cooker

Hey, I asked you first. It sounded like you were somehow questioning Mr Duzer's commitment to LCF since he is profiting from it.

Machka 

It didn't sound like that to me.

Mobile 155

I am not sure she was questioning his commitment. I was however saying that a young single person being financed to travel to different countries and making a healthy salary while doing it makes it easier than most people have it. Jumping on a flight to the Dominican Republic on the company dime, I know you cannot ride a bike to get there, and filming a series on Cock Fights is a lot easier to do than trying to manage a home and family for most people.

And I understand how that is. Back in my youth I ran with a bunch of Sail Boat Cruisers that had a goal of dropping everything and setting sail for ports unknown. Most of us knew that you needed 350 to 500k to fund yourself for two or three years and most of us were willing to sell the house and the car, get some folders and head south towards Mexico and eventually the Panama canal.

It was easy to be part of this car free group when I was single. And by the definition of this forum they were as car free as most and more so than many. I didn't have a car either, I had a motorcycle. But by the time I could afford a boat big enough with the right equipment I got married. Things were still good and we got a business partner to help outfit the boat. The birth of my son and the death of our business partner meant that we never made the transition to cruiser and I ended up back in business full time. If someone like the History Channel was paying the travel tab I might have been car free and living between ports today.

It is all a matter of perspective I think. I worked for a CEO who was car free. The flew from a Mountain Community to Long Beach/LA in his plane. He flew from the airport to the company in a helicopter. If he had to go somewhere the company car picked him up and dropped him off. He didn't own a car at least till he retired that I knew about. Don't know if that makes him a car free hero however.

My perspective anyway.

wipekitty

Also notice where this individual lives: Boulder, Colorado, which happens to be a League of American Bicyclists Platinum rated city.

I lived in Boulder for a few years in the early to mid-2000s, and can confirm that it's an extremely easy place to get around without a car. In addition to paved MUPs with north-south and east-west connectivity, on-street bike lanes on larger roads, and marked bicycle routes, the public transit system is quite excellent: clean, well-timed, good hours of service, and connections to regional transit (for getting to Denver, the burbs, and the mountains.) Contrary to popular belief, it is a rather temperate climate: it gets cold for a few days here and there, but then the snow melts and its in the 50s again.

My point is that someone living car-free in Boulder is not an anomaly, and the challenges of living car-free in a bicycle friendly environment are far fewer than in a location where there is no infrastructure, open hostility toward cyclists, limited public transit, and a decent risk of injury or death due to weather, crime, infrastructure issues, and other problems. (FWIW, I also lived in that environment just a few years back.)

So, I think it's great that this guy is promoting human-powered transportation and that Boulder is providing an environment supportive of this lifestyle choice. But to me, the real car-free hero is that one older guy I rode with a few times: since he started commuting in the 60s, he nailed down routes where none exist, learned to navigate dangerous intersections, got chased down by packs of feral dogs, and was even threatened at gunpoint several times. With all that, he still continued to ride.

Maelochs

Don't have a car.

Don't die.

Done.

Dahon.Steve

Probably the only negative thing I can say about Boulder is the high cost of renting. Homes are beautiful but they are very expensive. I didn't see a studio under 1K a month while searching!

I guess you may very well have to be carfree in order to pay the high rents!

SHBR

High rent is all too common in most major cities.

I'd also hazard a guess that most people who are car free are not homeowners.

The gold standard in my opinion, is to own multiple properties and be debt free.

That's unlikely to happen for most of the population, its going the other direction unfortunately.

I've been car free for 12 years, I still empathize with car owners though, its an expensive, and often times necessary expense.

Just one component of an elaborate debt trap that many people get permanently stuck in.

Maelochs

I have never been to Shanghai, but Beijing when I was there was very bike-friendly---as in the bike lane was about twenty feet wide. I hear that changed when cars got more popular and might be changing back. I think a lot of it was economic---people couldn't afford cars. But in a city it is a lot easier ... and in a bike-friendly city even easier.

A lot of people simply do not have the option ... either to own multiple homes, be debt-free, or be car-free.

Glad it works for you. Not being sarcastic at all when i say that. Glad you designed a life which suits you.

Walter S

1K per month is relatively cheap where I live. But salaries are higher than living in the sticks too. It all balances out.

SHBR

Car culture is starting to show its ugly side all over China.

Epic traffic jams, increasing road rage, and the cost of car ownership in big cities like Shanghai is significantly higher than comparable cities in the US.

Bicycles are seen as poor mans transportation.

Rental bikes may have changed that a bit with the younger generation, even still, there is no respect for these as well.

Debt culture is on the rise, materialistic values have replaced human values.

People have literally sold their own kidneys to buy the latest i-gadget.

News, especially bad news has been suppressed, social media accounts are directly linked to your ID, and soon your credit score.

The TV series black mirror isn't far off from reality.

A simple life is a happy life.

PdalPowr

One way I try to live a car free life is to be proactive.
To think every day on how to leave the car behind.
I know it sounds weird but taking care of your car is
part of learning to leave it behind. A well maintained
car pollutes less and all the time I am maintaining it
I tell myself if I didn't have a car I could be riding my bike.

Walter S

If you don't have a car that becomes pretty easy.

Maelochs

I am sorry but I have a lot better things to think about all day, every day, than how to not use a car.

Funny thing is, I think i have driven my car once since last March or April ... when I took some wheels to get tubeless tiers inflated (I have no compressor.) (And it didn't work anyway.) I could have taken a bike, but I have tried transporting wheels and it is a pain.

