How I Became A Bicycle Commuter

Nowadays my eyes are wide open and my ears finely attuned to news of the daily progress of the ongoing collapse of our present economic and social systems. I am thinking particularly of a report I read today titled, “Burning Violins,” from the Barclays Capital Oil Sketches, November 2008 edition. That report analyzed the present decline in non-OPEC daily world oil production and the likely effects of the present global financial crisis in shrinking global oil supplies, including OPEC supplies, even further in the near future. For anyone interested in reading the report, here's the link: https://ecommerce.barcap.com/research/user/article/attachment/hn95v3jbd9nmgrjjdtlmaq8/0/Oil%20Sketches%20Monthly%205%20Nov%2008.pdf. It is not good news.

Yet I was not always so aware of the signs of our impending economic, energy and environmental troubles. There was a time when I was a registered Republican. In fact, I had voted for President Bush in 2000 and in 2004. By 2005, the Iraq war had begun to miscarry and there were a few disturbing signs of the true nature of the Bush administration's policies, yet these things provoked little more than a flicker of unease in me.

Then June 2005 came. I had been assigned by my company to a consulting assignment working in downtown Los Angeles, and thus I was able to ride the Metrolink to work every day with my company picking up the tab. The office in Los Angeles had an engineer who had been given a long-term assignment to do construction inspections at a water treatment plant that was being built in the San Fernando Valley. This engineer had relatives overseas and wanted to visit them, so he asked for a three-week vacation during part of June and July. I was “volunteered” to fill in for him while he was away.

From my old house to the water treatment plant, the distance is around 42 miles. Unfortunately there was no convenient way to get there by mass transit, so every workday during those three weeks I endured a commute of an hour and a half or more each way, stuck behind the wheel of my vehicle along with thousands of other land-locked commuters while listening to KFWB or KNX for any traffic-related news. Just before I started the inspection tours, regular unleaded gasoline was selling for around $2.29 a gallon. While I was assigned to the daily inspections, I had to pay for the gas myself.

Something strange started happening as the three weeks progressed – regular gasoline rapidly became ever-more expensive, until during the last week of my inspection tours, it was selling for over $3.00 a gallon. The Los Angeles Times carried a front page picture of a disgruntled motorist filling up an SUV at a station whose sign read $3.22 a gallon. And this was weeks before Hurricane Katrina.

Different people awaken from sleep at different levels of sensory arousal. $3.00 a gallon was enough to begin an awakening in me. It got me thinking of how most Americans were forced to rely on automotive transportation in order to get anywhere, and how vulnerable our lives were when there were disruptions to any part of our automobile-based transit system. $3.00 a gallon was a significant disruption. How much of my money – money that I had counted on using for other things – was now being literally burned up? How much of my livelihood was being taken from me, never to be seen again? How much further would the price rise? These questions were in my mind, along with the realization that I had no control over the supply or price of a “necessity” I considered to be as basic as gasoline.

I don't like being dependent on large, faceless systems for my basic needs, especially when the owners of those systems do not have my best interests at heart. Moreover, for a long time I had placed a high value on physical exercise and staying in shape. So even before my co-worker got back from his vacation, I started thinking about turning to bicycling for basic transportation. I remember the Saturday when I walked into a local bike shop and started checking out potential prospects. I entered that shop knowing very little about bicycles except that they had two wheels, spokes and handlebars, combined with memories of riding a bike to go places when I was in high school.

One of the bike shop employees noticed me, and we struck up a conversation. I said something like, “I'm looking for a new bike, and I was wondering...what sort of bike would be good for basic transportation? I'm trying to escape high gas prices.” When I told the bike salesman that I was not thinking of spending more than around $300, he proceeded to very enthusiastically sell me a Giant Sedona and a helmet.

I was very proud of my new purchases, and of my determination to escape the “system” in some small way. But I was a bit nervous about riding to many places, since the farthest distance I had ever ridden on a bicycle was six miles one way, and since those who drive the streets of Southern California are not known for their charity. Therefore I started off slow, riding from my house to a nearby YMCA on the weekends, and riding from my house to the local supermarket. The YMCA was about 4 miles from my house, and I discovered that I could ride that far without dying. Therefore I became bolder and rode one weekend from my house to the Metrolink station and back again, a round-trip distance of around fourteen miles. Once I realized that I could do even this much distance, I was liberated.

