Is it possible to live in America without a car?

It sounds to me like, "Can an ant survive among the big predators?"
Well, sort of, they run the risk of being stepped upon, but they got
the "freedom" to run around. Welcome to the Jungle...

The Bicycle Diaries
Is it possible to live in America without a car? Uh, sort of.
By Bill Gifford

"I can't believe how windy it is today," said the woman in line at the
pet store.

"I know," said the cashier. Then, rolling her eyes and nodding
meaningfully in my direction, she added, "and some people are riding
their bikes."

"Mmmm," said her customer, gathering up her kitty litter and heading
for her minivan, studiously avoiding even a glance in my direction,
which was difficult because I was holding the door open for her.

After two weeks of riding my bicycle everywhere, I'd gotten used to
people treating me as if I were somehow not right in the head. Store
clerks ignored me, old men gave me the hard stare, soccer moms avoided
eye contact. After all, almost nobody in America rides a bike if they
can afford a car.

But after Katrina jacked gas prices toward $4 a gallon, my Volvo
station wagon was starting to seem a lot less affordable. It wasn't
just the $50 fill-ups, either, but the $400-plus repair bill that
resulted from the Volvo's annual state inspection, on top of a $200
insurance payment, and the costly new drive shaft that she still needs,
the insatiable beast. In mid-October, under the influence of warm fall
weather and a recent visit to Amsterdam, I decided to opt out of
humanity's little deal with the Devil, known as the automobile.

Long story short: At least I tried.

It seemed easy enough. I'm what the newspapers call an "avid"
cyclist-rhymes with "rabid." I own four bikes, which I rarely use for
actual transportation. Like most of the 90 million Americans who swung
a leg over a bicycle last year, including our president, I rode for
fitness and recreation only.

Then, last month, I went to Amsterdam for a friend's birthday party. I
was amazed: Everyone rode bikes, everywhere. I saw 80-year-olds
pedaling along beside young mothers with two and even three small
children perched on various parts of their bikes, and dads trundling
off to work in business suits and nice Italian shoes. The Dutch, I
later learned, conduct 30 percent of all their trips-to work, for
errands, socially-by bike. In America, that figure is less than 1
percent. We drive 84 percent of the time, even though most of our trips
are less than 2 miles long. More than three-quarters of us commute
alone by car, compared with just half a million (way less than 1
percent) who do so by bike, according to the 2000 Census. As a
"committed" cyclist-another loaded adjective-I'd always tut-tutted
these kinds of statistics.

In late October, I took a vow of automotive abstinence. I'd go
everywhere by bike: daily errands, social events, even the "office" (a
Wi-Fi cafe where I often work-4 miles away, over a decent-sized
hill). I don't commute to an actual job, but I would go somewhere every
day, rain or shine. I allowed a few exceptions, like emergency vet
visits and picking up friends from the train station. Otherwise, I'd be
helping to cut down on greenhouse-gas pollution and traffic congestion,
while keeping myself in shape. I was well ahead of the curve: According
to one survey, gas would have to hit $5 per gallon before a majority of
Americans would consider walking or riding bikes as alternative
transportation.

I'm not like most Americans: I have no kids to chauffeur to soccer
practice, no elderly parents to care for, and I commute in slippers. I
would still need to eat, however, and I would continue to go to
restaurants and movies and parties and shopping. Although I live in a
semirural area, suburbia is closing in on all sides, with more housing
developments every year. As in much of suburbia, there are almost no
services within easy walking distance: It's 2 miles to the convenience
store where I buy the New York Times, 6 miles to the grocery and pet
stores, 4 miles to my favorite bar. The former country roads around
here are becoming busier all the time. Luckily, a defunct local railway
line had recently been converted to a 17-mile recreation trail that
passes fairly close to the stores I most often visit, as well as a
couple of pretty good bars and restaurants. I'd be riding a lot of
miles, but as it turned out, the mileage wouldn't be the problem.

That first Sunday, I hopped on a bike to go get the paper, just a
couple miles down the rail-trail. I wore jeans, mistake No. 1: By the
time I reached the Sunoco, I was profoundly chafed, and worse, my
Banana Republic jeans now sported a black, greasy streak at about
midcalf, from rubbing against the chain. It was chilly, and I was a tad
hung over from a party the night before. By the time I got home, I had
a raging tension headache, thanks to my hunched-over riding position.

