Photo © Jayne Vidheecharoen

A number of people have asked me about automobile fumes and whether I worry about breathing exhaust as I ride my bike to work. There seems to be a widespread assumption that cyclists are exposing themselves to high levels of pollutants by riding their bikes alongside automobiles. Contrary to popular belief, it’s motorists who are getting the worst of it.

At least two studies have shown motorists are exposed to far more pollutants than cyclists, in some cases by more than fourfold. The following figures are from a widely quoted study conducted in the Netherlands in 1995¹.

A 2004 Australian study, published in the Health Promotion Journal of Australia, confirms what was found in the older Dutch study. It looked at benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, xylene and nitrogen dioxide, and again found motorists are exposed to much higher concentrations of these pollutants than cyclists.

This seems counter-intuitive since we cyclists are out in the open air, directly exposed to tailpipes, while motorists are inside their sealed vehicles with conditioned air. But, since most automobile vent systems are not filtered or completely sealed, motorists are exposed to pollutants from the stream of cars in front of them, as well as the pollutants that leak into the passenger compartment from their own engines and fuel systems.

So while cyclists should be proud of the fact that they’re sparing the air by riding their bikes, they can also breathe easy knowing they’re sparing themselves a big dose of toxic pollutants they’d otherwise be breathing if they were riding in a car.

Photo © Adobemac

As a follow up to my post the other day [Why Bicyclists Hate Stop Signs], I wanted to point out that the SF Bay Area’s Metropolitan Transportation Commission is currently looking at the feasibility of a “stop and roll” law for California cyclists, similar to the one in Idaho. If it eventually goes through, cyclists would be able to treat stop signs as yield signs, and red lights as stop signs.

Of course, many cyclists are already using the so called “stop and roll” approach; the new law would only change the legality of the practice.

In some cases, stop signs are used more to calm traffic and control speed than as safety devices. In the Netherlands, there is an experiment underway in which stop lights have been completely removed from an entire city. It’s an interesting concept, but somehow I can’t quite see it in California, with our 50mph parkways and battalions of oversized SUVs (there’s nothing like a good ol’ red light to tame a herd of 3-ton steel beasts).

Maybe, just maybe, a “stop and roll” law would be a good compromise.

Cyclists are notorious for running stop signs and there’s probably nothing else we do that raises as much ire among motorists and provides as much fuel for the anti-bike contingent. It can be extremely dangerous, and it undoubtedly breeds an environment of mistrust between motorists and cyclists. Given the fact that most cyclists are law abiding citizens in every other regard, why do so many choose to roll through stop signs and red lights (myself included)?

Joel Fajans (bicycle commuter and physics professor at UC Berkeley) and Melanie Curry (bicycle commuter and managing editor of ACCESS Magazine) think they know why. In their essay Why Bicyclists Hate Stop Signs, they point to the excess energy required to make frequent stops and starts as the culprit:

Fajans and Curry put their theory to the test on California Street in Berkeley, one of the city’s designated “bicycle boulevards” that has 21 stop signs (!) over a 2.25 mile stretch. By comparing California Street with nearby Sacramento Street—which has few stop signs—they were able to measure a 30-39% difference in average speed due to the required frequent stopping and starting on California Street:

I observed this exact thing when I was in Berkeley last year. During the rush hour commute, I counted far more bicycles on the busier, more dangerous thoroughfares than on the designated bicycle boulevards. I can only imagine it’s because of the large number of stop signs on the quieter BBs.

Fajans and Curry suggest that the issue is mostly a result of car-centric traffic planners not truly understanding the needs of cyclists:

I have to agree with the authors; their call for more sophisticated traffic planning, that takes into account the true issues cyclists face on the road, is right on the money.

Read the full article (PDF) →

Ye Olde Boat Anchor

I can accept the fact that some people just like the feel of a lightweight bike, and others might want a lightweight bike to help them keep up with their friends that are in better shape. Racers probably have the most valid argument for obsessing over bike weight since they’re already in excellent physical condition and have a specific need to go faster. But for us commuters, fitness riders, casual cyclists, and general lolly-gaggers, worrying about how much our bike weighs is akin to my Great Aunt obsessing about how much horsepower she’s getting from her ‘76 Chevy Chevette.

