Walter S

I agree. I ride my bicycle most places. But having another option sometimes is a big help.

Some people cop out on mass transit and say their system sucks when they've not invested the time to learn how the bus routes and schedules and online resources work. I hear alfull stuff about our MARTA system here in Atlanta but it works pretty good for me. Has a bus ever been late? Yes but not much, and infrequently.

With all the accidents and delays, it's not like car commuting is real predictable. If you want consistent commute times though ride a bicycle! My commute is around an hour and twenty minutes and is almost always within a couple minutes and might be five minutes longer a few times per year.

Walter S

Or born into a poor family.

I'm blessed by circumstances for now that make the expense not a factor. I don't want to pollute the world, I love the adventure and direct connection with the environment. And like you say NEVER sitting in traffic is big.

But just as much, is my belief that modern society is designed to make you soft and weak and die a slow death. I refuse to be indoctrinated. If I listen to my body then bicycling makes me stronger every time I ride. It's a beautiful machine. I'll never get over feeling fascinated and invigorated by how right and pure it is nearly every day.

I grew up riding the bus before people started driving their kids every day in a paranoid fit from watching too much CNN.

Really! Thank you Joey.

tandempower

I nominate this for the quote-of-the-thread award.

hartlean

That depends on what does matter, during the few years each of us is granted to live on this planet. These are questions about the meaning of life, the purpose we are supposed to fulfill. Until you answer those Qns, does anything else matter?

As a Christian, my purpose is to glorify God by enjoying Him. That happens to some extent, at least, when I do my best to fit into His plan for humanity. He put us here to care for the earth (Genesis 2:15); the “plan” is & was for us to steward & shepherd the creation.

Caring for creation might include some use of cars; however, with 7.5 billion people on the earth, each of us can emit only about 4 tons of CO2 annually (on average), before we go “over the budget” & increase the greenhouse gas effect to the extent that the earth warms too fast. When it warms too fast, most species cannot adapt sufficiently, & go extinct. Already, the extinction rate is at least 100 times the rate before the Industrial Revolution. That affects humans, since we depend on those other species (more than most of us realize).

Staying within the carbon “budget” is not easy if we drive cars much (or eat much meat, or keep our houses hot in the winters, or…). That’s why LCF or, at least, living car-lite, could matter a great deal.

If you have a different purpose on this earth, though, maybe LCF doesn’t matter to you. If you have no purpose, then nothing at all matters. I’m not criticizing that; I’m just trying to make your remark meaningful.

Ekdog

Bible thumping isn't supposed to be allowed here.

Siu Blue Wind

Shall I move this to Politics and Religion?

If not, please lets keep religion out of it .

MikeinFL

I was car free for several hours when my battery went dead. I rode my bike to Walmart, got a new battery, and brought it home in my bike basket.

If my car was stolen or too expensive to fix, I could live car free ok. But, I want to take my bike to far away fun places to bike.

rossiny

On this note, Ive notices that some bikers can ride a 100 mile race at speed to kill the competition, yet after the race they drive to the local convenience store to get a slushy.

Rowan

I am not sure what you are getting at. There are people who run marathons who then get in their cars to go home. You shouldn't conflate sport and competition with utility cycling.

rossiny

Kind of agree with no bible thumping., but I agree with the concept that we are living in a very unnatural time after the industrialization. Going from most people having a connection to the earth and where food comes from ...to no connection with earth and thinking work revolves around driving and computers and smart phones.

Ekdog

What concerns me is the belief--widely held, apparently--that we ought not to be concerned about what we are doing to the earth and to the human beings and other creatures who live here, and that if we speak out on this issue we must therefore be smug and insincere and zealous ideologues of some sort. Perhaps this twisted way of thinking is related to the lack of a connection with the earth that you mention.

Walter S

Right. It just doesn't register in their minds that bicycles can be for more than recreation. I was like that for decades before I saw the light. I would get up before dawn and ride my bike 20-30 miles. Then I got ready for work and drove a car for about the same distance, while disgusted with the rush hour traffic.

So many wasted opportunities to replace the awful drive with a quality bike ride.

Ekdog

Let's face it. There are many recreational cyclists who wouldn't be caught dead cycling to work or to the supermarket.

wphamilton

In the original post you observed, "Y'all aint got no little kids". I wouldn't really want to be car-free with small children either - newly born to toddlers - so I can sympathize, but the fact is they can do just fine.

I recall the first time I was even exposed to the concept as a young man attending a university. Not car-free students; obviously students could live car-free on or near campus, but in some of the subcultures in the community it was more normal than not. I didn't really get it: what about the little kids, babies? It gets cold in Lubbock Tx. Freezing rain frequently, lots of ice, snow happens, brutal winds, storms like you won't see most places. How would you deal with it?

Well, to even ask the question was a source of amusement, naive college kid. Little kids are cared for at home by parents, grandparents, someone 100% of the time and you don't actually take them anywhere. On the rare occasion that you do take the small child out, they know how to bundle them up, comfortable and safe, on the bike and it's no particular challenge. It's been the common practice for generations. So my curiosity about that was in the vein of "dumb questions". They do just fine.

I still took it all with a grain of salt. Generations of experience notwithstanding, it still had to be safer and easier to jump into a car to take a sick kid to the doctor, and faster if you had an ER emergency. Now I'm not so sure. Those are still valid points, but it seems to me now that with the right planning and preparedness there really is no insurmountable issue with small children.

JoeyBike

Humans have been raising children on this planet for over a million years. Cars have been around about one century. I think it is safe to say that humans can do without cars in the long run. 7 Billion humans is my proof.

Yes...some of your children will die due to lack of getting to a doctor in time. Didn't seem to slow down our little overpopulation problem.

hartlean

Well, Walter S remarked about what doesn't matter. What matters is, in turn, a religious question.

Then, Siu Blue Wind quoted Buddha.

Maybe religion is allowed here only when Christianity is not involved?

In any case, if you believe "with our thoughts, we make the world," then none of this should offend. Just re-make it acc to your desires, right? If someone doesn't like something, they can simply "think" it away.

wphamilton

Please chill out. It's a sig line and a Buddha quote is not necessarily religious in any event.

wphamilton

Not necessarily due to being car-free, given planning and preparedness including choices of where you live. I guess I was too rambling to make that point clearly.

Walter S

In most locations you're better off calling 911 and riding in an ambulance than you are driving. The medics on the ambulance are well trained in giving life saving treatments enroute. And they can inform the hospital and get you expedited treatment right when they arrive vs. you having to start from scratch raising attention in an ER waiting room. And they won't get a speeding ticket or sit in traffic long.

JoeyBike

Good points.

wolfchild

Let's face it. It's may not be practical for many recreational cyclists to ride their bike to work because of their location of where they live and work...or maybe they have no interest in transportational cycling, so what ??

Ekdog

Are you interested in LCF?

willydstyle

You seem to post a lot in a forum for an lifestyle you have zero interest in.

Ekdog

Could you please keep religion out of this? I find many of the posts interesting, including yours, and all you're going to achieve by arguing with the moderators is to have the thread banished.

Machka 

+1