Give a hoot! Ride a bike!
Well folks, it’s May of 2014. Bike Month, you know. That makes it eight years since I entered car freedom. That is not to say that I bought the car of my dreams and began feeling free to vroom-vroom around the countryside, blasting Zeppelin IV at full volume, frightening the wildlife.
What I mean to say is that something snapped in my heart, in a positive way, and I decided not to hand over my financial power to a handful of oil and car companies and instead reinvest it in the less powerful, more democratic bicycle and baked goods industries. It also turned out to become an investment in my own power.
Here at Dancing Rabbit, we share a lot of things. We share our kitchens, our seeds, our tools, and our cars. We have a car co-op, and for those folks who are comfortable and willing to drive, the cost of ownership is split amongst many. And though this intensity of sharing can be liberating for many folks in many ways, our car co-op cannot offer quite the same amount of autonomy as that simple, world-changing invention: the bicycle.
Bicycles can be shared, much like cars, or they can be personally owned and operated. Tandems fall into some funny gray area, though I have successfully ridden one solo. There just ain’t enough fuel to go around for every human on Earth to own and operate their own car, but everyone could have their own bike. I speculate that there is probably one bike per person already in existence: it’s a simple matter of maintenance and distribution.
In the eight years I have spent championing this marvelous technology, I have been a bike courier, a certified bicycle technician at three very different shops, a bike maintenance instructor, and a volunteer for community bike programs. What have I learned about the culture of cycling from all of this? That it is extremely diverse, and highly friendly.
I’ve worked at feminist bike co-ops where women are given their own shop hours where they can wrench without some man telling them how to do it, and I’ve worked at high-end sports-oriented shops where the male dominance is as prevalent as the spandex and Lycra. I’ve couriered architectural designs by bike alongside other messengers who smoke, drink, get bad tattoos, and don’t wear helmets, and participated in charity rides alongside soft-spoken, wheat germ chewing health nuts.
I’ve got friends who ride bikes for exercise, friends who ride bikes to lower their ecological footprint, and friends who ride bikes because they cannot legally drive for one reason or another. We’re all different, but with cycling as a common reference point, we’re all friends, navigating our way to a new culture of transportation, which happens to involve this simple device. When was the last time you pulled up to another person in a car to chat about how much you love driving, or how long you’ve owned your Buick?
The ecological advantage of a vehicle that doesn’t require an input of fossil fuels is clear. For some folks, cycling still doesn’t seem an appealing enough solution. As a person living in rural America, I can sympathize with some of the complications that living a bike-based lifestyle can involve. Here in Northeast Missouri, we have treacherous mud, bone-jarring gravel, blind corners, and dogs that think bikes are prey.
When I lived in rural North-Central Washington, my bike commuting was greatly aided by an effective public transportation service. Some basic knowledge of flat repair is a requirement, and cellular phone communication in case of an incident is a nice option for the beginning commuter.
As far as angry dogs are concerned, I’ve had a lot of luck just slowing down, confidently approaching the animal, and saying, “You’re a good dog. You’re so good at chasing things.” Takes ‘em off guard. I’ve also sprayed dogs in the face with water bottles, with mixed results. Don’t try to outrun them unless you’re sure you can win, though.
Pitfalls aside, there are a lot of places where bikes have the upper hand on cars, at least for me. For one thing, I can fix a bike. I cannot fix a car. And I’m not exactly a genius at fixing things. If you have any doubts, come to my homestead and check out all the broken stuff in the toolshed, with the door that doesn’t shut.
“How did you learn to fix bikes?” I am often asked. Well, when I got rid of the car, I decided to take my bike apart the night before I had to go to work, and put it back together again. Eventually I figured it out. There are easier ways, of course, like going to your local bike co-op, or checking out Sheldon Brown’s website. (Perhaps the geekiest bike thing you can do.)
Bikes are cheaper, by far, though it is true you can probably spend as much money on some bikes as you would for some cars. But you don’t need to go into one of those sporty, weird-smelling bike shops and lay down 3 G’s for a newly manufactured velocipedal product, when the best bikes, made of the best steel, came out twenty five years ago and are probably sitting in your grandpa’s basement.
In general a good bicycle can be had for less than tens of dollars, and doesn’t require much more than a little bit of grease, an inner tube, and some cables now and then. Or check out the dumpsters in a college town on move out day, and you might get yourself a free bike.
