Adventures in learning how to treat our Earth more gently and our bodies well, while still enjoying a life filled with good things.
Getting around town and country on two wheels
By Jillis, on April 8th, 2009 at 07.44 AM
Category: I’d like to introduce to you Jillis, a friend from the Netherlands. He cycles a lot, for getting around town as well as for pleasure. He has written a two part article on cycling and some tips and tricks on how to make cycling a part of your everyday life. Here is part one ..
Cycling is often seen as a good ‘green’ alternative to driving a car for short to medium distances (2 to 20 kilometres). Bicycles don’t pollute the air, they use only a fraction of the space a car needs, you can get almost anywhere on them and on top of that, cycling is good for your health. So cycling is friendly to Earth and body. But as an avid cyclist even I have to admit there are a number of drawbacks to using the bike.
Facing the elements
If you live in a hilly or mountaineous area, the prospect of cycling up a steep road often isn’t very appealing. I myself live in The Netherlands, a country that’s almost totally flat with just a few hilly areas, therefore hills aren’t much of a problem. On the contrary, the Katie Melua song “Nine million bicycles” is very appropriate to our situation where bicycles sometimes dominate the city streets and country roads. But if you do live on the bottom or top of that steep road or there’s no way around the hill between you and the shops and you aren’t able to make the climb, either walking or taking motorized transport (preferably public or shared) are better choices.
Then there’s the matter of the weather. Rain, wind or snow doesn’t make cycling much fun either. But you could wait for that rainstorm to lessen or end, or take a bus or train if you’re in a hurry or if it storms all day long. When I went to secondary school I travelled the two times eleven kilometers on my bike most of the year, but I used to take the bus in the first few winters and during autumn storm days. Or you simply put on some rain gear and confront that rainstorm. It won’t really harm you, it’s just cold and nasty.
Facing the distance and traffic
Also, the travel distance could be too great for you, so cycling would take too much time and effort. But then you could consider cycling part of the distance to and/or from a public transport stop, and cover the rest of the distance by bus or rail. Sometimes this requires you to have two bikes: one at your home and one near your work or school. The advantage of this is that you have the additional option of going to a shop, event or friend’s home that’s near your work but not directly on the route to the station or bus stop.
The roads you have to travel on can be too busy or even inaccessible for bicycles. But in many towns worldwide, big and small, bicycle paths and lanes have been built. If none exist where you live you could take action and ask your local council to build them for you. Better yet, organise and have a group take action.
Finally, there’s the matter of taking people or goods with you. I’ll discuss this in the second part of this article.
Possibly related posts:
Do stuff with this post:
Great idea, the bike is a great and easy thing to do. cycling have a few minet things:
1 on a bike in a really big city, like Paris, London and New York. to much traffic:-(
2 distance between 2 city’s. Like Australia, big courty, and a lot of space between city’s
@edwin: I agree with point 1, although I have cycled in Paris. Not every street in big cities is loaded with traffic, you just have to avoid the main streets. Paris in fact has a program set up with free/cheap rental bikes now.
About point 2: cycling is not really meant for travel between cities (unless they’re really close to eachother, but then they’re probably one urban area), not even in the Netherlands. Minimum distance between the bigger cities there is 20km, that’s more than suitable for commuting with a bike.