The irony is that many fitness riders pay big bucks for ultra-light bikes, yet heavy bikes actually give you a better workout (this isn’t strictly scientific, but work with me here). For example, let’s say you have a 10 mile commute, and on a 17 lb. racing bike in a full tuck you can make it to work in 30 minutes at a particular heart rate. On a 50 lb. bike with an upright cockpit and internally geared hub, I’m guessing it would take about 45-50 minutes to make the same route at the same heart rate. So the heavy bike is slower, but it provides a 50% longer workout and consequently, 50% more health benefits. Add in the fact that lightweight bikes are expensive and fragile, and that old boat anchor out in the garage starts looking pretty good. I mean, where else can you get 50% more at half the price?

Of course, some riders need to schlep their bikes up a flight of stairs or onto a bus rack; in that case, a boat anchor might cause a slipped disc or a split gut. As a matter of fact, I wouldn’t mind shaving a few pounds off of my Brompton; at 27 lbs. it’s not exactly a tank, but it can be a bit of a handful to drag onto a crowded bus with one hand while carrying a breifcase and helmet in the other.

It may go without saying, but if you want to live car-free, you have to take care of your body and do your best to avoid incapacitating injuries.

I’m still nursing a bad case of tendonitis in my knee (get out the little violins) that could have been avoided if I’d listened to my body. You’d think that after being a serious cyclist since around 1980 and having many, many opportunities to learn this lesson, I would have paid attention and taken a few days off when my knee started talking to me. But instead of doing the right thing, I attempted to “ride through” the oncoming injury, hoping it would magically go away (magical thinking is dangerous when it involves injuries). Of course, it only got worse until I woke up one morning and couldn’t bend my knee. It’s been 10 days and I’m still off the bike and hobbling around; this one’s going to take a while. I’m still pissed at myself.

None of this is to gain sympathy (I got what I deserved), but to remind everyone to take care of yourselves and pay attention to those little aches and pains before they turn into something that will pull you off your bike and shove you back into a car (screaming and kicking all the way).

Photo © Mike Freedman-Schnapp

It looks as if Ciclovía street closing events are finally starting to take off here in the U.S. A recent article in the Christian Science Monitor mentions upcoming events in Portland, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and Baltimore.

During Ciclovía events, roads are closed to automobiles and residents are encouraged to walk, bike, or use whatever mode they choose as long as it doesn’t involve motor vehicles.

A wonderful side-effect of these events is a inter-mingling of people that would otherwise be isolated from one another, cooped up in their cars.

I think we’re just scratching the surface here in the U.S.; I’m hoping we’ll eventually see regularly scheduled Ciclovía events in every major city in the country.

Read the full article in the CSM →

Photo © The New York Times

It’s getting crazy out there. Twice in the past two weeks I was riding along in a clearly marked bike lane minding my own business when I was harassed by aggressive motorists. One time it was someone shouting obscenities at me for no reason, and the other time it was someone spitting on me for no reason. In both cases I’m pretty sure it was not personal; more likely, it was a symptom of the growing tension between motorists and cyclists due to the large influx of bike riders to hit the road this summer as a result of rising gas prices.

From the Brentwood doctor who was charged with assault for slamming his brakes in front of pair of cyclists (injuring both riders), to the Portland man who sped down a street with a cyclist on the hood of his car (made famous in this video), it seems like a new, over-the-top cyclist/motorist clash makes the news just about every week.

These excerpts are from a story in yesterday’s New York Times titled “Moving Targets”:

Hopefully, as motorists become more accustomed to sharing the road with cyclists, cooler heads will prevail and things will settle down. In the meantime, remember that a cyclist on a 30 lb. bicycle is no match for a motorist in a 2500 lb. SUV. Stay safe out there!

Read the full story in the NYT →

Cyclists of all sorts have many things in common: we all get along under our own power; we all brave the elements and careless car drivers; we’re all doing our small part to better the planet (whether or not we consciously set out to); and we all love bikes and bike riding. The important thing isn’t what type of bike we ride, but that we have a bike that sufficiently meets our needs and keeps us out of our cars.

