Why i bike

I get asked this a lot, and not always by other people. So here's my manifesto, a title scribed in the immutable pixels of a video monitor (ahem) to explain this curious habit of mine.

Bicycling is a surprisingly polarizing activity. Oh sure, recreational cycling isn't that bad. At worst it's an activity for children, a quaint throwback to days of training wheels, school lunches, and endless summers before you got your driver's license. However, it's when you become a utility cyclist that you might as well turn in your passport, your gonads, and break out Das Kapital or maybe the hookah. The notion of bicycling somewhere to do something challenges the unconscious symbol of US status, prosperity, and independence: the automobile. Furthermore, it requires physical exertion, something that should only be done in the carefully climate-controlled environment of a gym.

On top of that there's that special class of Darwinian experiment one sees riding around town at breakneck speed, running lights and cutting off pedestrian, automobile, and cyclist alike with complete disregard for the traffic code. These cretins do nothing to improve the image of cyclists, especially when their obituary makes the front page as a triumphant exposé of the hazards of cycling. And don't get me started on the sidewalk riders...

Okay, i could go on and on about the classes of bicyclist, but i digress. Anyway, i'm a fred, a biking amateur in the most pejorative sense: i have both excessive and inadequate gear for my level of dedication and too much knowledge for so little wisdom on the ins-and-outs of bike maintenance. I seem "hard core" to the majority, who haven't made the cognitive leap that biking somewhere is like driving there, but more fun and healthy. On the other hand, to "real" bikers, i'm un poseur, a hack: i'm a fred.

People find even this level of cycling eccentric, of course. I'm offered (and decline) a ride home so often from these places i bike that i begin to wonder, myself, the reasons why i do it. Because:

• it's stimulating
• it's inexpensive
• it's invigorating
• it's different
• it's independence
• it's freedom
• it's efficient
• it's adventurous
• it's exercise
• it employs elegant machinery
• it burns no fossil fuels
• i can

The last point, in particular, is valuable. The ability to say "I'm going to bike to the next state."—and then do so—is inestimable.