Three Advils later, I looked at my bike with fresh eyes. It had a
skinny little seat that all but required me to wear padded cycling
pants when I rode. The handlebars were set forward and low, so a
stretchy top was also a must-with a long tail, to avoid showing the
cyclist's equivalent of plumber's crack. And it had special "clipless"
pedals, which required me to wear special stiff-soled shoes with metal
cleats on the bottom. Great for riding, not so much for walking. My
beloved mountain bike had always seemed so comfortable on the local
dirt trails. But like most bikes sold in the United States, it was an
exercise machine, and not intended to be used for transportation.
(There are some bikes that work well for city/transport use, including
the functional Breezer, the retro-stylin' Electra line of cruisers, and
the supremely elegant Bianchi Milano, which is what I'd ride if I
actually lived in Milano.)

Years ago, when I commuted by bike to an office job at a magazine, I
had established a little routine. It was 6 miles each way, and I made
sure to ride at a slow pace so I wouldn't get too sweaty. Arriving at
work before most of my colleagues, I'd shut my office door and read
e-mails while I cooled down. Then I'd swab myself with Old Spice Red
Zone and change into work clothes, trading my cycling shoes for the old
Kenneth Coles I kept under my desk. By the time everyone else arrived,
clutching their Dunkin' Donuts coffee, I was fully dressed, awake, and
presentable. Then one morning, while I was locking my bike to a parking
meter, I happened to see the publisher, a pudgy-fingered little man who
liked French cuffs and hated bike messengers, which is exactly what I
resembled at that moment. My career at that magazine ended shortly
thereafter.

I've got a whole dresser full of cycling clothes. And they work well,
for their intended purpose, which is exercising. I actually thought
they looked sort of cool, as long as you didn't venture into the
neon-yellow end of the color spectrum (or worse, purple). But as my
first week carless progressed I realized that bike clothes only look
good when you're actually riding a bike. The moment you stop, get off,
and walk around among normally-dressed people-say, when you drop by
the local Kmart and stroll about, in skintight Spandex, holding a
toilet plunger-bike clothes don't seem quite so cool.

As I approached the Kmart cash registers in this early visit, metal
cleats clicking on the linoleum tile, the cashier girls stopped
comparing their incarcerated boyfriends and stared. Then they looked
away. One studied her nails, while the other concentrated on scanning
the plunger and counting change. This, I'd come to recognize, was The
Silence, the awkward, get-this-over-with tension that often accompanied
transactions where one party is clad head-to-toe in stretch synthetics
that might not smell so great. I paid, grabbed the plunger, and
click-clacked out the automatic sliding doors, to everyone's relief.
And as I pedaled away, I realized that bike clothes aren't merely ugly,
to normal people: They're transgressive.

So I did an extreme biker makeover: I bought baggy shorts to wear over
my padded cycling clothes, to spare the sensibilities of store clerks
and my fellow customers. I wore neutral-toned jerseys but kept the
bright-gold nylon jacket, because it made me more visible and thus
safer. I ditched the fancy pedals for regular, flat pedals, so I could
ride in normal shoes. And I attached a rack to one of my racing bikes,
an act of utter bike-geek sacrilege. It didn't matter: Sooner or later,
I'd need to go get dog food.

Still, by the end of that first shakedown week, I was growing to enjoy
my bike-bound, self-propelled life. I'd made an executive decision to
ride slowly, because it wasn't fun to get all Lance Armstrong-sweaty
and then stand in line at Foodland, sweating all over the broccoli. By
necessity, I chose less-traveled roads, which led me to some
interesting local discoveries, like a natural-foods market run by the
Amish that stocked wild salmon and bison steaks. I got exactly one flat
tire, on a 12-mile trek to have my DVD player repaired. Luckily I
carried a spare tube-essential for any ride, as is a helmet-and was
back on my way in less time than it would have taken to get my Volvo
filled up and washed.

Since I couldn't carry more than about two or three bags worth of
groceries, I needed to go shopping more often, but as long as the
weather held, I didn't mind. In fact, I looked forward to longer trips,
like a 10-mile jaunt to a local college library. The fresh air and
exercise kept me alert during the afternoons, and after humping an Oven
Stuffer Roaster up a 2-mile grade, there was certainly no need to go to
the gym. At night, after a beer or two at the bar, I was probably safer
riding on the wide, empty rail-trail than driving on the dark, narrow
rural roads-and there were certainly no cherry-picking local cops
lurking on the bike path.