I’m excited about how the EcoVelo Gallery is shaping up. Thanks to you, it looks to be populated with an eclectic mix of practically every type of bike imaginable, all brought together by the fact that they’re being used for transportation. The only thing we’re missing is a unicycle (how about it Andy-1-Wheeler?), and maybe a high wheeler. Where else on the web can you find a blog that is so bike-culturally diverse?

As an aside, I’d like to say “thanks” to the recumbent riders who stuck with me through the transition to this new format. Having recumbents seamlessly intermixed with the other bikes here is fantastic. I believe it sends a message that recumbents are just “regular bikes” (which they truly are). Hopefully this contributes a little to debunking the common misconception that recumbents are difficult, “nerdy“, and only for the infirm.

We made an errand run across town this morning to pick up bike parts, books, and burritos. As usual, we made a detour to the coffee shop (no Saturday morning errand run is complete without stopping for a cup of joe).

While sipping our coffee we struck up a conversation with a very nice, retired gentleman. He’s an avid rider and was on an amazing, home-built Lightning P-38 clone. Prior to retiring he was a welder by trade (his considerable skill was apparent in the excellent workmanship of his bike) and he’s built many recumbents in collaboration with his friend, the retired engineer. It turns out we’re practically neighbors (small world) and he had rode across town too; the fact that we landed at the same coffee shop at adjacent tables was pretty cool.

One of the best things about using bikes for transportation is all of the nice people we meet. It rarely fails that when we stop for a few minutes someone will ask a question about the bikes; the conversations often take off from there and can lead to almost anywhere. It’s funny that this rarely happens when we travel by car. Maybe it’s our unique bikes that prompt people to speak up where they’d otherwise just pass by. Or maybe it’s that we’re enjoying ourselves so much that our expressions invite conversation. Whatever the reason, the many interesting people we meet are a big part of why we so enjoy getting around on bikes.

The Great Adventurer in Front of the Local Library

I have a good friend who loves to live large. He’s always planning another grand adventure, from hiking the PCT from Mexico to Canada, to soloing the Northern Tier, to motorcycling from Alaska to Tierra Del Fuego. I have great respect for his fearlessness and tenacity; I secretly wish I was a little more like that.

In reality though, I’m pretty boring. I’m pretty much a homebody and a creature of habit. I’m perfectly happy exploring the back roads and shortcuts around my neighborhood. I love to ride across town for coffee then take an unexpected detour to see a friend or pick up a book at the library. And when you throw weather, late trains, changing schedules, and crazy drivers into the mix, my daily multi-modal commute is plenty of adventure for me.

These little adventures of living car-lite keep my wanderlust well-satisfied. I’ve always fancied the idea of taking some grand adventure-of-a-lifetime when I retire, and maybe someday I’ll do that. But in the meantime I’m living the life I have (and love) and making the best of it by looking for a little adventure wherever I can find it.

Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman’s research into the emotional quality of people’s everyday experiences found that commuting by car ranks dead last. My own experience bears this out; I would hate to go back to commuting by car. Bike commuting has made me a calmer, happier, more relaxed person. How has bike commuting affected you?

One of the things that has always attracted me to recumbents is their varied and ingenious designs. Even after 30+ years of development, there is very little consensus within the recumbent community on what constitutes a “standard” design. Sure, comfort, good handling, durability, reasonable weight, and many other traits are universally considered desirable, but the designs created to meet these criteria are still quite varied. The fact that a carbon lowracer and tadpole trike both fall within the definition of “recumbent” shows what a wide realm these bikes encompass.

Upright bike designs, on the other hand, are far more standardized. Touring bikes, racing bikes, hybrids, cruisers, and commuting bikes may differ in components, wheels, frame material, and geometry, but these differences are insignificant in comparison to the wildly differing designs seen among recumbents. Even a bike as radical as the Big Dummy is still pretty much a standard upright bike with a long tail on it.

