30 things I have learned living car-free

1. Living carfree is very easy to do, but not convenient.

2. Cigarettes butts are all over the streets.

3. People pick their noses, a lot, in their cars, especially in morning rush hour

4. Bananas and raw nuts are good energy food.

5. There are a lot of stupid cyclists, pedestrians, and drivers on the roads; it is not surprising they hit each other.

6. More people smoke pot in their car than you would think.

7. Rain sucks, but thunderstorms are cool.

8. Wind makes me look at my “inner self.”

9. By living car-free, I am not any better than anyone else in this country.

10. Riding too much in the saddle makes my under side will get numb.

11. I am lucky to be alive.

12. Ice is really slippery.

13. Yeast infections happen to men too if they sweat a lot and do not change their shorts.

14. Losing weight can happen I eat less calories than I take in.

15. Everyday feels like I am on vacation.

16. Full moon night riding is very groovy.

17. I can drink and ride a bike at the same time…water or wine.

18. People who travel by foot or bicycle tend to be poetic and philosophical in their thinking.

19. I do not have to have a car to live…at least as a single person.

20. There is no place I cannot get to by walking or bicycle as long as I have time.

21. People in poorer neighborhoods tend to be friendlier to a cyclist as the bicycle itself is essentially a “classless” way to travel.

22. I do not need any special clothes, pedals, gear to commute, or take long rides on my bicycle.

23. Blinking lights are very important when riding at night.

24. Not all people should ride a bike for transportation.

25. Most people are friendly.

26. Bicycling is good for my health: Physically, mentally, financially, environmentally, and my community.

27. My favorite music for long rides (I don’t listen while I bike, but I hear it in my head…and sing it outloud) is : Bob Dylan, Stones, Beatles, Cat Stevens, Van Morrison, Frank Sinatra, Bob Seger, Eagles.

28. I love seeing wildlife, but hate seeing roadkill.

29. Helmets are important, but not always needed.

30. I always have fun.



Tell me some of yours!

Pictures of carfree living

Gentlemen stand up please!

Gentlemen, time to stand up and be the man you should be. No more whining about; the things you do not have. Time to take full responsibility for your actions and be the MAN you always wanted to be but for whatever reason have fallen short.

Dressing like a gentleman is the first step to your new life.

Transportation alternatives need not be an impediment towards  poor appearances.









And you do not have to drive a car to dress well!

One should watch what one eats. The bicycle, as I am sure you'll agree, does have limits.

Your gentleman diet vegetables and protein.

Beer or wine.

Tailors are hard to find.


Finding the right tailor is important to your transportational wardrobe.



Once you find one, you must never, ever, share his name with anyone else, even upon pain of death, so you will be able to always have him available at a moments notice.

 Ah, the 1880s, Cyclings "Golden Years."

These chaps knew how to dress. Notice the class and functionality.

Even a chap named Tom Birtels, from Australia, was able to dress well in the Outback.

The gentleman who is bicycling touring does not have to skimp on quality.

Wool is your friend, do not forget it!

Stan, now 84ish, from Kansas City, bicycles for transportation on a regular basis.

Seen here, Stan is a man who knows the importance of style while transporting onesself by bicycle.

There are days you will feel lost.

No reason.

Dressing well, will helping you find love.

Even in the heat, one can dress to accommodate the climate.











So get off your arse, find a tailor, buy some nice clothes. And go for a bike ride.
Be a gentleman.

Just Ride

Easy Riders                              

‘Just Ride,’ by Grant Petersen

By DAVE EGGERS

Published: July 27, 2012 New York Times Book Review

Many a weekend bicycle rider has had the same unsettling experience: You ask a friend to ride with you along some scenic, low-impact route. You show up wearing shorts, Sambas and a T-shirt, and he shows up dressed for an Olympic time trial. On his torso is a very tight shirt slashed with a half-dozen garish colors and logos irrelevant to him. His helmet, decorated with flames or stripes or both, is equipped with a rearview mirror. A rubber straw dangles around his neck like a fur stole, through which he can drink fluids from a container on his back. And then there are the spandex leg-­enclosures. These have patches of yellow on either flank, giving the impression that your friend is wearing chaps. Yellow-and-black spandex chaps.