I don't need to tell myself I could be riding when I am maintaining my car. If I want to go ride I will. Since I don't use the car, i can always maintain it later.

In fact, since I place no value on living car-light or car-free, I find it remarkably easy to live car-light or car-free. Why stress?

I think of the people who go to church several times a week, and spend the rest of the time telling everyone that they go to church a lot.

Just do it.

tandempower

This sounds very zen. So have you come to the LCF forum to save us from placing value on LCF/LCL so that we stop stressing and thus impeding our ability to LCF/LCL, or have you considered the possibility that some people enjoy devoting mental and physical effort to LCF/LCL, including thinking about and discussing it in an online discussion forum?

cooker

Every time you leave the house and don't use the car, you've made a decision, whether you consciously think it through or not, to live somewhat more car-light than if you had driven. What factors do you think influence you to use the car so much less than the norm?

Maelochs

I love riding the bike. I only like driving.

PdalPowr

One step at a time.

Walter S

The fact it’s so much more pleasant and relaxing and fun and dynamic to do it cycling instead of driving and it feeds my soul and exercises my body while contributing less pollution to the environment. I live in an area with more and more bike lanes and paths, with the latest off-road trail starting 200 feet from my driveway and connecting to a ride around a lake on the way to shops downtown. It’s just kind of there for my enjoyment. Why would I want to drive with all the stress and hassle parking??

cooker

Thanks for thinking about it

Why do you own a car you use so infrequently - wouldn't it make sense to get rid of it and rent a car the once or twice a year you seem to need it?

Mobile 155

That reminds me of something a friend of mine said just yesterday. A few of us were sitting around and talking about relationships. This friend had been married five times and someone wanted to know if he ever planned on getting married again. He said something I believe he got from someone else. He said next time he was just going to hook up with a mean woman and buy her a house. It would make more sense in the long run.

What often makes sense to one person doesn't to another. I hear the get rid of some of your bikes all the time. They say I can only ride one at a time and it doesn't make sense to spend the money.

Maelochs

I am quite attached to my car. It is economical, reliable, the most beautiful car on the road, and it is paid for. Because it is ancient, I have the minimal insurance ... but if I want or need it ... There it is. In most cases, I can use it for whatever I want and be back before the person dropping off the rental car would even be there.

Time is the one resource I cannot earn.

For instance ... next weekend i might need to throw my old lawnmower in the back and take it in to get serviced. That would have to be on Sunday, my only day off.

So ... I would probably have to rent a car for the weekend, take time off work to drive the driver back to the shop after it was delivered, have it sit in my driveway until Sunday, then use it for 30 minutes, then take time off work And involve my wife to drop it off and get a ride back.

But ... I also plan to try to clean the lawnmower's carb first. And if I can clean the carb and it starts ... no need for the car.

So either I rent a car and (hopefully) don't use it ... or I spend two weekends to do what I could do in one weekend if I owned a car (clean this weekend, rent a car next weekend---killing two weekends and as I said, time is precious.)

Th other thing ... I use my car for two things: long trips for work, which rarely happen since my job changed .... and rescuing my wife when she has car trouble, has an accident, a flat, whatever. So far I have done that at least once a year I think, since we have been married.

She always calls when I am sleeping, or eating or otherwise engaged ... and always demands immediate aid.

In the tiny town where I live, Uber and Lyft are nonexistent. I am not sure if there is a cab company ... the nearest I know of is 20 miles away. And I certainly cannot rent a car on a moment's notice at 10 p.m. while my wife is on the side of the road somewhere, crying.

That and the occasional... "It is cold and pouring rain, and my wife just got back from the store and did not mail the important package I asked her to mail, or did not buy the important whatever I asked her to buy ... and she is going out to do more errands."

She commutes almost two hours a day (which I think is insane, but she also makes the megabucks (compared to me) so hey, it's her life. But she Needs her car, and needs it to be running all the time. In terms of every kind of efficiency including financial, it seems that keeping an old, reliable, little-used, car with minimal insurance is a good deal.

If I rented a car for say, five days, and drove to say, Atlanta, I bet rental, mileage and insurance fees would equal what I spend per year keeping my car registered and insured. Then if I wanted to go to Virginia or Alabama later that year (actual real possible trips) I would be losing cash over keeping my car in the driveway and taking it to the store a few times a year just to shake the dust loose.

Possibly if my car got totaled in a wreck or something, I might consider other options ... but still when I need to travel for work, i need to carry a bunch of weather-sensitive and fragile gear, so even a motorcycle is not a great option.

So basically ... I could give a some processed cheese food about being "Car-Light" or "Car Free." I make decisions based on the whole of my life and what advances the whole of my life.

Right now keeping the car seems to be the best alternative.

Rollfast

My mom's Toyota Avalon she got after someone totaled her Buick in traffic just before Christmas has heated seats...

And after she had two knee surgeries and they corrected her spinal curvature finally when she was 68, I'm not making her bicycle over here nor will I pedal along Interstate 84 for 35 miles with 80 mph traffic.

Rollfast

Sorry, but the original homeowners violated their HOA and messed up their garden, got kicked out and there was a family murder that was the first Hood. It's all downhill from there.

cooker

Owning a bike you rarely use is a lot less of a deal than owning a car you rarely use. Presumably there's some insurance on the car, and annual licensing or registration fees, it probably needs some ongoing maintenance (more than a bike does) and in some, but of course not all cases, you have more equity tied up in it.

Mobile 155

Still it is the same question. What one doesn't think someone else needs often has nothing to do with what someone can afford. I have heard the same about owning your own home verses renting. Having an expensive watch when you also have a cell phone. The answer I often think of is, because I can.