I began riding from my house to the Metrolink station every weekday as part of my morning commute. I also did almost all of my shopping by bike. At first I knew very little about the tricks of the trade. For instance, I would ride to the train station in my work clothes. This meant that, depending on the weather and how much I perspired, by mid-afternoon I would start smelling a bit like a dead carp. I also carried everything I needed (lunch, books, groceries, etc.,) in a backpack which was quickly beaten up by overuse and cramming oversized cargo into its pouches.

Then one day a female epiphany on two wheels rolled by me as I was coming home from work. She had a rear rack on her bike, on which two black mesh cloth “baskets” were attached. (Later I learned that the proper name for these is “panniers.”) That weekend I rode down to the shop from which I had bought my bike and demanded a rear rack and “baskets,” which they happily sold me for $150. Now I was really riding in style!

As summer waned and fall approached, the days grew shorter and the nights came ever earlier. I knew it was time to think about lights for my bike. So off I went back to the same bike shop whose employees were happy to sell me a Cat Eye front “safety” headlight and rear taillight. I was sure that now I was fully equipped to ride in all conditions. There was only one problem with these lights, however. They were powered by AAA batteries (three for the headlight, two for the taillight), and their packaging promised run times of up to 60 hours. What the packaging did not tell a rider was how much dimmer the lights were at the end of the 60 hour run time of their batteries. There were many nights when I found myself cut off or nearly hit by cars while believing that those puny lights were actually protecting me. Of course, it didn't help that I was frequently wearing dark clothing. It would take several months before I “saw the light” about rechargeable lighting systems and reflective vests.

I remember riding to work during my first Southern California winter rainstorm. My Giant Sedona had been sold to me without fenders, as was common practice among bike sellers. This resulted in a muddy stripe up the front of my jacket and muddy splashes on my pants when I rode to the train station. I was able to purchase a front fender after a bit of searching, but the fender was rather less than adequate, and showed the state of bicycle culture at the time – the perception that bikes were toys for kids and sometimes for adults, and that no one would ever ride a bike in the rain or use a bike for serious transportation.

I started hanging out at the bike shop, asking questions about bikes in general and commuting in particular. The staff was not very helpful, as they had not met too many people who used bikes as basic transportation. But they did have some interesting magazines and these aroused my curiosity. I read about clubs which got together for long rides of over 20 miles. Some even did hundred-mile rides, called “centuries,” and this astonished me. I wanted to try riding my Giant Sedona to a faraway place. By that time I had transferred back to our company's office near Santa Ana, and it was 17 miles from my house to the office. One weekend when I needed to go in to the office, I decided to ride all the way. That experience – undertaken at the height of a heat wave – taught me the limits of the Giant Sedona as a commuting vehicle. It was the only time I ever tried a ride of that distance on that particular bike.

As I recovered from that ride, I found friends and acquaintances at work who had done long-distance rides or who had tried bike commuting, and I asked them why a ride such as I had undertaken should have been so hard. I was also doing a fair amount of Web research into the general subject of bike commuting and what was the best bike for commuting. I discovered that many people did not recommend mountain or “hybrid” bikes for regular long-distance travel, because the upright sitting position, shock-absorbers and knobby tires made a rider have to work too hard to maintain a high speed for any length of time. The sources I was consulting almost all agreed that the best bike for commuting is the classic “touring” bicycle – a bike made for long-distance cross-country travel while carrying basic camping necessities such as food, tent and sleeping bag.

At the time I made this discovery, I switched employers and found myself commuting to an office twelve miles away from my house and not located near a train station. During the first week at my new job I went to REI and checked out their selection of “touring” bikes. I was greatly intrigued by the Novara Safari, because of its putty color, disc brakes and otherworldly handlebars (I had never seen handlebars like that before). I wound up buying a Safari and selling my Giant Sedona to a neighbor across the street from my house. I also bought a CygoLite rechargeable headlight and a pair of Novara panniers. And I had fenders installed on my new Safari.

That Safari was a joy to ride. When the wind was right I could easily do 22 miles per hour for extended stretches. It was a good thing, because there were a few narrow parts of my commute where I had to “take a lane” in order to avoid having traffic squeeze me off the road. It wasn't wise to ride slowly through those places, especially down Western Avenue near Lincoln Avenue in Buena Park. I also went on a Saturday 33 mile bike ride with a cycling club in mid-Orange County, and lived to talk about it. The difference between the Safari and the Sedona was very apparent. As 2006 passed and the seasons cycled through summer and back to fall again, I picked up a DiNotte rear taillight, because I didn't want to trust my life to the wimpy Cat Eye light I had, and I had been looking for a good bright rechargeable taillight. The DiNotte is powerful enough to light street signs a block away. I knew that if I got hit, at least the lawyers would not be able to argue that motorists could not see me.

