My Other Bike is a Fifty-Dollar Schwinn

There’s something deeply satisfying about reaching a distant place on nothing but your own power. I’ve felt a bit of that sensation before on long runs and section hikes, but my experiences are dimmed next to those of one Canadian adventurer who recently became the first person to travel around the world without the aid of gas, steam or even wind.
But then again, while thirty four year-old Colin Angus hiked, rowed, pedaled and paddled for the two years it took to close his giant circle in Vancouver last May, most of us were busy working.
I recently took the jealousy you probably detect here, however, combined it with the very work schedule around which so many of us have to plan our adventures, and devised my own personal odyssey.
Three weeks ago, I began commuting by bicycle to my full-time job as a high school English teacher. The fifteen-mile round trip is not difficult in itself, but the daily routine tests my long term endurance- my day-to-day loyalty to both myself and my personal goal. That goal, however, has been swelling to more ambitious proportions everyday since teachers reported back to school the week before Labor Day.
At first, I planned on riding in a few days a week. Then it became eighty percent of the first marking period. Then everyday until Halloween. Then Thanksgiving. Then I began playing with the idea of going the entire one hundred eighty-plus days of the school year. In other words, I’ve become addicted, not just looking forward to the peace and quiet of the morning commute but actually relying on the afternoon commute to blow off steam. As I write this, I have ridden into work sixteen out of sixteen days. The goal is still being devised, but what I do know for sure is that I wish had I started this routine years ago.
I’ve tried to make this as much of an experiment in economics as it is a test of my own commitment. I commute on a Cannondale road bike that was manufactured sometime while I was still in high school, probably an entire decade before I even started teaching high school eight years ago. I bought it used for a hundred dollars last month. I could have ridden it just as I bought it, but I decided to splurge on new handlebar tape and a cheap pair of clipless pedals and shoes. On rainy days, I ride the Schwinn hybrid I bought last year at a flea market for fifty bucks, and when the mornings got chilly last week, I bought a ten-dollar pair of mechanic’s gloves at Wal-Mart and began wearing my racquetball glasses to block the wind- I never said I looked good doing this!
I used to work in a bike shop, so I’ve been able to keep these old horses galloping all by myself. In addition, according to my own estimates, I’ve been able to save five gallons of gas a week by keeping my Dodge pickup in the driveway. And while I’m certainly not ready to give up my truck, the City of Seattle- an increasingly green community that strongly encourages bicycle commuting- estimates the savings of eliminating one car from a family at $340 each month.
Speaking of being green, it is certainly another factor behind my new routine. I saw Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth shortly before we went back to school, and while my plans to commute by bike were already in place, the cautionary tale about global warming surely cemented my plan.
For example, the film’s web site, http://www.climatecrisis.net/, lists a number of striking statistics about the role bike commuting can have in saving our atmosphere. Climate Crisis claims that every gallon of gasoline not used is another twenty pounds of carbon dioxide that is not reaching the sky. An average American is responsible for releasing about 15,000 pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, with much of that coming from personal transportation. Climate Crisis also says that by avoiding driving just ten miles a week, you can reduce this amount by 500 pounds a year. Reading this felt good, knowing that my daily commute alone shatters this number.
Nevertheless, the site’s "Personal Impact" calculator labels me as a "larger than average" contributor of carbon dioxide.
I wonder what "average" means, though. The United States is way behind the rest of the world in using bicycles as an alternative mode of transportation. According to the Washington State Energy Office Extension Services, China leads the world with 77% of its commuters using bicycles. The Netherlands also has a good showing at 50%. Just 1.6% of American commuters, however, ride bicycles to work.
If the earth’s health isn’t motivating Americans to ride to work, you might expect our own health problems to get more of us on bikes. I’ve written here before about my own struggles with weight. Having once weighed 245 pounds, I know how hard it is to get fit. But by adopting a much healthier lifestyle, I reached my current weight of 188 pounds. My weapon against obesity was running road races and hiking, but riding a bike to work can be just as effective. According to Bicycling Magazine, bicycle commuting by itself can help a newcomer lose approximately thirteen pounds in the first year.
Then there’s riding a bike for the sake of riding a bike. My good friend who is a teacher in another town also started riding into work recently. The stories we share are quite similar. We’ve both felt the gradual change of the seasons. Witnessed beautifully pink sunrises and the way dew settles lightly on cobwebbed lawns. Big, full moons that linger in the still-dark sky. And the great satisfaction of getting someplace all on our own.