Best of all, the bike turned out to be the hottest dating vehicle I've
ever owned. One Sunday, my girlfriend and I rode to a nearby tavern for
burgers and beers. We sat outside, enjoying one of the last of the warm
fall afternoons and then wobbled back up the hill to our town. We got
home feeling slightly sweaty, a bit tipsy, and full of adrenaline. (She
opted out of the grocery-shopping trips, however, and refused to bike
home from the Amtrak station at 10 p.m. on Friday nights.)

Slowly but surely, I started running low on dog food. And the thing
about dog food is that the more you buy, the cheaper it is: A 5-pound
bag of my pups' preferred brand goes for $12, while the 15-pounder
costs $25. Plus, the 5-pounder would only last two or three days at the
most, which is how I ended up in the pet store, lashing an alarmingly
heavy sack of "Cowboy Cookout"-flavored kibble to my bike rack.

Once the load was secured, I set out, navigating the rather tricky
strip-mall exit onto a busy state road. It soon became clear, as I
pedaled along the gravel-strewn shoulder, that I had failed to
anticipate the sketchy handling characteristics of a 19-pound bike
laded with 15 pounds of dog food in a 25-mile-an-hour crosswind. One
especially nasty gust pushed my top-heavy steed into the busy traffic
lane; as I swerved back to the shoulder, the Cowboy Cookout decided to
continue in a straight line, and the rear wheel skidded around, nearly
tossing me into the guardrail.

That night, I went to watch Monday Night Football in the next town
over. It was a beautiful, moonlit night, unseasonably warm (the wind
had died down), and bright enough that I didn't even need my headlamp.
As I sped home through the woods, I soon forgot about the Eagles'
catastrophic loss. I crawled contentedly into bed ... and awoke with a
full-blown head cold. It was my third minicold since I'd started this
experiment, probably thanks to all the sweating and chilling I'd put
myself through.

At any rate, I wanted only one thing: soup. And I had no soup. It was
40 degrees and pouring down rain. Without a second thought, I hopped
into the car and raced down to Foodland, where I stocked up on
Campbell's Select Savory Chicken and Long-Grain Rice, and other
necessities (like ice cream) that I'd been doing without. On the way
home, I passed the Sunoco station. $2.49 a gallon for premium, I
decided, was a terrific bargain.

Bill Gifford is a correspondent for Outside.

http://www.slate.com/id/2131049/

WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE
http://webspawner.com/users/donquijote

THE BANANA REVOLUTION
http://webspawner.com/users/donquijote40

(Don't forget our new "T-shirts" that show the predators driving behind
you they can eat your banana. Well, you may use it for other purposes
as well)

http://cafepress.com/peacebanana

On 1 Jun 2006 12:38:40 -0700, "donquijote1954"
<nolionnoproblem@hotmail.com> wrote:

< Great Post Snipped>

Very interesting, and very well written. Thanks

"donquijote1954" <nolionnoproblem@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1149190720.809544.121900@y43g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
> It sounds to me like, "Can an ant survive among the big predators?"
> Well, sort of, they run the risk of being stepped upon, but they got
> the "freedom" to run around. Welcome to the Jungle...

You can live without any contact with civilization out many miles from
anybody. Doing that, life will be very hard and probably shorter than
being in civilization.

The question is not can you live an alternative life style, but will that
alternative make your life better.

Living a different life style is trivial and in most cases likely to be of
little value to the world. Producing a significant positive impact on the
world with an alternative life style is far more difficult.

donquijote1954 wrote: (quoting a story)
> At any rate, I wanted only one thing: soup. And I had no soup. It was
> 40 degrees and pouring down rain. Without a second thought, I hopped
> into the car and raced down to Foodland, where I stocked up on
> Campbell's Select Savory Chicken and Long-Grain Rice, and other
> necessities (like ice cream) that I'd been doing without. On the way
> home, I passed the Sunoco station. $2.49 a gallon for premium, I
> decided, was a terrific bargain.

I remember this article, specifically from the chicken soup ending.

I think the whole article might be better titled: "top ten ways to make
utility cycling into an excrutiating experience."

The fact that he accepts defeat in the article with a perfectly
legitimate use of a car (ie, getting around when you're ill in bad
weather no less) is pretty strange. If you were to go carless, calling
a cab for a similar result, or calling for delivered food would be a
perfectly reasonable thing to do.

