Cycling Manifesto, Part One

I'd like to talk about the benefits of cycling WITHOUT mentioning Global Warming, Exercise, or Oil Wars. The subjects too often consume the spotlight on the myriad of bicycling wonders.
Community, local economy, out-sourcing, world economy:  strip malls and chain stores would be a thing of the past if the majority converted to cycle-commuting.  We'd see a thriving resurgence of local economy.  If folks were cycling, the town center or neighborhood square wouldn't be a ghost town do the difficulty and unpleasantness involved in accessing the far off big box store. Tearing down historic old buildings or large stands of trees for the sake of a strip mall or parking lot? Who would conceive of doing such a thing? And if we weren't CONSUMING (and subsidizing) so much gasoline, it wouldn't be so cheap. If prices were to skyrocket, it would no longer be economically feasible for big box stores to pay slave wages at off-shore sweat shops and ship products from other continents. If they still continued such practices, their inevitable price increases would prevent them from retaining their positions as competion killers, which would even out the playing field and nullify their current political power.   In genereal, if bicycles were the primary mode of transportation, big business could not exist as is, shifting the balance of money and thus political power to local owners who are actually invested in their communities.  It would put the wabash on the World Trade Organization, bring more manufacturing and labor jobs back into this country, and potentially assist in the re-birth of a place for true artisans.

I say all this like it's common sense. Perhaps I should explain in more detail. But the sun is shining, the dog is whining and it's time for a jog in the park. More, much more to say. Someday soon.....

By the way - those with a similar sentiment might want to check out "Car Busters" - a magazine started in Lyon, France in '98, now based in the Czech Republic.  Its brand of activism tends to get a little more radical than I agree with, but to read of cycling promotion and anti-car activities all over the world is fascinating and inspiring!  Though a little dis-heartening that most Americans are still so in the dark.....

Missing my piss-poor, cycling starving artist

Met the man of my dreams. (Nine months ago; thus why I have not written.)
Then he became a mailman.
Going postal has certainly changed him. Sixty hours a week of walking up and down hills and staircases, sometimes trudging through thick banks of snow, all while carrying a heavy load of catalogs and junk mail, has broken him. He clenches his teeth as he delivers the embodiment of 2 acres of Canadian old-growth forest clearing per minute. He then returns home, tired and weary, to sit on the couch, watch tv, and let his woman cook, clean and massage him. And his one day off? Sitting INSIDE (who wants to be outside after working out there all day, six days a week?) and resting.
Resting!? Inside!?
This is an artist/ex-hippie who cycled approximately 150 miles a week, climbed mountains and/or camped on any consecutive two days off, who kept his house spotlessly clean and organized on his own and took great pride in that!
And I swore I'd never be a housewife.
Well, I'm not. We're not married, I do have a fulltime job, and we split the costs of most things. I used to be active - both in the outdoors in the arts and local music - in an almost compulsive and unhealthy manner. Now I work - for the first time - inside an office, under florescent lights, in a cubicle. I come home, walk th dog, buy groceries, cook, eat, cuddle, clean, then sleep. Two years ago, I lived in old converted Ice Cream Factory / Warehouse in the little nook of the ghetto taken over by artists, now I'm in a house in the 'burbs. (sort of) This lifestyle, so common to the majority of Americans, is so foreign and soooo offensive to me!! And now the couch and tv are my good friends. I didn't even own such things prior to moving in with him!
Yes, that's right: at 28 years old, I had never owned - nor had any desire to own - a television.
The man also came with a dog. A fabulous, amazing Chocolate Lab who is also feeling the pangs of our new-found laziness. He is going crazy! Barking and moaning were things I was sure he wasn't capable of doing, yet these past few snowy and home-bound weeks, his disgruntled noised are constant.
The only grasp I maintain on my previous form of non-comformist sanity is that my mode of transportation is still my bicycle. My salvation! My religion! My soul-salvaging, anxiety reducing, eco-transit!
Until the snow came. With no shoulders and no sidewalks, I'm a little hesitant to cycle down the middle of a one lane street in the dark. Most folks 'round here aren't hip to the law that bikes share the road.
Yesterday I finally said "Fuck-it - at least to go grocery shopping, I'm riding my bike."
The garage door ("Bicycle shop door") was frozen shut. No shit. Couldn't open it. No cycle for me.
Oh, cursed are student loans!!! Especially for relatively meaningless art school degrees!
Almost paid off. By the time spring is here, the debt should be gone, a small cushion in the bank, Anthony can quit the oppressive and soul-squasing, postal service, and I can have my over-eager, exploration/adventure-loving, broke-ass cycling artist back!!!
As long as I don't break before then.