The car-free no big deal
When the Car-Free Challenge caught up with me this year, I had to do it. Careless packing had left me a couple shirts short during a trip to the Spezi bike convention in Germany, and I ended up buying and wearing a T-shirt proclaiming me to be "AUTO-FREI." Weaseling out of just one little car-free month would be unthinkable. On the other hand, being soggy, uncomfortable, and late doesn't appeal to me. I'm a middle-aged Minnesota physician with two non-driving kids and a schedule to keep. What I needed was a Car-Free No Big Deal.
The groundwork was already laid. While my colleagues and siblings moved to the suburbs, I stayed near the bus lines and bikeways in the city and took jobs that were closer and closer to home. With a five-mile ride to work, three grocery stores less than a mile from home, two hardware stores within a half-mile, and Target about three miles away, and with fairly bike-friendly routes everywhere, my local infrastructure was in good shape.
Equipment wasn't going to be a limiting factor. I had gone recumbent about 5 years ago, we have a Burley gear trailer and a BOB, and this spring we bought Cab-Bike velomobiles in Germany. (Velomobiles are light, streamlined, generally three-wheeled, recumbent pedal cars that are becoming popular in Europe.) Even before the velomobiles, we could bring the panniers, hitch up a trailer or two, and take a comfortable car-free shopping trip on recumbents. The Cab-Bikes allow us to just toss six bags of groceries into the back, or to commute in the rain while carrying a briefcase and a change of clothes, or even to travel all the way across Holland with all our luggage.
My family was supportive. Dale and I celebrated our 25th anniversary in 2001 with a 500-mile bike trip down the Danube River on a RANS Screamer tandem. Bikes crowd our garage while the cars sit in the driveway, and biking been our major recreational activity for years. We would have taken the Challenge as a team, except that Dale had some unavoidable driving to do during the month. Our son, who appreciates a ride on rainy days, was willing to bike even in bad weather to promote human power. Our daughter was due to fly home from a semester in Austria; rather than object to being picked up at the airport by HPV, she thought it would be cool.
My goals were to ride in comfort, to go the whole month without touching a car, not to inconvenience anybody else by not driving, to be a visible advocate for cycling and Human-Powered Vehicles, and to get from 1000 kilometers up to 1000 miles on my new Cab-Bike. Here's how it went:
Riding a velomobile certainly eliminates most of the heroic suffering that goes with a car-free lifestyle. My other bike, an Osell long-wheelbase recumbent, also pampers its rider and easily pulls a BOB trailer for the awkward loads that won't fit into the Cab-Bikes. The ZEM 4-person quadricycle we rented for the trip to the airport didn't measure up in the comfort department. Un-aerodynamic and heavy in a headwind, it sacrifices seat comfort for wide-height-range adjustability. It would have been better for a three-mile joyride than a 25-mile adventure, but it got us to the airport and most of the way back.
The Cab-Bike is well-ventilated, and its easily-removable windows can be stowed in back to avoid the greenhouse effect, while the roof deflects the midday sun. I supplement the air-cooling with large ice packs behind my back and neck. When we rode the Cab-Bikes in two Fourth of July parades, I brought extra ice packs and cold drinks in a mid-sized cooler. Heavy rains on a couple days and the frequent threat of rain were no problem. With the windows in place, the rider and gear stay dry inside. It was hot enough in June and July to nearly banish thoughts of winter, but I noticed that the cold packs could also be heated in the microwave to provide warmth in frosty weather
"Not driving at all" turned to "not driving any more than necessary" just 5 days into the Challenge, when my son's bike broke down. Nobody else was available and closing time was near, so I drove him to the bike shop. Other than that, I didn't use my own car at all, but our airport trip ended with a breakdown and a ride. We had left our own bikes at the sporting-goods store where we rented the ZEM quadricycle. On the way home from the airport one of the bearings started to seize up, and the steering went bad. At the same time, the hydraulic brakes were fading. We made it home, but we and the ZEM had to be picked up to get back to the store.
On the whole, I didn't put a lot of burdens on other people by cycling for a month, but there were a few. A handful of drivers looked apoplectic about being slowed down by a velomobile, but many were frankly enthusiastic. Our son kept having bike trouble, and I had to call Dale or my mother to pick him up or drop him off on three or four occasions. I did make at least my share of trips to the grocery store, the pharmacy, the hardware store, Target, and once all the way across town to pick up a 4 by 8 foot sheet of Lexan. The Lexan was flexible enough to roll up and strap onto the BOB trailer for a ride through downtown (chalk up a couple of apoplectic drivers) and out the pleasant bike trails to home. An evening staff meeting 30 minutes after my clinic's closing time was a prime example of how professional and personal obligations in our society simply assume car ownership. Someone canceled a late-afternoon appointment, and I used the extra hour to ride the steaming ten miles to the meeting, but I was unavailable to help my partners with walk-ins during that time. I thought it was a reasonable exchange for not tying up parking spots, not polluting the air, not crowding the highways, and not depleting petroleum resources.
