"For God's sake get yourself a car"

Many decades ago, when I was much younger and dumber, some woman brushed me off with the memorable line, "For God's sake get yourself a car." At the time, I had recently moved to a large city, had just gotten a real job, and moved in a small area well served by public transportation, so while I didn't really like our car dependence even then, I basically had just not gotten around to the job of becoming motorized.

The memory of that has made me think now and then of the problems a young man would face if he were dedicated to being car-free. The state of carlessness would be a first impression that he might have trouble negating. What could he do about that? I thought about it over the years, and came up with an answer that I never will have a chance to try, but I wish I could because I think it could be great sport.

The first thing a guy would have to do is get a job and living arrangement where he could ride a bike to work, or walk. Public transportation is possible also, but there is monetary expense, and the goal is to minimize the monetary expense of going to work.

Then, go shopping for a car you might reasonably like to have. Probably that would be a compact car with just the basics. I am thinking of a new car, because the calculations are easier. With used, there is the unknown factor of repairs, but with new we can assume that repairs for the first five years will be minimal. Find the price of that new car, and divide the price by 60 months to find out how much you would have to pay per month to own it. If you would expect to borrow the money, it is fair to add the interest to this calculation.

Find the mileage figures for the car, and the current price of gasoline, and your distance to work, and calculate how much it would cost in gasoline if you drove to work every day.

Use the distance to work to estimate how may miles you would drive in a year to work, divide by 3,000 to get the number of oil changes you would need in a year, multiply by about $25 per oil change, and divide by 12 to get monthly amount for oil changes

Call an insurance agent, give the model of the car you have found, and find out how much it would cost per month for basic insurance.

If you would have to pay for garage space at home or parking at work don't forget those amounts.

Add up all the monthly amounts to find out how much a car would cost you per month.

Open a dedicated savings account (or just keep records if you are disciplined) and every month put into it your calculated monthly car cost.

To be fair, this money is your transportation budget, so if you have to buy a bus pass or take a taxi, pay for it from this account.

With the transportation account in place and funded, go to a neighborhood car rental place and rent a car. Pay for it from the transportation account. Find out what the procedure is, what their hours are, how much lead time you need, etc. Do this a few times until the procedure is smooth, they know you there, and you are comfortable doing it. Also, use the car so your driving skills don't atrophy. Continue renting a car once every month or two whether you need it or not, just so that it is easy to get one when you need it.

The above is preparation. Now for the execution.

When you meet some female and want to get beyond that first impression of carlessness to make some personal connection, don't say anything about whether or not you own a car. If you make a date and you will be expected to show up motorized, make sure the date is a couple days out. Then, rent a car and show up in it. Do NOT say anything about it AT ALL. Deflect or ignore any discussion of your automibile. You are not interested in her for car discussions anyway, nor should she be interested in you for that reason.

If things do not progress to a second date, it's probably not a car-related issue. Let her go, or address that other issue. If things do proceed to a second date, then your fun begins.

For the second date, do exactly as before. Rent a car and say nothing about it. If you get the same car or she is unobservant, things will go generally as before. If you get a different car and she is observant, she might ask about it or be too shy. If she doesn't ask, don't tell; let her wonder. Eventually she will crack and ask. If or when she does ask, then you get to make your points about not owning a car.

Your points will be many and they will be good, if she is capable of logical analysis. You clearly know how to operate a car since you have been using one to see her. You will have hard figures for the amount of money you are saving by not owning one. If your transportation account has grown enough, you could be in a position to walk into a dealership, write a check, and drive away. You could say that you are saving money for travel, or to buy a house. Engage her in discussion to find out if owning a car right now is so important that the other obvious benefits you have (extra money, new car on demand, no repair expenses) should be sacrificed for it, even though you have clearly demonstrated that you could buy and use a car tomorrow if you wanted to.

If, at that point, she is stuck on you owning a car when you do not presently own one but could walk into a dealership tomorrow and buy one, then you clearly have a values mismatch. But if she had some logical capabilities, she should see that you have some alternatives that are worth serious consideration.

New folder on line

I had to take the car in for repair yesterday. Just because it doesn't get driven to work by me doesn't mean it doesn't get driven. The dealership is right on the way to work, so I loaded the folding bicycle into the car, drove to the dealership, dropped off the car, rode to work, and reversed the procedure on the way home.

Everything generally worked as planned. I carried the bicycle case on the rack over the rear wheel, fastened down by two elastic cords. When I got to work I folded up the bike, put it in its case, and carried it to my desk. Lack of practice with the thing made the folding and unfolding a little slow. Fortunately I took the bike out of the case the night before and gave it a test ride, because the tires were low. A folding bicycle is not quite a grab-and-go device for that reason, unless you go often enough to keep on top of the tire situation. I didn't want to lock it up outside at work because everything on it is quick-release.

The bicycle is a Rambler-7 by Sun. One ride isn't enough for a review, but so far it seems fine. The highest of the seven gears is still a little low if one wants to go fast. The lowest gear is more than adequate for the small hills I encounter. The ride is a little twitchy compared to my mountain bike, but I find a road bike twitchy also so I don't think that is a feature of the folding bike, but a feature of any non-mountain bike.