Combined with their inherent complexity and low production numbers, this lack of standardization among recumbents makes them much more expensive than uprights. Comparing like materials and similarly priced components, recumbents can cost as much as 50-100% more than upright bikes of similar quality. I now believe this is the biggest obstacle the recumbent industry must overcome to have any hope of reaching the mainstream (the perception that recumbents are “strange” is a big one as well). No amount of marketing, racing achievements, or clever designs has a chance of offsetting this price imbalance. When a newcomer can purchase a perfectly serviceable commuting bike for under $500, yet a similarly outfitted recumbent is closer to $1000, the recumbent is not going to sell unless the customer was already predisposed to purchasing a recumbent for some other reason (this may explain why so many riders take up recumbents only after suffering through physical issues on upright bikes).

None of this is intended as a dig on recumbents; quite the contrary. I still believe recumbents are ideal for a variety of uses and offer many advantages over uprights in certain circumstances. I’d love to see them take a more prominent place in the market. They have the potential to bring many new people into cycling that would otherwise not ride a bike due to comfort or balance issues. But no amount of added value is likely to overcome the extreme disadvantage resulting from pricing that is completely out of sync with the larger industry.

When I was a kid my mother always told me to sit up straight and eat my vegetables. Moms always know best, and I think that was good advice, particularly the part about sitting up straight. See, I like sitting up straight when I ride. It’s the most relaxing and sure-footed way to ride. It’s how we all started riding when we were kids, and it’s how we all rode until we were infected with the go-fast bug. It’s how we sit when we drive our cars (God forbid), it’s how we sit when we work at the computer, and it’s how we sit when we enjoy a good meal. It’s still a good way to ride.

Bikes set-up for this kind of riding have bars that sweep up and back from the stem, placing the grip area within easy reach. This usually means the bars will be higher than the saddle, sometimes by as much as a few inches. This position, combined with a wide saddle that’s adjusted with the nose slightly uphill, places almost all of the weight back on the sit bones and very little on the other “parts”. The sit bones are a good place to sit (that’s why they’re called sit bones - duh..). Our sit bones are well-conditioned for sitting because we sit on them all of the time (double duh..).

Here in the U.S., somewhere along the way (I think it happened during the 1970s) somebody convinced us that we need to be hunched over on a drop-bar racing bike to be a “real” bike rider. Speed became king and the wind in your face became your enemy. But here’s a secret for you: they were lying to us and it was probably more about marketing than anything. Most people in the world (other than in the U.S.) still ride sitting bolt upright. There are an estimated 500 million (!) FP roadsters on the road today, all with their pilots sitting upright. These are serious bike riders that use their bikes for transportation (arguably the most serious way to use a bike). I mean, what could be more serious than a guy on a bike in a suit and tie, or a woman in pumps riding her bike to work?

I rode racing bikes for years and suffered through the sore neck and numb hands and other numb things where things should most definitely not be numb. It got so bad I quit riding for awhile, then eventually I went recumbent. I started out ‘bent on a laid-way-back high racer. It was pretty comfy and super fast and not a bad way to travel if you only ride on quiet country roads, but it was downright silly (and arguably dangerous) riding in city traffic with my feet at chin level. Uphill starts in the left-hand turn lane with a dozen or so cars behind me were a real comic treat for the drivers that were lucky enough to witness my Fred Flinstone starts. This got old pretty quick. Long story short, I eventually ended up on an upright recumbent with my feet near the ground and a straight spine. That was a cool bike; no numb parts and no neck pain. It was a good bike for riding around town and a great bike for tripping in the country, but with a 5′ wheelbase it was a pain for parking at the grocery store, or the post office, or the restaurant, or the… ad infinitum. And what about taking it on a train or bus? Forgetaboutit. No chance.

So now I ride mostly non-recumbent bikes that are set-up for sitting-up. These currently include an English roadster and a conventional touring bike modified to mimic the roadster riding position. They’re as different from drop-bar racing bikes as drop-bar racing bikes are from recumbents. They manage to side-step the physical issues associated with go-fast bikes while being comfortable, fun, and easy. Their no nonsense, sit-up-straight-and-eat-your-vegetables style would make Mom proud.

Like most enthusiasts, I like nice bikes. I mean what bike nut doesn’t get excited over the artistry of Sacha White or Joseph Ahearne. There’s a lot to be said for a bike that’s custom built specifically to fit your physique, with every detail carefully attended to. Such a bike can be a once-in-a-lifetime purchase and acquiring one usually involves a major investment in time, effort, and expense.