JUST RIDE

A Radically Practical Guide to Riding Your Bike

By Grant Petersen

Illustrated. 212 pp. Workman Publishing. Paper, $13.95.

All this for a 10-mile ride on a bike path.

If you can identify with the more casually dressed biker described above, or if you want to go biking but have been scared away by the sport’s cult of gear and equipment, then your bible has been written. Grant Petersen’s “Just Ride” is a wonderfully sane, down to earth and frequently funny guide to riding, maintaining, fixing and enjoying your bicycle. That so much common sense will be considered revelatory, even revolutionary, is a testament to how loony the bike world has become.

Grant Petersen-Author and Bicycle Friend

Petersen opens with this salvo: “My main goal with this book is to point out what I see as bike racing’s bad influence on bicycles, equipment and attitudes, and then undo it.” And he goes on to prove, conclusively, that most of what ails the world of cycling comes from nonprofessional riders pretending, or being bullied into pretending, that they’re professionals. The solution, he says, is to emulate kids and other “Unracers” — people who bike for fun and not profit.

The accepted orthodoxies are upended, one after another. Petersen is skeptical of special biking shoes. He is pro-kickstand, pro-mud-flap. He thinks a wide, comfortable saddle is O.K. He doesn’t see why anyone needs more than eight gears. He thinks fragile carbon-fiber bikes and ­super-narrow tires are impractical for just about everyone (“Getting paid to ride them is the only good reason I can think of to ride that kind of bike”). He has nuanced thoughts on helmets (he wears his at night but not during the day) and reminds us that biking is “lousy all-around exercise” and shouldn’t be considered a stand-alone regimen. But most satisfying is his takedown of the tight-shirt, ­spandex-shorts phenomenon. “In its need for special clothing,” he writes, “bicycle riding is less like scuba diving and more like a pickup basketball game.” A regular cotton T-shirt and a pair of shorts will ventilate better, he says, and if you’re not trying to shave seconds off a world record, the microscopic aerodynamic advantages of tight synthetic clothing just don’t apply to you.

Coming from just anyone, this kind of thinking wouldn’t carry much weight. But Petersen raced for six years, then worked at Bridgestone, Japan’s largest bike maker, as a designer and marketer. When the company closed its American office, he opened his own shop, Rivendell Bicycle Works, in Walnut Creek, Calif. It would seem, then, that Petersen, as the ultimate insider, would be the first guy to push expensive racing gear on every would-be enthusiast to walk into his shop.

But with this book, he’s trying to bring biking back to a state of moderation and rationality. If you like the gear, he’s fine with that, and if you don’t agree with all his advice, no problem. But he makes the case that at its core, biking should be a simple, democratic, sometimes ludicrously enjoyable means of getting around. “No matter how much your bike costs,” he says, “unless you use it to make a living, it is a toy, and it should be fun.” Amen.

Learn more about Grant and Rivendell Bicycle Works

Earth Day reality

For me Earth Day is something I think about everyday. I am fully aware of the Earth and its beauty. I think there is too much placed on the Day or Week or Month where people are focused on the Earth. I believe we should be focused on the Planet 100% of the time. I know, it is complicated, but it is going to get more complicated the more we f... it up.


Food for thought...

“We’re so self-important. Everybody’s going to save something now. “Save the trees, save the bees, save the whales, save those snails.” And the greatest arrogance of all: save the planet. Save the planet, we don’t even know how to take care of ourselves yet. I’m tired of this shit. I’m tired of f-ing Earth Day. I’m tired of these self-righteous environmentalists, these white, bourgeois liberals who think the only thing wrong with this country is that there aren’t enough bicycle paths. People trying to make the world safe for Volvos. Besides, environmentalists don’t give a shit about the planet. Not in the abstract they don’t. You know what they’re interested in? A clean place to live. Their own habitat. They’re worried that some day in the future they might be personally inconvenienced. Narrow, unenlightened self-interest doesn’t impress me.

