[quote=solbrothers][quote=kmcdon3960]I wish I could commute on my bike, but my job requires me to drive a bucket truck, so that’s out.
Anyway, yesterday at the bike co-op some kids were puzzled that I prefer to ride then drive.
Kid: You should get a car!
Me: I have 2. I like this bike better
Kid: You’re stupid.[/quote]
basically the same conversation i had with a coworker[/quote]
I was on my way home and had some douche bags girlfriend yell, “Buy a car!” at me from the passenger window of his beamer while they passed me. I caught up to her at the next light and told her, “I’ve got a car, but I actually enjoy riding my bike, do you enjoy commuting to work?”
I get this a lot… when I say i’m about to ride home ,eople are like “wow… youre going to ride all the way home? are you sure you don’t want a ride?” … people think riding 5 miles is like an amazing feat of endurance or something, either that or so dangeous it must not be worth the risk.
serious. The worst was when I was in high school. The ride there was .7 miles. Not 7, but .7, and people would be amazed that I would rather ride my bike.
+1 I’ve only commuted to my current job a couple times, I had to work up the courage. It’s 14 miles each way, with a nice stretch of riding on the shoulder of a California highway. But once I finally did it I realized how nice it is. Well, the ride TO work is nice. The ride home has kinda kicked my ass since I work manual labor and my body is just tired by the time I’m done.
Coworkers are all flabbergasted. A few live less than a mile from work and don’t even think about walking/riding there. And I’ve had a few offers to throw it in the back of their truck and get a lift back. But these are the same people who, on their break, will drive 2 parking lots over to get a snack from the gas station, instead of walking. It’s like 200 feet total…
i get this shit all the time. if i get to work tired (i start at 7am) they think its because i rode in. i have to explain how useless i would be at that hour if i didn’t ride . i would probably sleep though my stop on the train and miss work all together. and riding to or from work in the RAIN is unimaginable, they think i’m insane. i rode to the pro-lab a few times this week, about an hour out of my way, they thought i was lance fucking armstrong or something.
serious. The worst was when I was in high school. The ride there was .7 miles. Not 7, but .7, and people would be amazed that I would rather ride my bike.[/quote]
LOL @ idiots. I’d feel a little funny if I commuted 0.7 mi on a bike because it’s sort of overkill. One could just walk.
One nice part about living in a fairly compact college city is that I don’t really get this much. Students ride bikes all the time, though I do get the people thinking I’m some kind of Lance for not riding a rusty department store MTB on the sidewalk.
I was talking to my mom on the phone today and she was offering to help pay for my car insurance over the summer. My car has just been sitting at home uninsured trying to be sold while I’m at school. I tried to explain to her that I don’t need a car and it’s a waste of money, I’m selling it, and that riding at night isn’t a big deal. Then she was like well I guess you can just use mine when I’m not using it. sigh.
My parents won’t leave me alone about buying me a car for graduation. I want to sell the one I have to finance the purchase of shiny bike parts as it is. I’ve come to terms with it though and if they’re going to make me get a different car, its going to be biodiesel.
CeeGee, just about any diesel can be converted for pretty cheap. go for a nice VW with a roof rack for all the bikes you’ll get by selling the other car.
I got a cordless phone for my high school graduation. I think I got $100 for college grad. My parents aren’t big on giving gifts.
To use biodiesel in a diesel engine, you don’t have to really do anything except maybe replace the fuel filters after teh biodiesel breaks up the petroleum gunk that builds up in the fuel lines. New fuel lines are a good idea too.
If you want to burn vegetable oil or grease however, you have to modify the fuel system pretty extensively (extra fuel tank for grease, fuel lines, heat exchanger to get the fuel viscous enough, etc.)
1980’s Mercedes 300D’s are pretty popular among the biodiesel/veggie oil crowd because the engines last forever and are pretty tolerant of burning weird biofuels.
I’m planning on going VW or volvo. I’d like to to run on waste vegetable oil, but I know how to make biodiesel and probably have a source for small- medium volumes. A group I used to be involved in has converted some of the school vans to biodiesel and supplies them with the by-product of the waste oil from our main cafeteria.
I run biodiesel in my truck sometimes, it smells really good (the stuff made from waste oil). For anything manufactured in the last decade you don’t really need to worry about new fuel lines. Also, emissions are much, much better if you care about that sort of thing. I’ve seen some hippies driving poorly tuned 300D’s with biodiesel stickers all over 'em that have awful, awful emissions. If you can see the particulate, it’s bad. It’d probably be better for the environment to buy a modern 2007+ car and run ULSD in it than drive around some smokey old mercedes covered with peace stickers.
When I feel like it, I valet for a local company. Some of the private parties we do are 20-30 miles one-way. It’s always fun to go through people’s interview questions when I arrive.
“are you ok?”
“how long did that take you?”
The matter of time is a complex explanation, and I feel like most people I explain it to don’t fully appreciate my answer. So much of society is focused on travel time. So am I, but I am also focused on my workout and nutrition, rest and enjoying the world by bike.
Travelling by car is just isolating. Except for open atmosphere cars like convertibles and jeeps.
you seem to know something (if not everything) about everything. I may bug you with biodiesel questions in addition to my normal dumb bike questions in the future. The exhaust from the biodiesel van my group used for trips smelled like french fries.
pirate, our group actually got started by applying for some MTV ecomagination grant. We ended up being a finalist but lost to MIT… who had the same idea. My school tends to hate all things green unless they’re presented with how it will benefit them in a dollar amount. They’ve been going strong for a few years now though and have actually worked out a way to produce natural soaps from the glycerol. I dunno if anyone on your campus is still interested in getting it started but the group’s website is really helpful: http://studentorgs.vanderbilt.edu/biodiesel/aboutus.html
and to stay on topic: cars just kinda scare me. I get really antsy whenever I do accept a ride and have to sit in a car. I think its a combination of I’d rather be riding, I’m a control freak, and I’ve had too many horrifying experiences with cars at a young age.