In my last post I commented on life as a cyclist. OK, maybe not as a professional cyclist, but as one who utilizes a bicycle in order to get from point A to point B. I failed to mention the burning sensation invoked in one's quads after several consecutive days of not riding, the triumph of muscle memory, the overwhelming sense of thirst that can accompany the end of the ride, and the bloodshot eyes that I inevitably procured along the way making me look like I was smoking pot before coming into work instead of trying to do something nice for the earth. For the record I've never smoked pot either before, after, during work or at any other point in my existence. I figure I do enough stupid stuff in my life, I don't need any herbal assistance.
My new job is a thirty minute walk from my house start to finish. The last job was a half hour bike ride away. When I tell people I walk to work I sometimes get a strange or a confused look. There is an unsaid attitude of why-would-you-do-that!? But no one is gauche enough to ask such a thing. But to me it's not that big of a deal. I'm trying to do my own small new urbanist part and every little bit helps. (The new urbanists fervently believe in walkable communities. Ideally, cities would be set up so that people could walk (or bike) to work, or be able to use eco-friendly mass transit, children could walk to their schools rather than be shuttled in monstrous SUVs, there would be an abundance of green space etc.,)
When Katherine Heigel was on the cover of Vanity Fair, a lady observed that the greatest luxury is being able to walk to work. And this lady, whose name escapes me, should know a thing or two about luzury for if memory serves as she was/is (?) the head of some tony section of LVMH (Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessey and the million other luxury brands beneath its mink umbrella).
My walk isn't nearly as treacherous nor as fraught with peril as my bike rides were. You haven't really lived until you're on a regular two lane divided city street and a semi-truck comes alongside you in the right lane. Yikes!
In fact, it's really, really safe. It's composed of completely straight lines- fifteen minutes walking north (?) and then fifteen minutes walking west (if I was heading north originally). Granted, I do have to cross a road that is an on ramp to the freeway on 198, but there's a built-in crosswalk signal (yay!) and for the rest of my journey, with the exception of crosswalks, a car would literally have to jump the curb to hit me. Or come tearing out of a commercial driveway, but I'd like to think that my sense of self-preservation would prohibit such an act.
In the morning it gives me time to wake up, and if you know anything about me, it's that I am not a morning person- curse my circadian rhythms! And in the afternoon, after a day of information overload, it gives me time to clear my head and reflect on what happened and what I could do better. I am literally engaged with my surroundings- the feel of the air on my face, the sun blessing my head, the dirt giving way beneath my tread.
I know I won't always have the luxury of walking to work, though I would like to, so for now I enjoy its simple pleasure.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Friday, October 17, 2008
A View From the Road: my life on a bike
For about two months, in an effort to reduce my carbon footprint and to make a meaningful contribution to society, I biked to work. My intentions weren't entirely altruistic. In an effort to save money in this glorious economy I have been car-less for the past year and counting. . .
Irregardless of my motives, almost everyone I talked to thought that I was crazy for attempting such an idea. I am pleased to report that I survived each trip without incident. (God protects saints and fools.) But it did give me a new-found respect for bikers and also a look at the road from a new angle, not of a pedestrian nor a driver, but a biker.
I'd always been rather dismissive of bikers. Like runners, they never look very happy. If anything, they appear rather grim. This could be said of all participants in any form of exercise, except, maybe Jazzercise, but this is especially true of bikers. Even before I started biking to work I wondered why these crazy people would risk literal life and limb to embark on such an activity. Sometimes I still do.
In any case, being on a bike past the age of twelve is a strange and ultimately invigorating adventure. I gained a much better sense of space, as one would never be able to achieve in a car. I was able to take in more architectural details of homes, landscaping, etc., and felt more physically engaged with my surroundings.
I also noted drivers' reaction time to me, i.e. whether they gave me space by driving closer to the dividing line than usual, or if they nearly ran me over due to their not even be cognisant that bikers DO exist, not just in the Tour de France.