I think he would have been better off, if he had stopped after a couple
days, then spent a month or to thinking the thing through. Getting
the right bike, comfortable clothes for biking, baskets/panniers, bike
trailer(?), learning how to occassionally rent a pick-up for shopping
trips involving extra large items...

In any event, living without a car is entirely possible in America, it
just requires some different approaches to common problems.

> Still, by the end of that first shakedown week, I was growing to enjoy
> my bike-bound, self-propelled life. I'd made an executive decision to
> ride slowly, because it wasn't fun to get all Lance Armstrong-sweaty
> and then stand in line at Foodland, sweating all over the broccoli. By
> necessity, I chose less-traveled roads, which led me to some
> interesting local discoveries, like a natural-foods market run by the
> Amish that stocked wild salmon and bison steaks. I got exactly one flat
> tire, on a 12-mile trek to have my DVD player repaired. Luckily I
> carried a spare tube-essential for any ride, as is a helmet-and was
> back on my way in less time than it would have taken to get my Volvo
> filled up and washed.

I think it's very conceivable to live without a car in America. It's
certainly a lot easier to do this, if you have some alternative Mass
Transit in your area. We have one car for 4 licensed drivers in my
family. We all bicycle around town. I very seldom use the car. I
think I drove to the grocery store about 3 weeks ago.

I run into problems on severe weather days. We're often scrambling on
one of those Winter mornings to figure out how everybody is going to
get to their destinations. Although we have local bus service, I have
no Mass Transit to my place of employment. So about once or twice a
month, on average, I take the car, or have my wife drop me off.
Jim Gagnepain
http://home.comcast.net/~oil_free_and_happy/

donquijote1954 wrote:
> It sounds to me like, "Can an ant survive among the big predators?"
> Well, sort of, they run the risk of being stepped upon, but they got
> the "freedom" to run around. Welcome to the Jungle...

All of man's great enabling technologies have their prices. If the
prices weren't negligible we wouldn't have adopted them. Live with it.

"John David Galt" <jdg@diogenes.sacramento.ca.us> wrote in message
news:e5nr2q$1ga$2@blue.rahul.net...
> donquijote1954 wrote:
> > It sounds to me like, "Can an ant survive among the big predators?"
> > Well, sort of, they run the risk of being stepped upon, but they got
> > the "freedom" to run around. Welcome to the Jungle...
>
> All of man's great enabling technologies have their prices. If the
> prices weren't negligible we wouldn't have adopted them. Live with it.

I guess you could bicycle across the country, right? You might even make
the evening news if you tried.
Start in the west and head east so you get the wind at your back.

"oilfreeandhappy" <oil_free_and_happy@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:1149197435.730710.118470@c74g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
> > Still, by the end of that first shakedown week, I was growing to enjoy
> > my bike-bound, self-propelled life. I'd made an executive decision to
> > ride slowly, because it wasn't fun to get all Lance Armstrong-sweaty
> > and then stand in line at Foodland, sweating all over the broccoli. By
> > necessity, I chose less-traveled roads, which led me to some
> > interesting local discoveries, like a natural-foods market run by the
> > Amish that stocked wild salmon and bison steaks. I got exactly one flat
> > tire, on a 12-mile trek to have my DVD player repaired. Luckily I
> > carried a spare tube-essential for any ride, as is a helmet-and was
> > back on my way in less time than it would have taken to get my Volvo
> > filled up and washed.
>
> I think it's very conceivable to live without a car in America. It's
> certainly a lot easier to do this, if you have some alternative Mass
> Transit in your area. We have one car for 4 licensed drivers in my
> family. We all bicycle around town. I very seldom use the car. I
> think I drove to the grocery store about 3 weeks ago.
>
> I run into problems on severe weather days. We're often scrambling on
> one of those Winter mornings to figure out how everybody is going to
> get to their destinations. Although we have local bus service, I have
> no Mass Transit to my place of employment. So about once or twice a
> month, on average, I take the car, or have my wife drop me off.
> Jim Gagnepain
> http://home.comcast.net/~oil_free_and_happy/
>

I grew up in NYC without a car. My father had one parked in NJ for use
during the summer at an abandoned farm they went to during vacations.
Otherwise, it was the subway, the IRT mostly.