I’ve been lucky enough to own a full-custom bike, and I’ve also owned many semi-custom bikes based upon production frames, but built-up from bare framesets with each component spec’d to my liking. Most of these bikes have been a joy to own and ride. Besides being a pleasure to look at, photograph, and work on, for the most part they’ve performed flawlessly on the road.

But there is a drawback to expensive, high-end bikes. I always take good care of my equipment, and custom bikes, more so than run-of-the-mill production models, demand to be handled with kid gloves. Somehow I can’t get comfortable riding a really nice bike in the rain everyday, locking it up to the bike rack in front of the grocery store, or hanging it on a hook in the baggage car where it will bang against other bikes. These restrictions handicap the day-to-day usefulness of these bikes and limit their full potential as tools (of course, others may not have this same aversion to using their custom bikes as their daily rides).

Because I’m now using my bikes as tools for transportation, I find myself gravitating toward less extravagant production models that are only slightly modified for personal preference. My thinking has changed from always looking for the optimal, to looking for a certain mid-level functionality that will get the job done without going overboard and triggering that urge to baby the bike. My Pashley, my Brompton, and my soon-to-be Surly LHT fall into this category. Unlike high-end custom bikes, they’re workhorses that I’m not afraid to use and abuse… and even put a few scratches on.

When I come to an intersection, in my mind’s eye, I draw a bird’s eye view of my path and the potential paths of all the vehicles in my range of vision. In other words, I visualize a mental map of potential collision points in a plan view, like a GPS display, but showing not just where to go, but also where the potential threats are coming from. All of this happens semi-subconsciously in the blink of an eye. I’ve done it for many years, and I admit this sounds a little weird, and I don’t know how it got started, but I think it helps keep me safer on the road.

I’m only guessing, but I suspect this habit of visualizing a “collision map”, if you will, may be a result of the fact that I’m a graphic designer that works (and consequently thinks) in two dimensions all day. Among other things, I create a fair amount of technical graphics and maps. The mapping in particular seems closely related to this unusual habit. (My wife is always confounded with my keen sense of direction and ability to read maps, while I’m continually confounded by her ability to remember precisely what someone said in a conversation three weeks ago… LOL. I think this demonstrates something about the left brain versus right brain paradox.) But I’ve terribly digressed, so back to the point…

I believe one of the most important things we can do to stay safe on the road is to anticipate the actions of our fellow road users. That’s why I use a rear view mirror; if I see a car drifting onto the shoulder or into the bike lane I have an extra split-second to take evasive measures (this has saved my life at least once, maybe twice). The same holds true for left and right hooks (the deadliest of all one of the more common accident types); anticipating that a car might hook you by visualizing its potential path buys a split-second that may be just enough to avoid getting hit.

I’m not suggesting anyone make a conscious effort to draw a virtual map in their mind every time they come to an intersection (that’s far too distracting unless it’s something that comes naturally), but I am suggesting it behooves all cyclists to get in the habit of anticipating where other road users are headed. Doing so is arguably the best defense against a collision.

Across the spectrum, from the most utilitarian to the most high-performing, the range of bicycle designs is a continuum of subtle differences. As much as we like to categorize bikes, when we line them up, it jumps out that it’s actually a small series of steps that takes us from one end to the other. I attempted to illustrate this with the above graphic (click the “zoom” button).

Starting on the left is a carbon lowracer recumbent, and on the far right is a carbon time trial bike. In the middle we have a beach cruiser and a city bike. The lowracer and the time trial bike give up everything in user-friendliness to gain the most in performance. The beach cruiser and city bike give up everything in performance to gain the most in user-friendliness. The bikes between the two extremes are bundles of conflicting priorities, each making compromises to reach a middle ground between utility and performance.

There’s more to performance than aerodynamics, but reducing wind resistance is by far the most dramatic way to increase efficiency (at 20 mph, wind resistance makes up approximately 90% of total resistance). The cyclist’s torso generates a tremendous amount of wind resistance, so for maximum efficiency the body needs to be laid down inline with the direction of travel. But doing so dramatically reduces a bike’s user-friendliness because an upright torso position (with the rider’s feet near the ground) is the most natural and confidence-inspiring. Recumbents with high bottom brackets, and upright racing bikes with extremely low handlebars, both put the rider in positions that, while being highly efficient, are unnatural and limited in their practicality. And, of course, bikes that place the rider in an upright position, while providing excellent user-friendliness, are limited in their efficiency. (Fairings bend the rules by allowing an upright seating position with good aerodynamics, but they increase complexity, weight, and cost, thus reducing practicality.)

