I have been a dedicated bicyclist for a very long time. They didn’t have blogs around when I quit my car or maybe I would have done a whole series about it. It was a pretty easy decision. If I made a list of all of the things it did that were good and all of the things that were bad, the bad side was too big to continue. Having a car simply did not make my life better and I felt I could make other decisions that would work.
Again, this was before the internet and all of the people who love to share their experiences with others. Everybody wants to feel connected. It’s true, if you are a car person, you live in a hermetically sealed box, isolated from the world and from all of the damage that you cause ecologically. Using your own body as a motor is not such an amazing thing. I never thought I should get a medal for being a bicyclist rather than a car driver. And everything that people say about it is true. It’s just really more enjoyable to be able to ride your bike somewhere. Perhaps bicycles really are the greatest invention in the history of the world. One of the most honest ones anyway.
What tips did I have? Bike locks are important. I’ve heard it said that you’re supposed to buy one stupid expensive bike, let the thieves steal it and then replace it with something unstealable. This isn’t to say that we can’t have anything nice but we are not really in the realm of Utopia just yet. We still have the economic system which is where a lot of bike commuting would be. We do need to go somewhere to make money. The point however is adding all of the positives and diminishing the negatives. I like writing a sport bike as much as anybody but my sport bike looks like a beater and this usually gets my bike left alone. It has been stolen and recovered four times so let’s just say I’m aware of what it feels like to have your bike stolen. Words to the wise. Figure out what kind of riding you genuinely plan on doing and find something appropriate for yourself.
I love Urban riding. Well, I used to like urban riding more than anything else. I did not really find so much love in hill climbing. These are for the road bike guys who like those steep assents so they can have really wonderful decents. I didn’t mind but I preferred to be going someplace and this is the thing about long distance riding that loses me. Usually, I never get on a bike unless I have somewhere to go. If you are a nervous person and you constantly need to get out of your house, you are a quintessential urban rider. If you just need to go to the store, take your bike and you’re probably good to go.
No I don’t ride so much anymore. It’s been a number of reasons why I don’t but I don’t. The point is that the level of bicycle architecture available is non-existent. I could make the ride over to the train and let the train take me into town and then do the whole thing backwards. It’s not so much of a distance but the road to get there is unusable. Especially in the summer when all the water goes away and it turns into a big sandbox. Not a lot of pleasure in that. They say that e-bikes work for problematic rides. Probably that’s the way to go. A cargo bike or at least a bike that can carry a decent amount of cargo with enough capacity to do the ride easily. I guess you’d be talking about something serious if that’s the way we went. And if you genuinely can ride through sand easier with an electric motor.
I do want to say something about dopamine. There are more endorphins available to bicyclists then to pretty much any other form of physical activity. Perhaps swimming or running might come close but there is something about pushing a machine that just turns on the love juice. It’s just cleaning out your blood. It’s the cars that kill it. The cars kill everything and that’s kind of the point if we start thinking about actually enjoying some fresh air. It’s one thing to get some exercise but it’s quite another to take poison while you’re doing it. All this is negative unfortunately. However, the natural painkillers are in there. You will actually feel better. You just won’t really be getting the healthful break that you really want but you’ll get a percentage of it. We need to start thinking about changing the entire infrastructure of life if we really want a breath of fresh air anytime in our futures.
I’ve always said that bicycling is a great addiction. It is an obsession and an addiction. Once you start getting into bicycling, you really don’t want to stop. Perhaps it’s similar to people who really like their cars. They just like being in them so much because being in that car is so much nicer than anywhere else in the world. Bicyclists get like that and I ended up riding in New York as a bike messenger because I didn’t want to get off my bike. I rode across the United States of America because I didn’t want to get off my bike. But, sometimes you get away from it and then it takes a little while to get back in. Day one, day two, day three, etc. You build up the tolerance. Your body gets used to it. I’m vegan by the way. It definitely helps when getting into physical things to do. You are a lot more resilient and have a higher capacity to work when you’re vegan. You have less to cycle out of your system and more to run with.
So at the end of the day we are talking about changing the world culturally. Getting away from gas and oil and machines and moving more towards allowing our physical bodies to be the motors to drive our movement. If it’s too complicated to just give everybody their check and ask them to contribute to growing food in an ecological fashion, we can try to keep capitalism going but I find it really is much more appealing If everyone is driving bicycles than if everyone tries to own a car. The limitations of a bicycle exist but they are never a limitation that cannot be overcome. The pluses are almost endless and universal unless you are someone who truly believes that walking is the only way to go. The minuses of cars however are pretty sinister. It’s not just the death of the body and the consciousness and the removal of oneself from all of the natural world. It’s also the death of everyone else who has to deal with all of the pollution of burning fossil fuels just so you can go to the store to buy another pack of cigarettes.