The Safari was a good bike, but it had its limitations. Its rear rack was proprietary and was rated to carry only 25 kilograms. Its disc brakes squeaked almost constantly at times, and removing and replacing the wheels was tricky because of the discs. Also, it was very difficult to find a front rack that did not interfere with the front disc brake. Therefore at the end of 2006 I started looking around for another bike. I was originally just thinking of getting a cheap backup bike to ride during any times when I might have to put the Safari in the shop for repairs. But then I discovered the Surly Long Haul Trucker. The rest, as they say, is history.

I now own a Surly LHT, one of the few that Surly painted in maroon. I ordered it during the time that Surly was just selling the LHT frames, before they began selling complete bikes. Unfortunately I'm not much of a gearhead or do-it-yourselfer, so I had to have a bike shop build up the frame into a complete bike. The shop that built the bike was recommended to me by two sources who spoke highly of its owner; yet I have to say that even he did not completely grasp the idea of a bicycle as basic transportation as opposed to a bike as a recreational toy. He tended to make suggestions about component choices to make the bike light so that I wouldn't be “slowed down.” (Imagine that – concerning a bike that's designed to carry up to 300 pounds!) One thing he did that I later regretted was to install a carbon fiber seatpost that failed after a year. (Fortunately the failure was not catastrophic.) Another thing was his choice of narrow 1.5 inch Schwalbe Marathon tires instead of the more generous 1.75 inch Schwalbes. He almost neglected to install front and rear reflectors (even though these are required by California law) and installed them only after I insisted that he do so.

My Surly now has SKS fenders, 1.75 inch Schwalbes (yes, I replaced the narrower tires), Surly Nice front and rear racks, rechargeable front and rear lights, Salmon Kool-Stop brake pads and Ortlieb panniers. I've put over 6700 miles on it over a period of nearly two years. It is my main steed, and I ride it to work every weekday unless I have an assignment that takes me out of town or unless there is ice on the roads where I now live. I have replaced the carbon fiber seatpost with a genuine honest-to-goodness steel seatpost, and I now have a Brooks B-17 saddle.

Oh, and I still have a Novara Safari. I may convert it into an Xtracycle one of these days.

My bicycle commuting journey had a number of twists and turns, and I spent a fair amount of money along the way – money that I could have saved if I had known what I was doing at the start. But there are many people who are now being squeezed or who are about to be squeezed by rising prices and economic distress, and who are in need of low-cost transportation options. My goal is to try to save you from some of the mistakes I made, and to save you money in the process. You can go much more cheaply than I did. Therefore in my next post on bicycle commuting, I'll give some general recommendations and opinions regarding inexpensive bike commuting, what sort of bicycle to use, and general bike commuting resources.

A Safety Net Of Alternative Systems - Non-Automotive Transportation

I have to admit that sometimes I am intimidated at the thought of writing this blog. There are others whose background on key topics related to adaptations to Peak Oil is much stronger than mine. I think of Sharon Astyk, who can (and has) written volumes on small scale agriculture, food preservation and home economics; or Jeff Vail, who writes extensively on the effects of resource constraints on the global geopolitical scene and relations between nations. There are also geologists and other scientists and mathematicians who explore the actual geology of oil discoveries and extraction in great technical detail, as well as discussing the social and technological impacts of resource constraints on modern society. Most of these people have been writing about these issues for years. My awakening has been rather recent, by comparison. Yet there is one thing I know about intimately, and that is non-automotive transportation, especially bicycle commuting. Therefore I am happy to throw in my two cents' worth on this subject.

But before I begin, I think it's appropriate to give a few reminders of why alternatives to our present economic and social arrangements are necessary. So I will give a few highlights of news I have read in the last few weeks. First, the International Energy Agency (IEA) September Oil Market Report states that world petroleum production fell by around 1 million barrels per day in August 2008 – before any hurricane-related production problems. The October IEA Oil Market Report states that global petroleum supply decreased again in September, by over 1 million barrels per day. The current IEA estimate of global daily oil production is 85.6 million barrels per day. I think that the IEA estimate is overly optimistic, and that actual global petroleum production is lower. Still, the most recent IEA figures show a drop of over 2 million barrels per day within the very recent past.

