The above picture is Pilgrim-St. Luke’s UCC, the church of which I am a member. I love taking pictures of old Buffalo buildings–especially churches–but that’s not what this post is about. It’s about what I was thinking as I pedaled to church this morning.
It was a beautiful autumn morning…couldn’t have been any nicer; you can see this in the above photo. The church is about 2 miles/3.2km from my house and it takes just a few minutes to get there. I pedal there nearly every Sunday, and some evenings during the week; rain or shine, snow or not, year round. This simple trip can be used as an example for my everyday travels.
Over the past years–decade–I’ve consciously molded my life so that nearly everything I need on a daily basis is within walking/biking distance. I’ve always enjoyed walking and biking over car travel–even in my early to mid-twenties when I was a suburbanite and accepted the car as a necessity–but now it’s a conscious decision. I live less than a mile/kilometer from where I work, the health club where I swim is about a mile/1.6km away, my son’s mom is 1 mile/1.6km, grocery stores are (depending on which I go to) either 3/4 of a mile/1.2km or 2 miles/3.2km. In fact, the neighborhood in which I live–Allentown–is considered a “walker’s paradise” by walkscore. And this is what I was thinking about as I pedaled to church earlier today on a brilliantly sunny autumn morning.
But I’m getting off topic–something I tend to do–because the above info is more about how easy it is to use a bike for everyday transport, but not really about why I choose to do it when I can afford a car. And this brings me to my next mini-topic…my car, or more specifically, my truck.
I’ve mentioned multiple times on this blog–so many times that I am getting tired of hearing myself state it–that I am not car-free but I am car-lite. I own a 12-year-old Ford Ranger that I don’t use very often. I use it more in the harsh winter months than I do other times, but still not that often (I plan on being car-free in two years…but by that time we all may be car-free, at least the gas/petrol powered type). Anyhow, the reason I mention this is that this is the first reason I choose to ride a bike; not the first on my personal list but it may be one to convince a non-biker to start riding a bike: Money! Yesterday I put $20USD/$14.43EUR in gas/petrol in my truck for only the second time in the past 3 months! Riding a bike saves me money, and it could you too…did I draw you in yet? I hope so, but this still is not a main reason that I choose to ride a bike.
Simply said, I mostly choose to ride a bike because I really enjoy it. That’s it. I enjoy how it feels to have the wind on my face, summer or winter, rain or shine. I like that I create my own motion, that I am both the motor and the cargo. Yes, riding a bike is “green,” and this is the reason most people think I do it (or they think I can’t afford a car), but to me this is more of a result of my riding rather than a reason that I do it. When I’m on a bike I feel I am an active participant in my surroundings/environment.
If you’ve been to this blog before you know that a person can carry anything they need on a bike. This is another one of my favorite reasons…I get a sense of accomplishment when when I carry things on my bike(s)…but mostly I just think it’s fun.
Being an active participant in my surroundings, pedaling and coasting, I get to see things and easily stop and take pictures if I like (below are a few examples of what I saw today; click here for a few more). And riding a bike also offers me the best parking spaces…when I go to the health club (where many people drive cars to ride a stationary bike) I can pull straight up to the front door while others wait in their cars for parking spaces. This may sound a bit sarcastic, and I don’t mean it to be, but it is true. And I haven’t mentioned the physical benefits of riding a bike…because they are obvious and need no mention. OK, I’ll just say this, some mornings when I am tired and the wind is blowing against me (isn’t it always when you are tired?) the short jaunt to work not only wakes me up but gives me a mini-aerobic workout.
I could go on and on (as could any cyclist) but I won’t. I’ll just say that to me there is nothing like standing on the pedals with the wind to my back and silently coasting down a quiet city street at night…it really does make me feel alive.
But I guess the real reason I choose to drag bikes up and down my front porch everyday and straddle my creaky middle-aged body on them is this…there is no reason I shouldn’t. Riding a bike to me is transportation, but it’s also joy and empowerment.
The video below I’ve posted a few times in the past but not in a while. I love what it has to say. It could be me narrating it, but it’s not (and yes, like he, I sometimes spread my arms out like airplane wings). If you’ve not seen it yet I hope you spend the 59 seconds to watch it. In the meantime, straddle a bike and ride…you won’t regret it.
Urban Simplicty 