December 2005 | Journeys – Back Page Feature
The Cycle of Life
Pedaling the Soft Path
by Jim Doherty
I used to live the conventional American life, lugging 3,000 pounds of steel, glass, oil, gasoline and frustration around wherever I went, grinding my teeth from gridlock, fender-benders and parking tickets. Those days are gone. Today, I am a bicyclist. On a bike, you can win the War on Oil and the Battle of Obesity at the same time. With a bike, you spend your cash locally while enjoying a level of health and nature experience that’s unknown even to eco-tourists trapped in long lines at the airports and rental-car counters. I named my favorite bike “Dave,” after Bay Area environmentalist David Brower. I named the front wheel “Enlightenment” and the rear wheel “Nirvana.” Since a properly maintained bike can last a lifetime, I expect to spend the rest of my biking days suspended between Enlightenment and Nirvana. Getting around town hauling 2-6,000 pounds of steel, plastic, chrome, and a fuel tank is becoming an endangered pastime. Is it really necessary to pay $3 a gallon to drive a 4,000-lb SUV to the Post Office for a four-ounce package stuffed with Styrofoam peanuts? I used to own four cars, paying insurance, taxes, maintenance, repair, storage, tolls, gas, cleaning, towing and assorted other bills on each one. Finally, when I was down to just one ultra-safe 1994 Lincoln Continental, a van rammed the parked car. The repairs took a month and $3,000. Since my insurance didn’t cover a loaner, I took to bicycling. And some strange and positive things began to happen. Most notably, my health took a great leap forward (a bit of a miracle when, at the age of 50, you are taught to expect only decline and decay). By taking a bike everywhere I used to go by car, I was suddenly smiling more, building muscle mass, and experiencing clearer thinking. I can’t tell you how much freedom I feel from having a modern high-tech bicycle between my legs. I’m anxious to share this message with anyone with the courage to find out just how beautiful, quiet, and fragrant the world can be from the saddle of a modern ultra-light, full-suspension bike. The money I’ve saved has been plowed into three of the most advanced, magic-carpet bicycles the world has ever seen. My bikes feature fully automatic lighting (activated by motion detectors), savvy safety devices to insure visibility, and digital read-outs showing time, distance, and speed. These bikes also sport handlebar-mounted stereos that I recharge using a solar panel on my garage roof. Playing cassettes or CD’s through a set of waterproof mini-speakers is more than an indulgence: it is a safety measure. Folks who step into the street without looking (just because they don’t hear a car or truck coming) are a serious hazard for bikers and joggers. The decision to leave my car in the garage quickly put the brakes on impulse buying and conspicuous consumption since there’s a happy limit to how much cargo a bike can carry. Still, I can load my bike with four full sacks of groceries in about the same time it takes to load a car — and I don’t have to spend time looking for a parking space. True, I sometimes have to ask the guy or gal at the grocery store to help hold open the waterproof saddlebags as I load my grocery sacks. This means that I occasionally have to talk to strangers — another endangered pastime. Have you ever noticed that car owners are warned to “drive defensively” and to expect the worst from every other driver? Well, the opposite occurs in public transit or on a bike where you have to trust those around you — smiles and conversation with strangers is what it’s all about. The spread of the private automobile has eroded trust and civility, a conclusion enforced by sociologists who have found that cities with working streetcars have sharply lower rates of road rage. Biking is an acquired taste. It takes time to get used to how much fun it is; how much safer it can be to be doing 10 mph in fresh air rather than zero mpg in gridlock fumes. It takes some time to recognize how well biking works to rebuild the strength your body has lost to remote controls, computer mice and the brake and accelerator pedals. A primary misconception that folks have about bicycling is that it’s “too dangerous.” (So they prefer to continue killing each other — and the planet — with tailpipes and oil wars.) I have had dozens of mishaps in my 50 years of bicycling, but not one came close to causing life-threatening injuries. I often regard such mishaps as a free chiropractic or Rolfing session. As a precaution, however, I always wear a helmet. While it is wonderful to see hi-tech vehicles getting terrific mileage, these “new, improved” autos only exacerbate the problems of car manufacturing, which include mining pollution, rubber, toxins, and old-car disposal. Since two-thirds of a car’s pollution is produced during its manufacture, getting 40% better mileage is a case of “too little, too late.” Two-door cars are particularly impractical (except for giving Grandpa a hernia trying to get out of the back seat and “dooring” passing bicyclists). It was bad enough when our streets were crowded with uninsured, drunk, sleepy, distracted, dizzy, tipsy, stoned, medicated, eating, drinking, smoking, road-raged or just plain crazy drivers. But now, thanks to the advent of fold-out dashboard screens, drivers can watch those priceless “Hee-Haw” reruns while eating pizza, drinking a beverage, talking on the cell phone, smoking a cigarette and making a lane change. Cars have become a primary tool for killing all life on Earth and yet, society continues to descend into an Autogeddon with the auto industry building three new cars for every person born. But you can beat this system: Just stay healthy, trim, and smiling atop a bicycle. Sure, you may move at a tortoise-pace in a hare-brained world, but remember who won the race. Jim Doherty is a bicycle advocate from Oakland. His bike-blog can be found at: danceswithbicycles.org