John David Galt wrote:
> donquijote1954 wrote:
> > It sounds to me like, "Can an ant survive among the big predators?"
> > Well, sort of, they run the risk of being stepped upon, but they got
> > the "freedom" to run around. Welcome to the Jungle...
>
> All of man's great enabling technologies have their prices. If the
> prices weren't negligible we wouldn't have adopted them. Live with it.

Myopia, aka typical corporate mentality. Boost immediate shareholder
equity at the cost of long term benefits.

And, yes - we will all live with it. Thanks a bunch.

R

Sure, you can live without a car - lotsa people do it, but its way less
convenient and you won't get as much done as if you had one, even in good
public transport cities. Try using a bus or a train to go grocery shopping and
do it as quickly as if you had a car. You can't - doesn't matter where it is.
You're going to spend more time in transit with public transit than if you had
a car. That's just the way it is. But, yeah, you can do without a car...

Dave Head

On 1 Jun 2006 12:38:40 -0700, "donquijote1954" <nolionnoproblem@hotmail.com>
wrote:

>It sounds to me like, "Can an ant survive among the big predators?"
>Well, sort of, they run the risk of being stepped upon, but they got
>the "freedom" to run around. Welcome to the Jungle...
>
>The Bicycle Diaries
>Is it possible to live in America without a car? Uh, sort of.
>By Bill Gifford
>
>"I can't believe how windy it is today," said the woman in line at the
>pet store.
>
>"I know," said the cashier. Then, rolling her eyes and nodding
>meaningfully in my direction, she added, "and some people are riding
>their bikes."
>
>"Mmmm," said her customer, gathering up her kitty litter and heading
>for her minivan, studiously avoiding even a glance in my direction,
>which was difficult because I was holding the door open for her.
>
>After two weeks of riding my bicycle everywhere, I'd gotten used to
>people treating me as if I were somehow not right in the head. Store
>clerks ignored me, old men gave me the hard stare, soccer moms avoided
>eye contact. After all, almost nobody in America rides a bike if they
>can afford a car.
>
>But after Katrina jacked gas prices toward $4 a gallon, my Volvo
>station wagon was starting to seem a lot less affordable. It wasn't
>just the $50 fill-ups, either, but the $400-plus repair bill that
>resulted from the Volvo's annual state inspection, on top of a $200
>insurance payment, and the costly new drive shaft that she still needs,
>the insatiable beast. In mid-October, under the influence of warm fall
>weather and a recent visit to Amsterdam, I decided to opt out of
>humanity's little deal with the Devil, known as the automobile.
>
>Long story short: At least I tried.
>
>It seemed easy enough. I'm what the newspapers call an "avid"
>cyclist-rhymes with "rabid." I own four bikes, which I rarely use for
>actual transportation. Like most of the 90 million Americans who swung
>a leg over a bicycle last year, including our president, I rode for
>fitness and recreation only.
>
>Then, last month, I went to Amsterdam for a friend's birthday party. I
>was amazed: Everyone rode bikes, everywhere. I saw 80-year-olds
>pedaling along beside young mothers with two and even three small
>children perched on various parts of their bikes, and dads trundling
>off to work in business suits and nice Italian shoes. The Dutch, I
>later learned, conduct 30 percent of all their trips-to work, for
>errands, socially-by bike. In America, that figure is less than 1
>percent. We drive 84 percent of the time, even though most of our trips
>are less than 2 miles long. More than three-quarters of us commute
>alone by car, compared with just half a million (way less than 1
>percent) who do so by bike, according to the 2000 Census. As a
>"committed" cyclist-another loaded adjective-I'd always tut-tutted
>these kinds of statistics.
>
>In late October, I took a vow of automotive abstinence. I'd go
>everywhere by bike: daily errands, social events, even the "office" (a
>Wi-Fi cafe where I often work-4 miles away, over a decent-sized
>hill). I don't commute to an actual job, but I would go somewhere every
>day, rain or shine. I allowed a few exceptions, like emergency vet
>visits and picking up friends from the train station. Otherwise, I'd be
>helping to cut down on greenhouse-gas pollution and traffic congestion,
>while keeping myself in shape. I was well ahead of the curve: According
>to one survey, gas would have to hit $5 per gallon before a majority of
>Americans would consider walking or riding bikes as alternative
>transportation.
>
>I'm not like most Americans: I have no kids to chauffeur to soccer