I also learned a lot about the need for a bike light at night, breathable clothing, not putting your keys in your front pocket, the joys of Gatorade, and a good backpack that was capable of both carrying my work stuff and able to handle the inevitable amount of sweat I worked up while biking. I highly recommend vinyl/plastic backpacks circa 1992 or Columbia brand backpacks, which have built in cushions in the back and will help wick away moisture build-up. A back-of-the-bike little rack works for some people, but no matter how I tried to bungee cord my backpack to that thing the sucker wouldn't stay. I partially attribute that to operator error. But I digress.
I always wore a helmet, a skateboarder's style, not a true bicycle helmet, which ironically, Tom Vanderbilt, in his book, Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us), says may be a disadvantage to me, at least statistically. [Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us) by Tom Vanderbilt, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, Tornoto, 2008] To paraphrase his findings from page 38 (of the 2008, first edition) it was noted in studies that cyclists who wore helmets were more "serious, sensible and predictable road users" and thus, drivers did not give the helmet-wearing cyclists as much room on the road as they would a non-helmet wearing cyclist as it was presumed that the helmet wearing cyclist would be less prone to erratic swerving, etc., Great.
I pride myself on always being a "good" driver, this is a relative term, as discussed in Mr. Vanderbilt's aforementioned book in Chapter Two and will also be examined later in this blog. But I like to think that I am mindful of cyclists, pedestrians, small children, squirrels and other creatures with whom I share the road. However, now when I see a cyclist I know what exactly what his or her P.O.V. is. Don't think I ever want to tackle the perspective of the jogging mom with the stroller though.
Irregardless of my motives, almost everyone I talked to thought that I was crazy for attempting such an idea. I am pleased to report that I survived each trip without incident. (God protects saints and fools.) But it did give me a new-found respect for bikers and also a look at the road from a new angle, not of a pedestrian nor a driver, but a biker.
I'd always been rather dismissive of bikers. Like runners, they never look very happy. If anything, they appear rather grim. This could be said of all participants in any form of exercise, except, maybe Jazzercise, but this is especially true of bikers. Even before I started biking to work I wondered why these crazy people would risk literal life and limb to embark on such an activity. Sometimes I still do.
In any case, being on a bike past the age of twelve is a strange and ultimately invigorating adventure. I gained a much better sense of space, as one would never be able to achieve in a car. I was able to take in more architectural details of homes, landscaping, etc., and felt more physically engaged with my surroundings.
I also noted drivers' reaction time to me, i.e. whether they gave me space by driving closer to the dividing line than usual, or if they nearly ran me over due to their not even be cognisant that bikers DO exist, not just in the Tour de France.
I also learned a lot about the need for a bike light at night, breathable clothing, not putting your keys in your front pocket, the joys of Gatorade, and a good backpack that was capable of both carrying my work stuff and able to handle the inevitable amount of sweat I worked up while biking. I highly recommend vinyl/plastic backpacks circa 1992 or Columbia brand backpacks, which have built in cushions in the back and will help wick away moisture build-up. A back-of-the-bike little rack works for some people, but no matter how I tried to bungee cord my backpack to that thing the sucker wouldn't stay. I partially attribute that to operator error. But I digress.
I always wore a helmet, a skateboarder's style, not a true bicycle helmet, which ironically, Tom Vanderbilt, in his book, Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us), says may be a disadvantage to me, at least statistically. [Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us) by Tom Vanderbilt, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, Tornoto, 2008] To paraphrase his findings from page 38 (of the 2008, first edition) it was noted in studies that cyclists who wore helmets were more "serious, sensible and predictable road users" and thus, drivers did not give the helmet-wearing cyclists as much room on the road as they would a non-helmet wearing cyclist as it was presumed that the helmet wearing cyclist would be less prone to erratic swerving, etc., Great.
I pride myself on always being a "good" driver, this is a relative term, as discussed in Mr. Vanderbilt's aforementioned book in Chapter Two and will also be examined later in this blog. But I like to think that I am mindful of cyclists, pedestrians, small children, squirrels and other creatures with whom I share the road. However, now when I see a cyclist I know what exactly what his or her P.O.V. is. Don't think I ever want to tackle the perspective of the jogging mom with the stroller though.
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