No particular type of bicycle is necessarily better or worse than another (though an argument can be made that it may be prudent to focus on practicality over sport at this particular juncture, but I digress). Each attempts to fill a need; the trick is finding the type that best fits an intended use. Bikes that fall in the middle ground between pure performance and pure user-friendliness (like hybrids and low-end MTBs) are popular because they’re versatile (and consequently, relatively inexpensive). But like other “all-purpose” tools, they tend to do a lot of things reasonably well, but very few things exceptionally well. So pick your medicine: lots of performance, lots of utility, or a little of both. When it comes to bikes, like so many other things in life, you can’t have your cake and eat it too.

I seem to get an inordinate number of questions about bike commuting from my coworkers and people that I meet on the train and bus. I suspect the fact that I ride a folder contributes to this, though it may just be that I attract questions because I’m enthusiastic and eager to chat with people about one of my favorite subjects (bikes) and it shows on my face.

People are typically curious about how far I ride, how long I’ve been bike commuting, what I do in the winter, how much my bike cost (that always shocks them a little, but I remind them how cheap it is in comparison to a car), how much money I’m saving, etc. And they’re often congratulatory, saying what a great sacrifice I’m making for the environment, what a big commitment it must be, how nice it must be to ride past the gas station, and how they “could never do that” (though they most certainly could, and I tell them so).

But here’s the big secret: bike commuting is no sacrifice at all. As a matter of fact, I often feel a pang of guilt for doing it. It’s so much fun, and I derive so many benefits from it (health, wealth, serenity) that my subconscious mind assumes I must be cheating, that I must be doing something bordering on the unethical or illegal, because nothing in this world is free (right?). But bike commuting, so it seems, defies this capitalistic logic of getting what you pay for, and actually gives you what you deserve; not in the negative sense of retribution, but in the most positive sense of reaping the rewards of trying to do the right thing.

So I’ve started telling people about this. When they ask why I bike commute, instead of launching into the ecological and economic benefits, I first talk to them about how much fun it is, how good it makes me feel, and how little effort it takes. I tell them about the things I see along the road (birds, kids, dogs, turkeys, hawks, squirrels), the way it clears out the cobwebs in the morning and flushes out the stress in the evening, what a relief it is to be free of driving related stress and anxiety, and that you couldn’t pay me to go back to driving a car everyday.

I hope that by sharing my big secret—the fact that bike commuting is not a sacrifice at all, but instead is a richly rewarding endeavor—people will be more likely to consider it for themselves.

How’d you get that bike locker?

It’s beyond me why our local transit agencies don’t make their services and policies more user-friendly and visible to the general public. Around here, figuring out how to piece together a long, multi-leg, multi-modal commute is not a simple thing. In my case, it took a bit of desperation and quite a lot of research to sort out my 60-mile round-trip commute.

The biggest challenge is ferreting out the needed information from the various agencies’ poorly-designed, data-dense, websites. For example, a number of our local transit agencies honor commuter passes from the other local services, but hardly anyone, including their drivers, seems to know this (I carry a print out from their websites in case I need to provide a little “education”). You’d think this would be published in an obvious place online. At least once a week, someone asks me how I got on this bus, or that train, with a pass from some other transit service. When I tell people about this policy they often act as if I’m nuts, even though I’m sitting on the train right next to them, flashing a bus pass from the other transit service.

Another service I often get quizzed about is our City bike lockers. At various “park-n-ride” lots and transit hubs throughout the city, free bike lockers are offered to city residents. All that’s required is proof of residency (a utility bill will do) and a note explaining how you’ll use the locker. If you meet these minimum requirements, the locker is yours for a year, with guaranteed renewal for a second year if you so choose. People frequently approach me as I’m parking my bike to inquire about the locker, and they’re always astonished the lockers are available for free simply for the asking. Why isn’t this service more widely promoted?