>practice, no elderly parents to care for, and I commute in slippers. I
>would still need to eat, however, and I would continue to go to
>restaurants and movies and parties and shopping. Although I live in a
>semirural area, suburbia is closing in on all sides, with more housing
>developments every year. As in much of suburbia, there are almost no
>services within easy walking distance: It's 2 miles to the convenience
>store where I buy the New York Times, 6 miles to the grocery and pet
>stores, 4 miles to my favorite bar. The former country roads around
>here are becoming busier all the time. Luckily, a defunct local railway
>line had recently been converted to a 17-mile recreation trail that
>passes fairly close to the stores I most often visit, as well as a
>couple of pretty good bars and restaurants. I'd be riding a lot of
>miles, but as it turned out, the mileage wouldn't be the problem.
>
>That first Sunday, I hopped on a bike to go get the paper, just a
>couple miles down the rail-trail. I wore jeans, mistake No. 1: By the
>time I reached the Sunoco, I was profoundly chafed, and worse, my
>Banana Republic jeans now sported a black, greasy streak at about
>midcalf, from rubbing against the chain. It was chilly, and I was a tad
>hung over from a party the night before. By the time I got home, I had
>a raging tension headache, thanks to my hunched-over riding position.
>
>Three Advils later, I looked at my bike with fresh eyes. It had a
>skinny little seat that all but required me to wear padded cycling
>pants when I rode. The handlebars were set forward and low, so a
>stretchy top was also a must-with a long tail, to avoid showing the
>cyclist's equivalent of plumber's crack. And it had special "clipless"
>pedals, which required me to wear special stiff-soled shoes with metal
>cleats on the bottom. Great for riding, not so much for walking. My
>beloved mountain bike had always seemed so comfortable on the local
>dirt trails. But like most bikes sold in the United States, it was an
>exercise machine, and not intended to be used for transportation.
>(There are some bikes that work well for city/transport use, including
>the functional Breezer, the retro-stylin' Electra line of cruisers, and
>the supremely elegant Bianchi Milano, which is what I'd ride if I
>actually lived in Milano.)
>
>Years ago, when I commuted by bike to an office job at a magazine, I
>had established a little routine. It was 6 miles each way, and I made
>sure to ride at a slow pace so I wouldn't get too sweaty. Arriving at
>work before most of my colleagues, I'd shut my office door and read
>e-mails while I cooled down. Then I'd swab myself with Old Spice Red
>Zone and change into work clothes, trading my cycling shoes for the old
>Kenneth Coles I kept under my desk. By the time everyone else arrived,
>clutching their Dunkin' Donuts coffee, I was fully dressed, awake, and
>presentable. Then one morning, while I was locking my bike to a parking
>meter, I happened to see the publisher, a pudgy-fingered little man who
>liked French cuffs and hated bike messengers, which is exactly what I
>resembled at that moment. My career at that magazine ended shortly
>thereafter.
>
>I've got a whole dresser full of cycling clothes. And they work well,
>for their intended purpose, which is exercising. I actually thought
>they looked sort of cool, as long as you didn't venture into the
>neon-yellow end of the color spectrum (or worse, purple). But as my
>first week carless progressed I realized that bike clothes only look
>good when you're actually riding a bike. The moment you stop, get off,
>and walk around among normally-dressed people-say, when you drop by
>the local Kmart and stroll about, in skintight Spandex, holding a
>toilet plunger-bike clothes don't seem quite so cool.
>
>As I approached the Kmart cash registers in this early visit, metal
>cleats clicking on the linoleum tile, the cashier girls stopped
>comparing their incarcerated boyfriends and stared. Then they looked
>away. One studied her nails, while the other concentrated on scanning
>the plunger and counting change. This, I'd come to recognize, was The
>Silence, the awkward, get-this-over-with tension that often accompanied
>transactions where one party is clad head-to-toe in stretch synthetics
>that might not smell so great. I paid, grabbed the plunger, and
>click-clacked out the automatic sliding doors, to everyone's relief.
>And as I pedaled away, I realized that bike clothes aren't merely ugly,
>to normal people: They're transgressive.
>
>So I did an extreme biker makeover: I bought baggy shorts to wear over
>my padded cycling clothes, to spare the sensibilities of store clerks
