Rick, you do realize that I, the author of this article, own a gas guzzler, right? I have a 2003 Ford Explorer, which works very, very well when I actually need to haul a lot of stuff at once. As little as my wife and I drive it (or my fuel-sipping compact car for that matter), you’d be ignorant so say that stuff about me directly.

While I agree that seeing thousands of single-occupant SUVs on the highway making the daily migration from suburbia to downtown KC is detestable, you should try, yourself, to be a little less closed-minded. Simply owning an SUV, sports car, or other vehicle that gets crappy gas mileage does not transform someone into a malevolent, earth-killing a-hole.

We buy very little gas, though, now that both me and my wife are biking almost everywhere. We are having fun.

I have a co-worker who bought a home some 20 miles from town because she got more house for the buck, but now she spends $60 as week on gas. Plus, in our current real estate slump, no one wants to buy that place in the sticks.

“I’m a hypermiler. I treat stop signs as yields, I carry speed through corners, and I glom onto the dead air space behind semis and RVs to pull me across town. Of course, that’s all on my bicycle.”

Agressive hypermiling by motorized vehicle or bicycle can be very dangerous as well as illegal. I am entirely in favor of this:

“the “Idaho Stop” at intersections for cyclists. In that enlightened state, riders can treat stops as yields, an allowance which recognizes it’s unreasonable to ask a cyclist to give up energy when there’s no reason to stop-and that cyclists are bright enough to know they are at a serious disadvantage should they fail to yield to autos.”

However, until such laws are in place nation wide, cyclists who disobey traffic laws will continue to serve as an example to motorists and authorities who continue to question or deny our rights on the road.

On a different note, I heard on the news this week that repeatedly letting the gas in your tank go below 1/8th full is hard on the fuel pump on vehicles with tank mounted pumps. The fuel in your tank draws excess heat away from the pump and cools it. I’m not sure about the evaporation worry, but it might also have to do with the vapor recovery systems at gas stations sucking the evaporated gas out of the tank during refueling.

I grow veggies on my porch but it is going to be a while before they are ready and they surely won’t get me through the winter. I could sure use to lose a few pounds, but I’d prefer not to go the starvation route. No thanks.

I’m a hypermiler. I treat stop signs as yields, I carry speed through corners, and I glom onto the dead air space behind semis and RVs to pull me across town. Of course, that’s all on my bicycle.

It’s funny that drivers are now just waking up to what cyclists have known all along–momentum is energy, and energy is precious.

I hope that all this will lead to more rational traffic policy and engineering. Roundabouts are safer and more efficient than stoplights, for instance. I would also love to see the whole country adopt the “Idaho Stop” at intersections for cyclists. In that enlightened state, riders can treat stops as yields, an allowance which recognizes it’s unreasonable to ask a cyclist to give up energy when there’s no reason to stop–and that cyclists are bright enough to know they are at a serious disadvantage should they fail to yield to autos.

On another point, and it may take a call to Car Talk to clarify this, but I don’t believe a nearly empty fuel tank is subject to greater evaporation. As I understand it, automobile gas tanks are sealed to prevent all that out-gassing, which would have a detrimental, if mildly pleasant, effect on our collective brain power. Then again, gas huffing would provide a good explanation for much of the behavior of the American collective.
Happy Trails,
Ron Georg
Moab