Two wheel heroes (Week 21)
"I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my bike. I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride it where I like."
It's maybe the silliest Queen song ever, but there's a reason Bicycle Race still strikes a chord with us 40 years after it was recorded. There's just something so charmingly simple about getting around on two wheels, and so liberating. So, during Victoria's Bike to Work Week, I did the obvious thing and went everywhere by bike.
Getting to work and back was the easy part. For me, it's only a 5 kilometre round trip. Still, it felt great being part of the movement that saw almost half a million kilometres covered by Victoria cyclists that week. Clearly, biking to work is a big deal.
Commuting on two wheels is getting more and more popular, and not just in temperate climates like Victoria. I commuted by bike for nearly 20 years in Calgary, and that city now has dedicated bike lanes because the demand is so high. In my new home town, I'm part of the 6.6% of commuters who travel by bike (with more than 10% making the trip by foot). Now that might not sound impressive when you hear that 40% of Danes commute by bike, but it's leaps and bounds ahead of the U.S., where the average is around 0.6%.
Another welcome new phenomenon on our city streets is the e-bike. It's getting more and more people out of their cars and into "alternative transportation." My friend Kevin goes everywhere on his e-bike, and it's common in our neighbourhood to see whole families riding off to school on e-bikes that can easily hold a bucketful of 3 kids.
Here's something else that I find encouraging. Millions of people are ditching their golf clubs and hopping on bikes. It's now common to say "cycling is the new golf" and it's even seen as a path to upward mobility in the business world. Tons of my Calgary friends would agree. I know a group of RBC investment bankers who spend all their leisure time exploring the foothills and mountains on bikes. It's even being reported that the average business person is healthier today because of cycling.
Where I work, I'm often described to others as "our bike nut" which I have to quickly correct to bike enthusiast. A group of us has even built a pair of bikes (painted in company colours, of course) that are available to anyone for lunchtime rides, errand running, etc. Like many modern companies, we have a secure bike room for keeping our commuter bikes safe, and showers so we can all get to our desk fresh as daisies.
I said before that 5 days of biking to work was pretty light lifting in my case. A mere 25 kilometres is a little like rolling out of bed. So I ramped it up a notch, on my road bike. One day, I rode out to the Dominion Observatory, climbing a steep hill to the historic 1918 telescope en route to a 50km round trip. One morning, I went out at 6am (yikes!) with a group that calls itself The Farm Team, stopping for a much-needed coffee after 40km. On the weekend, I hooked up with the Victoria Wheelers group that goes up past Sidney and completes an 80km loop. And I topped it all off with a 15km ride to the Oak Bay Tea Party at Willows Beach with Val. Suddenly, my 25km total had ballooned to more than 200.
Besides the many physical and psychological benefits of cycling, there's also a pretty significant financial one. The cost of travelling by car (especially where gas costs $1.60/litre) is just nuts, and when you toss in the stress and occasional road rage, the "cost" climbs even higher. That brings up another new biking opportunity; cutting out cars and planes for a summer vacation. In less than a month from now, my son Nic and I will be jumping on our bikes and heading straight south until we hit San Francisco. We'll be camping the whole way, and our summer vacation to one of the world's coolest cities will be a budget journey filled with adventure and discovery.
Bike commuting is one of those great entry points that starts out as necessity and quickly becomes something much more. For me, it's a holistic centre-point of my entire life, and one of the ways I frame my outlook on the world. Just like Freddie, I will always want to simply "ride it where I like."
NEXT WEEK: I go forest bathing!
It's maybe the silliest Queen song ever, but there's a reason Bicycle Race still strikes a chord with us 40 years after it was recorded. There's just something so charmingly simple about getting around on two wheels, and so liberating. So, during Victoria's Bike to Work Week, I did the obvious thing and went everywhere by bike.
Getting to work and back was the easy part. For me, it's only a 5 kilometre round trip. Still, it felt great being part of the movement that saw almost half a million kilometres covered by Victoria cyclists that week. Clearly, biking to work is a big deal.
Commuting on two wheels is getting more and more popular, and not just in temperate climates like Victoria. I commuted by bike for nearly 20 years in Calgary, and that city now has dedicated bike lanes because the demand is so high. In my new home town, I'm part of the 6.6% of commuters who travel by bike (with more than 10% making the trip by foot). Now that might not sound impressive when you hear that 40% of Danes commute by bike, but it's leaps and bounds ahead of the U.S., where the average is around 0.6%.
Another welcome new phenomenon on our city streets is the e-bike. It's getting more and more people out of their cars and into "alternative transportation." My friend Kevin goes everywhere on his e-bike, and it's common in our neighbourhood to see whole families riding off to school on e-bikes that can easily hold a bucketful of 3 kids.
Here's something else that I find encouraging. Millions of people are ditching their golf clubs and hopping on bikes. It's now common to say "cycling is the new golf" and it's even seen as a path to upward mobility in the business world. Tons of my Calgary friends would agree. I know a group of RBC investment bankers who spend all their leisure time exploring the foothills and mountains on bikes. It's even being reported that the average business person is healthier today because of cycling.
Where I work, I'm often described to others as "our bike nut" which I have to quickly correct to bike enthusiast. A group of us has even built a pair of bikes (painted in company colours, of course) that are available to anyone for lunchtime rides, errand running, etc. Like many modern companies, we have a secure bike room for keeping our commuter bikes safe, and showers so we can all get to our desk fresh as daisies.
Besides the many physical and psychological benefits of cycling, there's also a pretty significant financial one. The cost of travelling by car (especially where gas costs $1.60/litre) is just nuts, and when you toss in the stress and occasional road rage, the "cost" climbs even higher. That brings up another new biking opportunity; cutting out cars and planes for a summer vacation. In less than a month from now, my son Nic and I will be jumping on our bikes and heading straight south until we hit San Francisco. We'll be camping the whole way, and our summer vacation to one of the world's coolest cities will be a budget journey filled with adventure and discovery.
Bike commuting is one of those great entry points that starts out as necessity and quickly becomes something much more. For me, it's a holistic centre-point of my entire life, and one of the ways I frame my outlook on the world. Just like Freddie, I will always want to simply "ride it where I like."
NEXT WEEK: I go forest bathing!
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