Bikes increase your sex appeal. I have strong, shapely legs. Bikes did that to me. This is often noticed. Nobody ever says anything about my little stick arms, or my sickly thin torso, so if this is a big motivator for you, consider mixing up your exercise regime. I’ve always considered sweating to be sexier than emitting fumes, and you can ride a bike wearing a dress, a leotard, those little black shorts, or nothing at all! (Limited chafing may occur.)
Bikes lend themselves well to improvisation. I have greased threads with lanolin, experimented with algae-based chain lube, stuffed flat tires with pine needles, patched them with dollar bills, and packed bearings with lard. (By the way, I do not recommend lard as a bike grease substitute, especially on hot days.) Though petroleum-based lubricants are the norm at most bike shops, the amount that is required to keep a bike running over its lifetime is minimal, and arguably a much higher use than combustible fuel. An amazing thing about bikes is that they are quite resilient. I know folks who’ve used a rock to bend a wheel back into shape to get themselves home. I know folks who’ve tied knots in their snapped cables to get back home. I don’t think you can do that with cars.
Bikes give folks a better view of the world. Cars are really fast. Between the windows and the climate control, a person could drive their whole life without knowing the seasons, but on a bike they can smell the rain, the flowers, the manure, whatever. I’ve found innumerable useful items on the side of the road on my bike trips, like tools, hardware, unopened cans of beer, wild edibles, and other biological specimens.
As a four season cyclist, my appreciation for winter, spring, summer, and fall has increased. My awareness of what it feels like before a rain, my attention to atmospheric details, my knowledge and understanding of wind and temperature have all been aided by my time on bikes. Now I can feel the cool moisture on my body as I descend into shady hill bottoms, and smell the cottonwood pollen along the river draws. I have seen coveys of bobwhite quail, and flushed wild turkeys from the roost at dawn. During a bicycle voyage around the San Juan Islands I got the chance to see orcas breach the Pacific waters. I have even spotted the plains Yeti.
Bikes build community. In my two years of riding in NEMO I’ve had the pleasure of meeting folks I wouldn’t have met in cars: Mennonite children fetching their mail (by bike), earnest Amish produce marketers plying their wares amid miles of corn, elderly hand tool junkies who had no idea that people like us actually use the things they merely collect, and NRCS (Natural Resource Conservation Service) field workers who’ve kindly informed me what state I’m in.
Here at Dancing Rabbit, we have our own communal shop space, Bike World. If I’m not out slopping the chickens or running the goats, look for me there. It’s a quaint, dark corner of a former pig barn that functions as a space where people can fix, borrow, or talk bikes, and it intersects quite nicely with the common outdoor kitchen, herb garden, and package delivery depot. Bike World is a (very) loosely organized utilitarian social space, based on gift economics and fixing stuff for the fun of it. We only get about two major snow-drift events in there a winter.
If riding bikes socially is your thing, then come on out for a Backpedalers Cycling Club Ride, yet another informal, loosely structured fun thing to do involving bikes in Northeast Missouri. In our first year of existence we have visited such exotic places as the all-you-can-eat Indian food buffet in Fairfield (I don’t recommend the chicken, though), the Handworks woodworking event in Amana Colonies, and the slightly more mundane destinations around here, like Big Bri’s Bar in Wyaconda, and The Dutchman’s General Store. So even if you’re not that into ecovillages yet, come on out for a nice ride. We’ve got enough gravel and unmarked county roads to share!
In all, if I were to make a conclusion, and it looks like I have to, ride a bike. If you can’t ride a bike, walk or take public transport. If you really want to, get a car, but share it with about twenty other folks, and watch out for wildlife. (I don’t generally support rollerblading, because those people swing their elbows everywhere, and it seems dangerous.)
Eight years into my grand bicycle experiment, I have no intention of ever stopping, unless I become physically unable to continue, in which case my daughter will have to tote me around in a trailer, as payback for all the miles I’ve carted her thus far. Perhaps if the rest of America becomes more like Dancing Rabbit, we won’t need bikes or cars, because all the things we need will be within walking distance. Until that time, you’ll be hard pressed to find a more fun, practical, or satisfying mode of transport. Well, except for unicycles.