Even though the temperatures in the winter can be as low as -30 degrees celsius, with the right gear commuting by bike has become one of the best parts of my day. I feel great when I get to work and I have started to loose some weight. Not to mention, I’m not spending money on gas/parking and I’m not crammed on a stuffy train that over capacity.

Making arrangements to work within cycling distance of home hasn’t always been easy, but sparing our family of the expense of a second car has been great. I also wouldn’t exercise nearly as much without the 30-60 miles per week.

The next year, I moved further out of town to live with my grandfather. I also had a newborn daughter and a pressing need for daycare. The place we found for that required me to take the bus downtown, transfer to another bus, drop her off, take another bus back into town, transfer to another bus to get to class and then, at the end of the day, do it all in reverse. Nearly half of every day was spent either riding a bus or waiting to ride a bus. I learned to despise the bus and the “hub and spoke” system and as soon as that situation changed and I no longer had to do that song and dance, I was back on the bike for a mere 7 mile/30 minute commute each way.

Later, I had a job downtown which would double my commute and put me onto roads that were hostile to bicycles, but there was free parking so I drove even though I disliked the process of actually commuting by automobile. Another job was almost as far but on better roads so then I was back on the bike. The latest job was downtown but two things had changed. One, the city had recently opened the Eliza Furnace Rail Trail. While it was only 4 miles long, it allowed me to completely bypass the dangerous 5th Avenue corridor through Oakland. Second, though, I had moved into a new house that put me on the other side of a large hill with some additional unpleasant road to ride on.

I compromised. I drive part way to not deal with the hill near my house but ride my bike the rest of the way.

It would’t matter to me if someone gave me a free car, gas, maint, and insurance, I still would make this commute by bike.

The exercise, the stress relief, the savings, are too much a benefit to ignore. Plus, I love this form of transportation.

I moved to Germany in 1998, where I had a nice bike and excellent public transportation that didn’t make having a car necessary. Then I moved to Japan in 2003, where I had to commute by car 20 miles everyday to my teaching jobs. It wasn’t my car, but it still got me back into the car-dependent lifestyle. I got married in 2005 and moved closer to my jobs and started using a “mama chari,” a cheap Chinese made bike with a basket on the front handlebars, a bike I had rescued from the dumpster, to commute to work. I had to pay someone $30 to weld two seatposts together so I could get the seat high enough! But the gears didn’t always work right and changing flats was a bear, so I finally asked a German friend to send me my German bike in the mail. It arrived in a pile of bits with the derailleur arm broken. A bike shop put it all back together again. Now I commute by bike everyday except Wednesday when I have to drive my wife to her job. My Japanese wife thinks I am crazy to bike commute and demands to be driven around in the car. But I never thought I would try driving my bike in the winter till I started reading this blog. It’s now winter break so I haven’t had to ride in the snow, yet. But I have ridden on some icy roads already in early December.

Commuting by bike gives me meditation time, better health, and keeps my weight down. The good environmental aspects alone would be enough to make me bike commute. When gasoline cost $7 a gallon last summer, I laughed. But a key was having a comfortable bike that didn’t kill my knees.

Transition for both of us to go Car-free:
We read the book “Your Money or Your Life” by Joe Dominguez and Vicky Robins and followed their exercises to better understand our finances. When we realized our one car (a very pretty blue 2007 Honda Fit) was costing us about $600/month after factoring in ALL of the associated expenses over the long term. We made the choice of selling the car in April 2007 (CarMax is wonderful!) and moving to Sacramento, CA within walking distance of my wife’s work. I was able to start commuting by the Amtrak train or very inexpensively by the subsidized university bus from the medical center. We get our groceries by bike, take road trips by bike and rent a car when we need to get far out of town to visit family. The exhilarating exercise, fresh air and financial freedom has converted us to be bike commuters and permanently car-free.

Cheers,