Not News

Sometimes it feels like the stars line up just so.

Giving up car revs family up Santa Ana household recoups 35% of its income after ditching ailing auto for bicycles and greener lifestyle. (OC Register)

Report: Average driver wastes 38 hours per year in traffic. (CNN)

This is not news to me. I’ve commuted by bicycle in such bike-unfriendly places as Billings, Montana and Redlands, California. It’s pretty much always better than driving a car; certainly it’s better for my soul. The OC might be a little harder, being a more urban place than most of the places I’ve lived, and I really gotta admire the Cave family (of the OC) for making such a radical shift. They are not small people, so they have to work a little harder than I do.

And while we’re on the subject, the Lincoln Journal-Star profiled a friend of mine who has been living the Bike Life longer than I have. Said article occasioned me to reflect (in correspondence with my father), on the nature of bicycle commuting and, um, happiness:

I have a lot of experience with the driver vs. cyclist personality split. I drive and ride in probably equal measures (when measured by time as opposed to distance). My mind is definitely clearer when I'm on a bike, if only because any screwup is potentially fatal. You have no safety net so you pay more attention. On the other hand, cycling gives me perspective on time and distance, so I'm not nearly as irritable a motorist as I once was. Even going 30 mph is a lot faster than going by bike. The bicycle journey psychically dilates time and contracts distance. For example, riding my bike down the OR coast didn't seem like a very long distance and passed in a blink, but driving for two days down the coast feels like forever.

Maybe this has something to do with experiencing the physical world, which people seem to regard as optional these days?

Ultimately, I think people mean well but have weak wills. A life of easy motoring reinforces the second part of this neologism, perhaps at the expense of the first.

And p.s. September is the time for Bicycle Transportation Alliance’s Bike Commute Challenge.