>and my fellow customers. I wore neutral-toned jerseys but kept the
>bright-gold nylon jacket, because it made me more visible and thus
>safer. I ditched the fancy pedals for regular, flat pedals, so I could
>ride in normal shoes. And I attached a rack to one of my racing bikes,
>an act of utter bike-geek sacrilege. It didn't matter: Sooner or later,
>I'd need to go get dog food.
>
>Still, by the end of that first shakedown week, I was growing to enjoy
>my bike-bound, self-propelled life. I'd made an executive decision to
>ride slowly, because it wasn't fun to get all Lance Armstrong-sweaty
>and then stand in line at Foodland, sweating all over the broccoli. By
>necessity, I chose less-traveled roads, which led me to some
>interesting local discoveries, like a natural-foods market run by the
>Amish that stocked wild salmon and bison steaks. I got exactly one flat
>tire, on a 12-mile trek to have my DVD player repaired. Luckily I
>carried a spare tube-essential for any ride, as is a helmet-and was
>back on my way in less time than it would have taken to get my Volvo
>filled up and washed.
>
>Since I couldn't carry more than about two or three bags worth of
>groceries, I needed to go shopping more often, but as long as the
>weather held, I didn't mind. In fact, I looked forward to longer trips,
>like a 10-mile jaunt to a local college library. The fresh air and
>exercise kept me alert during the afternoons, and after humping an Oven
>Stuffer Roaster up a 2-mile grade, there was certainly no need to go to
>the gym. At night, after a beer or two at the bar, I was probably safer
>riding on the wide, empty rail-trail than driving on the dark, narrow
>rural roads-and there were certainly no cherry-picking local cops
>lurking on the bike path.
>
>Best of all, the bike turned out to be the hottest dating vehicle I've
>ever owned. One Sunday, my girlfriend and I rode to a nearby tavern for
>burgers and beers. We sat outside, enjoying one of the last of the warm
>fall afternoons and then wobbled back up the hill to our town. We got
>home feeling slightly sweaty, a bit tipsy, and full of adrenaline. (She
>opted out of the grocery-shopping trips, however, and refused to bike
>home from the Amtrak station at 10 p.m. on Friday nights.)
>
>Slowly but surely, I started running low on dog food. And the thing
>about dog food is that the more you buy, the cheaper it is: A 5-pound
>bag of my pups' preferred brand goes for $12, while the 15-pounder
>costs $25. Plus, the 5-pounder would only last two or three days at the
>most, which is how I ended up in the pet store, lashing an alarmingly
>heavy sack of "Cowboy Cookout"-flavored kibble to my bike rack.
>
>Once the load was secured, I set out, navigating the rather tricky
>strip-mall exit onto a busy state road. It soon became clear, as I
>pedaled along the gravel-strewn shoulder, that I had failed to
>anticipate the sketchy handling characteristics of a 19-pound bike
>laded with 15 pounds of dog food in a 25-mile-an-hour crosswind. One
>especially nasty gust pushed my top-heavy steed into the busy traffic
>lane; as I swerved back to the shoulder, the Cowboy Cookout decided to
>continue in a straight line, and the rear wheel skidded around, nearly
>tossing me into the guardrail.
>
>That night, I went to watch Monday Night Football in the next town
>over. It was a beautiful, moonlit night, unseasonably warm (the wind
>had died down), and bright enough that I didn't even need my headlamp.
>As I sped home through the woods, I soon forgot about the Eagles'
>catastrophic loss. I crawled contentedly into bed ... and awoke with a
>full-blown head cold. It was my third minicold since I'd started this
>experiment, probably thanks to all the sweating and chilling I'd put
>myself through.
>
>At any rate, I wanted only one thing: soup. And I had no soup. It was
>40 degrees and pouring down rain. Without a second thought, I hopped
>into the car and raced down to Foodland, where I stocked up on
>Campbell's Select Savory Chicken and Long-Grain Rice, and other
>necessities (like ice cream) that I'd been doing without. On the way
>home, I passed the Sunoco station. $2.49 a gallon for premium, I
>decided, was a terrific bargain.
>
>Bill Gifford is a correspondent for Outside.
>
>http://www.slate.com/id/2131049/
>
>WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE
>http://webspawner.com/users/donquijote
>
>THE BANANA REVOLUTION
>http://webspawner.com/users/donquijote40
>
>(Don't forget our new "T-shirts" that show the predators driving behind
>you they can eat your banana. Well, you may use it for other purposes
>as well)
>
>http://cafepress.com/peacebanana