Secondly, the latest U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) weekly petroleum inventory statistics show that gasoline stockpiles in the U.S. have started dropping again, and that the growth in crude stocks is slowing dramatically. It would not be surprising if next week's report showed a decrease in American inventories of all categories of petroleum products. If the U.S. starts rapidly and deeply drawing down its crude and refined petroleum stocks again, this may lead to a choice between another spike in prices or the re-appearance of shortages such as those we saw in the wake of Hurricanes Gustav and Ike. Prices are low now because of the perception of greatly reduced demand, not because of new supplies of oil. The trouble is that these low prices may be starting to increase demand for petroleum products, putting pressure on American petroleum stocks.

Next is the discovery by scientists at the University of East Anglia that manmade climate change is affecting every continent on earth, including Antarctica. The changes seen in the Antarctic are impossible to explain by any other means. And according to scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the atmospheric concentration of the potent greenhouse gas methane rose sharply in 2007. Here are two more pieces of evidence that our modern lifestyle of high-energy overconsumption is destroying the earth.

Lastly, there is the financial crisis and the efforts by rich elites to pass the cost of this crisis onto the poor. The present financial crisis was caused by a number of factors, the biggest being that the rich seized the lion's share of the fruits of productive economic activity while paying their laborers the lowest possible wage. In order to keep a “consumer” economy going in the industrialized West, the rich offered the poor the opportunity to buy things on credit, since very few working-class people could afford to pay cash for many of the things they needed or that they were taught by advertising to want. Then the loans made to these poor and working-class people were bundled into certificates of “worth” and used as investments to borrow ever-larger sums of money.

The only trouble is that the spike in energy and food prices caused by energy and resource constraints wiped out many poor and working-class people and made the investments of the rich – their certificates of “worth” based on loans – worthless, as poor and working-class people started to default en masse on those loans. Now the rich in several countries, including the U.S., have persuaded the governments of those countries to turn most of their citizens into “collateral” for the worthless paper certificates of the rich, by means of government-backed “bailouts” that will never be paid back. The rich created a system by which they could get something for nothing, forcing the rest of us to bear the cost of operating that system. Now that the system is breaking, they seek to use the poor and the working class to grease the wheels of that system for one last run before its almost certain breakdown.

Yet there are signs that some of the lifestyle choices of the poor and working class are causing that system to fail a bit faster than the rich had expected. It seems that increasing numbers of Americans are becoming frugal, learning to delay gratification, and learning to live more simply. This is a threat to the consumer economy and to the fortunes of a significant number of large corporations, lenders and rich executives, as noted here. And there are bloggers who are making the connection between poor or working class people learning to be self-sufficient and the weakening of the “official” economy. Do you want to be a street-legal revolutionary? Disentangle yourself from relying on the “official” system and build alternatives for yourself. Learn to live more simply; learn to live on less. Let those in particular who call themselves Christians learn to live for something other than acquiring lots of material possessions. And everyone, regardlses of religion, start by killing your TV. Don't let your appetite be swollen by advertising to a size larger than the biceps of some major league baseball slugger.

And now on to alternative transportation. My discussion of this topic will fall into a few broad categories, namely, bicycle transportation, walking and public transit (both bus and rail). In my next post I will discuss how I became a bicycle commuter, as well as tips and tricks I learned (and how much fun it is!). I'll also talk about my bike (of course!) and the kinds of equipment I like to use, as well as traffic laws and survival strategies for cyclists. I will then analyze the cycling culture in the United States and discuss whether that culture is a help or a hindrance to the adoption of cycling as basic transportation in this country. I will finish with a discussion of the hindrances and dangers which our present system presents to cycling as alternative transportation.

Other non-automotive transportation options will also be discussed, as well as the car-free culture and the present worldwide car-free movement. For those who are looking at dollars and cents, I will be sure to tell you how much you can save by going car-free or “car-lite.” And I will provide plenty of references for those who want to read about these things in more depth. This will be a fun subject to talk about. Stay tuned!

Portraits Of Alternative Transport

Now is the time for some of the pictures I promised I'd post on this blog. All of these pictures portray people who are finding and using alternatives to automobile-based transportation. But I also have a few comments to make, comments provoked by a New York Times piece I read today.

