Practical Cycle, Sacramento Electric Bike Sales, Service, Rentals, Accessories

A Better Way to Travel

Photo Credit: Sac Cycle Chic on a Worksman Commuter Bike

High gas prices. Expensive car payments. Traffic delays. Road rage. Expanding waistlines. There are many great reasons to consider traveling to work by bicycle. It's an effective, healthy, inexpensive, and fun alternative that is attracting more and more commuters all over the world. And the more you know, the more enjoyable bike commuting becomes.

Most of the people I know travel by means other than the bicycle. For the most part, they're still internal combusters. Automobile drivers. It's the norm, isn't it? In a society like ours--where more money is spent advertising automobiles than is spent on the entire national mass transit system, where everyone's background assumption equates travel with driving--it isn't easy to make the shift to bicycle commuting. I can attest to that. As detailed in this essay, I made many mistakes. I did it all wrong.

These articles aren't intended as the comprehensive guide to commuting by bicycle. It's not a "program" intended to work for everyone, in every situation. It merely relates the hard lessons learned by one cyclist over many years of riding to work everyday. My hope is that prospective bike commuters will avoid my errors. If nothing else, my experience demonstrates that it can be done. The addiction to driving can be broken, the necessity of mass transit strap-hanging can be avoided. The following might, just might, encourage others to discover how bicycle commuting can enhance their lives.

Written by Paul Dorn

Paul Dorn is a writer and activist in Northern California, presently residing in Sacramento. He is the co-author (with Roni Sarig) of The Bike to Work Guide: What You Need to Know to Save Gas, Go Green, Get Fit, published in 2008 by Adams Media. He is the former editor of the Tube Times, newsletter of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition (SFBC), and served on the SFBC board of directors. He is the former executive director of the California Bicycle Coalition. Dorn is certified by the League of American Bicyclists as a League Cycling Instructor (#1237).