Cycle/HPV advocacy was the inspiration for our Cab-Bike purchase and the prime focus of my car-free month. Nothing stands out like a velomobile in Minnesota, unless it's two or three of them together. We imported the Cab-Bikes to encourage home-grown personal transportation alternatives by showcasing a European velomobile that really works. We rode the bike paths, parked in grocery store lots, stopped and talked to people, handed out hundreds of flyers, and rode in two parades.
On the morning of the Fourth of July, we joined a crowd of recumbent, tricycle, and quadricycle riders in an upper-class suburban parade through Edina. In the afternoon, we biked to the inner city in Minneapolis for the Art Car Parade, where we and a few other human-powered entries rode in one of the weirder Fourth of July events. Art Cars are covered with anything that strikes the artist's fancy, ranging from plastic lizards to live plants. We were particularly charmed by an animated lobster choir on the hood of a car that also featured schools of life-size fish along the sides. Amazingly, in that company, the Cab-Bikes, with no decoration but the flame jobs we ordered as an option, were a big hit. I described them for the program as looking like a nest of dinosaur eggs and being a reminder that saving fossil fuels needn't be soggy or boring.
I biked every day but one (when I stayed home), averaged about 16 or 17 miles a day, and managed a couple of thirty- to forty mile days. It would have been nice to have a 100-mile day, but I wouldn't get a lot of hundred mile days in my car either. In my normal life there isn't a lot of time for long bike rides. I started at 950 kilometers on the odometer, watched it pass 1000 km, did some heavy riding on the last two days, and rode it home from work on July 15, hitting exactly to 1000 miles as I pulled into the garage. That's 10.5 miles a day since we bought them, including the time they spent in transit to the U.S.
Was it worth it? Absolutely. The Car-Free Challenge was fun! It tore down some mental barriers about biking to impossible places. We must have talked to three dozen people who never dreamed of biking to the airport to pick someone up. If it's imaginable, traffic planners might plan for it. Maybe people will even do it. Riding the Challenge opened up conversations about European cycling. Biking in Minneapolis, people have a hard time envisioning extensive networks of bike paths complete with traffic lights that actually turn green for bikes, construction planning that includes bike detours, whole classes of kids biking home from school, cyclists crowding the streets during rush hour, a jammed three-story bike parking ramp that stretches for a city block, hundreds of cyclists riding through the snow, postal workers delivering the mail by bike, pedal-powered delivery trucks, and cyclists of all ages actually using their bikes to go places and do things. Europe has promoted cycling in response to crowding, ecological concerns, and high oil prices. I wouldn't wish for an oil crisis to starve our car-based system or gridlock to choke it, but it's just a race to see which one gets us first. I'll be ready to face the hard times in relative comfort and may be able to inspire our car-crazy system be a little bit prepared when disaster strikes.
Did it change my life? Hard to tell. I do have a history of cycle advocacy and Dale sometimes reminds me that I took a bike ride rather than sit around timing contractions the day before our first child was born. I rode in the first (and only) Ground Hog's Day ride in Minneapolis in the 1960's, rented a bike and bought a biking rain cape to cycle through Copenhagen in the 1970's, and made a stab at daily rides for the first couple weeks of 2001 until the cold and snow stopped me. I've agitated for bike parking, traffic sensors that don't ignore bikes, safe bike routes, and cyclists' rights. I've gone "car-lite" in Europe (not driving but not turning down rides) for months at a time, but never in the U.S. Before kiddie trailers and Trail-a-Bikes, we raised our little cyclists on tandem stoker seats, but I don't think I could have gone car-free when the kids were younger. The time was ripe, and the Challenge was the catalyst.
Will it last? I hope so. I'm stronger and healthier than I've been in years and have finally gotten down near my pre-pregnancy weight. No other fitness routine or diet has done as much for me as daily riding. I get to work relaxed and happy after riding past pheasants, rabbits, butterflies and friendly dogs, rather than fighting traffic. Kids who saw us in the parades wave and shout when I pass. Bike enthusiasts stop and chat along the way. Anything that's this good for physical and mental health, the community, the environment, and the true national interests of our country just ought to last and flourish!
Bent Rider Online sponsors a "Car-Free Challenge," and I decided to try it in 2003. Here's the essay I submitted afterwards. It didn't win, but I had a lot of fun trying. With the concern about Peak Oil, we're hearing more from people who would like to go car-free and wonder how to to it.
PS (February 2005): In the two years since the Car-Free Challenge, I've greatly reduced my driving and have hardly driven to work at all. Many of our errands are still by bike or velomobile, and we're considering further reductions in our car dependency.