That article, titled, “Completely Unplugged, Fully Green,” contained descriptions of the lives of several people who are trying to radically reduce their carbon footprint by living simply and self-reliantly. The article revealed a few interesting details about each of the people interviewed; yet the tone of the article implied not-so-subtly that these people were (at least mildly) freaks. One of those interviewed was Sharon Astyk, author of the blog, Casaubon's Book, who with her husband Eric Woods is raising a family of four boys. The Times writer, Joanne Kaufman, described how Astyk's boys were prevented by their mother from joining a Saturday Little League baseball team because joining the team would involve making an unnecessary trip by car, as well as how her boys slept together to conserve body heat in the winter. The article also described a man by the name of Jay Matsueda, who lives in Culver City, California, and who does not use heat or air conditioning for his condominium.

The tone in which the actions of Astyk and Matsueda are portrayed suggests that these are highly unusual lifestyle choices which fall far, far outside the mainstream. In fact, a Google search for the article reveals that it is also titled, “Extreme Approaches Toward Living A Green Life.” But the Times article goes further, coining a new word, “carborexia,” to describe those people who are radically and deeply limiting their consumption and dependence on the present economic system in order to reduce their carbon footprint. And with the introduction of this new term, which sounds suspiciously like the psychological disorder known as “anorexia,” the Times writer also includes interviews with psychologists who discuss the “unhealthy” side of those who devote themselves “excessively” to a sustainable lifestyle.

I think the Times article is childish, immature and inaccurate. For one thing, Sharon Astyk is Jewish and that's why her family does not participate in league sports on Saturdays. Is that so unusual? But when I think of the near shock expressed by the Times concerning some of the other lifestyle choices described in their article, I have to laugh out loud. Consider how the Times writer wrote about Jay Matsueda's decision to forego air conditioning and heating for his Culver City condo.

Culver City is in Southern California, about five miles from the Pacific Ocean and around, oh, 30 miles away from where I used to live in North Orange County. Don't tell anyone this, but I only used my heater twice during the year and a half before I moved out of California. And my home did not have air conditioning. Were there days I would have liked A/C? Sure! But my point is that I didn't die or suffer irreparable harm. Is Matsueda a freak? Not in my book. Of course, I also became a bicycle commuter in 2005, when California gasoline prices first rose above $3.00 a gallon. Maybe that makes me a freak; I don't know.

The biggest flaw of the Times article is that it both trivializes a serious issue and seeks to marginalize those who are trying to address this issue by a more simple lifestyle. This is entirely understandable, since the Times gets most of its revenue from advertising and because the Times is part of a global economic system whose aim is to foster ever-increasing growth of that system and ever-increasing dependence on that system among the general public. It is only natural for the masters of such a system to feel threatened by those who are trying for the sake of principle or conscience to disentangle themselves from the system. It is only natural for the masters of the present system to try to demonize those who are seeking to break free from the system.

Such demonizing is not only inaccurate, it also neglects the fact that increasing numbers of people are cutting back on their consumption and moving toward simpler lifestyles by force and not by choice, as the system known as the “official” economy continues its breakdown. Already there are hundreds of thousands of families in the United States whose children have been forced to forgo not only Saturday league sports, but iPods, GameBoys, big screen TV's, sleepovers, extravagant birthday parties, hanging out at the mall, the latest clothes, new cars, and much more – all because of the evaporation of their parents' livelihoods during the last several months. Whether we like it or not, the growth economy is in serious – perhaps terminal – trouble. The well has run dry. We will all be forced to live more simply.

Since that is the case, the intelligent people are the ones who are taking steps now by choice to adapt to a simpler life rather than waiting until the choice is forced on them. I therefore present pictures of some intelligent people I have met over the last several months. There are many such people here where I now live. Notice that they all seem to be having fun; at the very least they don't seem to be deprived souls, nor are they freaks. Also check out some of their cool rides!

Here's a picture of my odometer today after returning home from work, just so you know that I practice what I preach.

This vehicle is known as a "Bakfiets," and is a Dutch invention. I saw a lady riding one to a grocery store a few weeks ago. Her son was riding inside the wooden carriage. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera at the time, or you all could have seen a Bakfiets in action...

And here's a picture for those of us who ride public transit on occasion. See how serene and stress-free your commute can be! Take a hint from these kids...

Future posts on this blog will continue the theme of alternative systems, focusing on bicycle transportation. Stay tuned!