and constructed around cars in the US, this is bound to be true.  I’m not saying that we don’t live in a great country; nor am I judging it.  But the US is arranged around cars for the most part, and that’s not just my opinion.  Look around, or read up on what smarter folks have written about it.

In the end, though, cycling, walking and transit make a boring trip a mega-fun adventure.  Going to The Charles to see a movie is a pain in the ass if you drive.  If you cycle from North Baltimore, it’s a fun ride, and the theater is warm and inviting.  Imagine grocery shopping without ever having to look for or fight for a parking place.  Being able to lock your bike right by the door at work.  The cool looks you get when you go to a dinner party or a wedding and tell people you rode there on a bike or walked.

All possible without a car.

[More BIKE LIFE photos.]

[If you think cars are the best thing ever and want everyone to have one, you should direct your energies toward a blog on that topic (I'll read it), rather than wasting it on trolling comments that won't get published.  Just sayin.]

And I met another cyclist in the church basement at the community meeting Monday who wears the reflective ankle straps I wear to keep my pants out of my chainrings.  I told him I was glad to not be the only one to have them, and we talked about favorite jeans ruined by chainrings and chains.  I also became less anal about wear-and-tear on my bike yesterday, through realizing that getting upset about a new scratch on my fork blade, when there are dozens all over my bike and that it had some from the shop anyway, is just stupid.

Either deal with it, or hate my bike and never ride.  Never ride?  F@#$ that.

And I finally have shoes on!  I realize there are people at work who have never ever seen me in shoes.  This is funny.  The purchase process was almost too good to be true, for someone who doesn’t wear leather but doesn’t want to drop $150 on shoes either.  First place I looked, got em.  Very nice price, too, with free shipping to boot.  Picked up my package at someone else’s house, strapped a large box to my bike (bought two sizes to try) and rode home in rush hour.  It was awesome.

But I don’t want to portray myself as a constant consumer, at least not of anything but notebooks, coffee/tea and bike innertubes.

It was pretty funny yesterday afternoon, how you blew your horn at me on my bike for a full second, as we approached 25th Street.  It was a good joke when I was in the straight lane so as not to block folks making this legal right on red and  how we weren’t even stopped yet.  I’m so polite that I’m a joker.  It was all very funny.  How you couldn’t even make your turn after you scared the shit out of me because of the traffic.  How we were uncomfortably face-to-face when my heart was racing and your window was open.  I felt like I should say “Hello” or something.  Oh, but I was laughing too hard inside!

Oh, and you were on your phone.

That’s why you were a bitch?  Yeah.  If I were a braver man, I’d have reached into your car and taken that phone.  I wouldn’t have touched you.  Don’t worry.  But you’d never see that phone again.  Part of me hopes that you got two flat tires or rear-ended a parked car and didn’t hurt anyone but instead caused yourself a lot of trouble.  But that’s not the funny part of me.

Here’s to hoping that you dropped your phone later and that it was run over by the fattest cyclist in Baltimore.

Go to hell,

This Dude

Now, the same auto company still does not have their own hybrid technology, even though I met a guy recently who mistakenly said they did it first.  This same car company has a new SUV out this year.

Gee.  The auto-industry really seems to have their own self-preservation in mind.

What?

In the morning, I get four miles per bagel and then some on my hybrid [bike].  In the afternoon, not so much, going all up hill.  Maybe like four miles on a whole croissant.  That’s a steep hill, and I’m my own heavy cargo.

Yeah, but, uh, just so you know, person in article: not buying stuff does not make you a “transcendentalist.”

From the same source, a piece on kids never going outside. This is strange to me. When I was a kid, not going outside to play was a punishment or my parents being strict because of rain. We rode bikes, created our own baseball league with stats kept in copybooks, played guns, got into minor trouble, socialized sans playdates, etc. But the kids I work with on cycling, most of them, don’t do anything like that. If they go over one another’s houses, its by car and their parents’ permission. Two made it to thirteen without learning to ride a bike at all. But with cycling, you have to go out, learn, risk, engage. It’s very different from the online video games these kids use as social interaction.

I think that’s why they’re taking to cycling like they are. One young man has taken his bike as transportation a few times that I know of, trips of a few miles for which his parents would usually drive him. I think that’s awesome. A few of them seem to enjoy learning how their bikes work, and most of them are amazed when I tell them something like, “That wasn’t hard, was it? We just rode thirteen miles.”

There’s hope! And, ahem, it seems like bikes certainly help.

I suppose one could respond that the nature of his gear was to prevent a wreck, not to protect himself. Maybe he likes his bike a lot and does not want a crash. Maybe he likes cars and does not want to mess up people’s cars that might hit him.

Or maybe he thinks that getting hit from behind by a car that does not see him is the only way he’s going to get smashed. Not the Door Prize. Not jerk-ass joggers who avoid empty sidewalks to walk swiftly with jaunty hips in the bike lanes, with traffic, not against it. Not holes in the road or old storm drains with grates that run parallel to the street. Just saying.

I’m genuinely confused — not trying to start a helmet vs. no-helmet fight. I’ll cop to riding sans helmet during the two months in 2005 between when I bought my bike and when we sold our car.  I’m confused most by folks who clearly have safety in mind but still don’t wear helmets.