"George Conklin" <georgeconklin1@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:UfKfg.1$lf4.0@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net...
> I guess you could bicycle across the country, right? You might even make
> the evening news if you tried.
> Start in the west and head east so you get the wind at your back.

I doubt he'd make the evening news. Lots of people bike across the US. On
our modest bike trip around France, of the 14 people on the trip 8 of them
had bicyled across the country at least once, some had done it three times.
Often folks do it to raise money for their favorite charity.

Dave Head wrote:
> Sure, you can live without a car - lotsa people do it, but its way less
> convenient and you won't get as much done as if you had one, even in good
> public transport cities. Try using a bus or a train to go grocery shopping and
> do it as quickly as if you had a car. You can't - doesn't matter where it is.
> You're going to spend more time in transit with public transit than if you had
> a car. That's just the way it is. But, yeah, you can do without a car...

Why would I spend any time in public transit to go to the grocery
store? The grocery store is less than one block away. I'll walk there
before you've even pulled out of the driveway.

>
> Dave Head
>
> On 1 Jun 2006 12:38:40 -0700, "donquijote1954" <nolionnoproblem@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
<snip>

On 1 Jun 2006 17:56:46 -0700, "Furious George" <bugme_69@hotmail.com> wrote:

>
>Dave Head wrote:
>> Sure, you can live without a car - lotsa people do it, but its way less
>> convenient and you won't get as much done as if you had one, even in good
>> public transport cities. Try using a bus or a train to go grocery shopping and
>> do it as quickly as if you had a car. You can't - doesn't matter where it is.
>> You're going to spend more time in transit with public transit than if you had
>> a car. That's just the way it is. But, yeah, you can do without a car...
>
>Why would I spend any time in public transit to go to the grocery
>store? The grocery store is less than one block away. I'll walk there
>before you've even pulled out of the driveway.

No, you won't, and you'll be limited to whatever's within walking distance (if
any really are - not true for most people) and I'll have dozens of grocery
stores from which to choose. And I _will_ get my shopping done before you, and
can carry 5 cases of diet coke (that was on sale - 4 cases for $10.00 and then
the 5th one for free the last time I was there - I still have a lot left over
(that I will drink over the next few weeks)) and you'll be making 2 trips to
take advantage of that - 'cuz its bulky and its heavy.

Dave Head
>
>>
>> Dave Head
>>
>> On 1 Jun 2006 12:38:40 -0700, "donquijote1954" <nolionnoproblem@hotmail.com>
>> wrote:
><snip>

"George Conklin" <georgeconklin1@earthlink.net> writes:

> "John David Galt" <jdg@diogenes.sacramento.ca.us> wrote in message
> news:e5nr2q$1ga$2@blue.rahul.net...
> > donquijote1954 wrote:
> > > It sounds to me like, "Can an ant survive among the big predators?"
> > > Well, sort of, they run the risk of being stepped upon, but they got
> > > the "freedom" to run around. Welcome to the Jungle...
> >
> > All of man's great enabling technologies have their prices. If the
> > prices weren't negligible we wouldn't have adopted them. Live with it.
>
> I guess you could bicycle across the country, right? You might even
> make the evening news if you tried. Start in the west and head east
> so you get the wind at your back.

To make the evening news, you'd have to complete the trip in under 8
days, 9 hours, and 47 minutes or do something equally noteworthy. See
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_Across_America> and
<http://www.raceacrossamerica.org/>.

I know several people who've ridden across the U.S. on a bike, and it
is in general too common to be newsworthy.

"donquijote1954" <nolionnoproblem@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1149190720.809544.121900@y43g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
> It sounds to me like, "Can an ant survive among the big predators?"
> Well, sort of, they run the risk of being stepped upon, but they got
> the "freedom" to run around. Welcome to the Jungle...
>
> The Bicycle Diaries
> Is it possible to live in America without a car? Uh, sort of.
> By Bill Gifford

I don't know about America but I found a few things about the tale odd.

-For a person who seemed to be an experienced and avid 'recreational'
rider, he seemed to make a lot of foolish decisions [clothing etc] just
because he was cycling for a practical purpose.

-Granted I don't wear the skin tight spandex-ware but I have never noticed
the odd reactions described. Cashiers "rolling eyes"? Soccer moms "avoiding
eye contact"?? Old men giving "hard stares"?

-His mtb is "ill-suited" to utility rides about town??

-Has trouble walking in cleats?

M'thinks this is exaggeration for literary purposes.