Ride to Work Day

In a rare moment of lucidity, the school sponsored a Ride to School Day. It was not exactly an overwhelming success but it was a good start. Probably about 30 people all together. This is out of 1000. We draw from a rather large geographic area so it would be a pretty serious commitment for some of them to ride to school. After talking to many of my students, I'm amazed at the number that don't even have bicycles. I rode four out of five for the week. I need to make provisions for getting wet on the way to work. I don't mind getting wet on the way home but I'm not a big fan of walking around all day in wet steel toed boots. I've got a decent rainsuit, just need some rubber booties and gloves or swap shoes before I go home.

After buying gas for the mower the other day at $4.05 per gallon, the incentive to park all of the internal combustion things is becoming stronger all the time. The Chicago Tribune ran an article last year about Prius owners getting 100 miles per gallon by modifying both the engine management systems and their driving technique. Previous to that, the Trib also ran a big article about where our fuel comes from and the ins and outs of production. At the time of the article, the United States was using 20.7 million barrels of oil per day. That's more than the combined output per day of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, and Kuwait. That's just unacceptable.

USA Today had an article last Friday about the effects of high fuel prices. A motorcycle salesman in California said he switched from driving a car to riding a motorcycle and his fuel bill went from$30 to $10 per week. If you're selling motorcycles in sunny California, why the hell wouldn't you ride a bike? This is some sort of sacrifice? Other's talked about consolidating trips and other things common sense would have dictated even if they were giving gas away. If this is the mentality of the people in the US, we're in deep trouble.

So park the cars and get outside. Ride the bike for trips shorter than 5 miles and do yourself and the environment a favor. No matter what you think about global warming, oil is a finite resource. You might want to save a little bit for the grandkids.