I’d love to see more public outreach in this area. I’m convinced more people would consider using transit if it was a little less confusing. People are already looking for excuses to stay in their cars; minimizing the barriers by making the transit option as simple, cost-effective, and user-friendly as possible seems like a no-brainer.

Cars distort our perceptions of time and space. They act as portable extensions of the shelter offered by our homes, numbing us to the reality of the distance travelled and blinding us to the topography we travel through. By using massive amounts of energy, cars reduce the physical effort required to move through the world to nothing more than a twitch of the toe and a flick of the wrist; a physical effort on par with flipping through television channels or surfing the web.

Cars also cut us off from the reality of weather. Headwinds and tailwinds have no meaning from within a car. Rain is only an inconvenience. Freezing temperatures only require adjusting a knob on a thermostat. Experiencing a storm from inside a car is akin to watching a nature movie in a comfortable, temperature-controlled, personal theatre.

Cycling, on the other hand, makes us more keenly aware of the nuances of the landscape and the energy required to cover a distance. Cycling takes us out of the sedentary womb of comfort and convenience provided by the automobile and immerses us in the real, physical world of weather, hills, car exhaust, barking dogs, natural smells, and beautiful sunsets. Driving a car is so effortless, hardly a thought is given to whether a trip should or should not be made. Cycling for transportation requires concerted effort, and consequently, encourages consideration and efficiency. Cycling, by its nature, discourages wasted energy.

We pay a heavy price for the convenience offered by the automobile. Dependence on foreign oil, global warming, smog, traffic fatalities, and many other problems are all part and parcel of our desire to extend our creature comforts beyond our homes by driving our cars. The question is whether it’s worth it, and if not, what we choose to do about it.

We humans are funny creatures. We can’t help but divide, then divide again, into ever smaller groups, pulling up the drawbridges and fortifying the ramparts after each successive cell division. This strange behavior seems to be hardwired into our psyche.

Cyclists, being the highly-evolved members of the human race that they are (ha!), take this behavior out to the edge of absurdity. First we have bikes; then we have road bikes and dirt bikes; then we branch off into the various subdivisions of single speeds, 3-speeds, cruisers, recumbents, roadsters, folders, tri-bikes, road racing bikes, BMX bikes, crit bikes, cyclocross bikes, commuters, cargo bikes, etc. Then finally, it gets crazy, with long-wheelbase recumbents versus short wheelbase recumbents, 16″ folders versus 20″ folders, 29ers versus downhillers, and on-and-on, ad infinitum.

Don’t get me wrong, I love diversity. Having such a plethora of bikes to choose from is incredible. But it’s pretty weird how we quickly gather into our little groups and defend our ground against the “others” on their strange bikes. And as much as it bugs me, mostly I’m as susceptible as the next guy to this odd form of bicycle induced xenophobia, though at least my position as a bicycle double-agent places me in a unique position to see the absurdity of it all.

See, I’m a bike defector; I crossed enemy lines from uprights (what recumbent riders call “wedgies” with a snicker) to recumbents (what upright riders call “lawn chair bikes” with a sneer), and now I’ve come full-circle back to uprights. Well, I shouldn’t really say “I’ve come full-circle”; it’s more like I drank the Kool-Aid and the Crystal Light. I still ride bents and uprights, as well as folders and roadsters and tandems and…

Somewhere along the way, after all this sleeping with the enemy, I figured out that all bicycles are really cool. Fixies, velomobiles, trikes, SUBs, Chinese roadsters, Dutch city bikes, bents, tandems, unicycles (really!), you name it; I think they’re all amazing. As I outlined in this rant from a couple of months ago, it would be very nice if mainstream dealers stocked a more balanced selection of bikes, but in actuality, we’re pretty damned lucky to have such a smorgasbord of bike goodness at our fingertips.

So maybe we should try expanding the borders a bit, out to a place just this side of car culture. Maybe we should attempt to be more inclusive and focus on all the good things we have in common, instead of getting lost in the minutiae of our differences. Maybe we should take a risk and take a ride on one of those strange bikes sometime, just to see how the other half lives. Who knows, we might be pleasantly surprised by what we find.