The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drift, solar flares, sun spots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles … hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors, worldwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages … And we think some plastic bags and some aluminum cans are going to make a difference? The planet isn’t going anywhere. WE are!

We’re going away. Pack your shit, folks. We’re going away. And we won’t leave much of a trace, either. Maybe a little Styrofoam … The planet’ll be here and we’ll be long gone. Just another failed mutation. Just another closed-end biological mistake. An evolutionary cul-de-sac. The planet’ll shake us off like a bad case of fleas.

The planet will be here for a long, long, LONG time after we’re gone, and it will heal itself, it will cleanse itself, ’cause that’s what it does. It’s a self-correcting system. The air and the water will recover, the earth will be renewed. And if it’s true that plastic is not degradable, well, the planet will simply incorporate plastic into a new paradigm: the earth plus plastic. The earth doesn’t share our prejudice toward plastic. Plastic came out of the earth. The earth probably sees plastic as just another one of its children. Could be the only reason the earth allowed us to be spawned from it in the first place. It wanted plastic for itself. Didn’t know how to make it. Needed us. Could be the answer to our age-old egocentric philosophical question, “Why are we here?”

Plastic… asshole.”
―George Carlin             

                                               Some things to think about...

Back cover from the last Whole Earth Catalog



Peace,
Carfree American.

Interview with Carfree American

From World Carfree News Association....Planet Earth Series
by John Cutty

We are here today with Bill Poindexter, aka Carfree American.

CA: Hi John, thanks for having me.

JC: How long have you lived with out a car?

CA: This June will be my third year Anniversary of living Carfree. I have done it before in spurts, but this is the longest I have been carfree.

JC: Why do you not own a car? I mean, you are not normal, right?

CA: Hehe, normal is a relative term, wouldn't you say. In America, and much of the planet, owning a car is considered normal. A few years ago I realized I would rather live without a car than with one. I found living carfree forces me; to stay physically and mentally fit, I pollute much less, I interact with my local community more, and I save money. To me, my life is normal...everyone who is reliant to their car is abnormal.

JC: That is a strong statement.

CA: Strong but true. I know there are good uses for car travel, but I feel we as a society, should look at it as a last resort for transportation. For example, when you get up in the morning you should ask yourself where do you have to be that day. Then ask:

"Can I walk, bicycle, or take mass transit?"

The car should be the last resort. A healthy body, mind, environment, and community should be a priority. Living carfree is a way to promote that healthy lifestyle.

JC: Certainly, more people would be healthier if they walked or bicycled for transportation. What is your favorite mode of transportation?

CA: Right now I have to say walking. I recently moved to an area where there are grocery stores, restaurants, theaters, drug store, dentists, doctors, library, all with in a three mile radius of my home. If I need, or want, to go to a place further away I take my
bicycle.

JC: What is the hardest thing about being carfree?

CA: Extreme bad weather, or when you are sick with flu.

JC: Do you sometimes wish you had a car?

CA: Sure, but just for a minute, then I walk or bike somewhere, my senses come alive and I wonder why I missed the car. Or, occasionally I will catch a ride with someone or use a taxi, but then I always feel like the journey would have been nicer from the seat of a bicycle. I guess you might call it "temporary autoholic insanity" as it is like even though I have been without, I still feel like I need it. It is nuts.

JC: Bill, that is all the time we have today. Thank you for your time and insight on living carfree.

83 year old bike commuter-Stan

I met Stan this morning while having coffe at a Panera in Prairie Village, Kansas.

He is an 83 year old Bike commuter

 This is Stan, he lives in Kansas City Missouri.

He has been commuting by bicycle for the 30 years. As you can see by his attire Stan is living proof you can where regular street clothes while bicycling.

Stan's commute this day is 6 miles round trip, he usually rides more but just got out of the hospital, so he says his endurance is down. At 83, he is an inspiration.




I hope I am able to ride like him at 83!