I don't know why I feel a sense of freedom from doing this. I think it is the realization that an automobile provides a false freedom. In a car, one can go far and fast, as long as there are gas stations, the car doesn't break down, and you have enough money to keep it running. A bicycle goes far and fast enough for short trips, is cheap to own and operate, and has some user-serviceable parts.

Getting the folder operating is one more step on my march to simpler living. Of course owning several bikes is not as simple as owning one, but relatively, it is simpler than living in fear of car repairs.

Product review: Ortlieb messenger bag

There are many ways to carry stuff on a bicycle, and many opinions of the many ways. Each way has its trade-offs. I would like to offer my review of my chosen method, the Ortlieb waterproof messenger backpack (www.ortlieb.com).

I initially tried a couple different methods of carrying things. I settled on the backpack approach because it was the "on the body" solution instead of "on the bike." With a rack and bags on the bike, I would have to have suitable racks on all bikes, the bags could get dirty from road goo, I would have to remove them if I stopped somewhere on my commuting run; it just seemed like more fussing. I wanted one bag that I could use on any bike, and carry conveniently on days when I went to work NOT by bike. I wanted the backpack instead of the messenger bag because I was afraid of fatigue from wearing it on only one shoulder. (I don't know of my own knowledge if that would be a problem, but I couldn't afford to try both ways.)

Finally, the primary design goal was total waterproofness. With an overall goal of being able to go to work by bike in any conditions, I had to be prepared for rain.

The Ortlieb is the best one I found for being waterproof. That does not mean it is the best. It means that in my limited search this looked the best. It has a roll top, it has no outside pockets, it has minimal straps and attachment points. It is a big waterproof bag with shoulder straps.

It is comfortable, although I did wear it on a four-hour bike ride and my back was sore after two. I can't say what would have happened with some other backpack after two hours. My ride to work is one hour and I have no problems. It has some strips of material on the back that prevent the whole bag from remaining in contact with the body, but I still sweat. No solution is perfect, I think. It has a waist strap and chest strap for stability.

The size is good. Other bags are bigger, but if I do cram this one full it is about as much as I would want to carry anyway. The company makes an organizer that snaps on to two snaps near the top of the bag on the inside. I have one, and it makes things like a checkbook and small pieces of paper easy to reach. I like the fact that is one big deep bag and if I toss something in there it is not going anywhere.

I also don't always like the fact that it is one big deep bag. The inside is black, many of the things I put in it are dark or black, so sometimes I feel like I have to dive in with a flashlight to find something. Similarly with the roll top, it keeps the water out but if I want to get something out of the bag I have to take it off and unroll the top. But those are hardly problems with the bag. They are the price of the other features that I wanted.

There is no outside attachment point for a blinkie, but again, something sewn through the bag would be in conflict with the main design goal, being waterproof. It seems that this bag maximizes my one primary requirement.

I am very pleased with the bag. I agonized over the choices for about a year before I committed my Christmas money to it, my one piece of high-end biking gear. I feel it was the best choice for me.

The inefficiency of the automobile

I must rant about the inefficiency of the automobile. I has struck me a number of times in a couple kinds of situations.

Recently on my way to work on my bicycle, I noticed a large truck right behind me. This was on a city street with two lanes in each direction and a speed limit of 35 miles per hour. He stayed behind me for the longest time before finally passing. As he passed I could see why he had stayed there. There had been one car in the left land of the two lanes in our direction, in his blind spot. He was unable to move to the left to get around me because of the car on his left.

In front of us there was no other traffic. After they both had passed me, I could see that there was no other traffic behind them. The two of them were stuck behind me because of their positions relative to each other, like the comedy skit of two people trying to walk through a doorway at the same time.

Now, I suppose one could argue that the two of them had been held up because I was occupying a sliver of the right lane with my slow-moving bicycle, and if I had not been there they could have moved along at the speed limit, each in his own lane, unobstructed. But I would like to suggest that because these two people were transporting themselves in large motorized devices, and were not paying attention enough to position themselves to get around me before they came up so close to me, their delay was in part of their own making. (The truck driver probably was working, so he can be forgiven for using such a big transportation device, but he could have been a passenger car, so I think the point still is valid.)

I notice a similar phenomenon at a couple points where I have to cross a busy street. These streets are two lanes in each direction with a speed limit of 35, and there are times when I can't get across because just half a dozen cars, coming at just the right times from both directions, and positioned just the right distance apart, leave me no opening to get across. This seems like a great inefficiency. These cars, because of their speed, have to keep a certain distance free around themselves in case they have to stop, and so one person actually takes up a lot of space, and a mere half a dozen can take up so much space that I can't have ten seconds to get myself across a street.

This is just another, more subtle, aspect of the more obvious inefficiencies of the automoble (when used to transport one person a short distance) that have been explained by others. For examples, just a small amount of the energy used by one person driving himself is used to move just him. The rest of the energy is used to move the automobile itself. Destinations that we go to have to have large areas set aside for storing the automobiles that were used to transport people to those places.

Operating an automobile has been made so easy that they seem like magic carpets. You move your hand a certain way, move your foot a certain way, and you are in motion. For me, it was only after I started moving myself to work every day on a bicycle that the inefficiency of using an automobile for that purpose became much clearer. Commuting by bicycle gave me a reason to use a bicycle on a regular basis, and not using a car for that regular activity made me start to see the inefficiency of it, and start to think that there might be a better way of doing things than the way we take for granted.