Ford Canada’s president, David Mondragon, has the right idea, sort of. He’s been lobbying Ottawa hard to get help for the auto industry. But rather than throwing money directly at the manufacturers, he’s suggesting they throw some at owners of older vehicles. And why not? It seems to be working, for now, in Germany. There, you can scrap your old car and get 2500 Euros. That’s about $4000CAD and change, substantially more than Canada’s paltry $300 to scrap an older car. In BC, the pot is a little sweeter, where the provincial government offers $2250 to scrap ’95 and older models. Mondragon is suggesting at least $3500 for ’98 and older models. And he’s right, it will take that kind of coin to make me even think about parting with my perfectly functional ’98 Ford Windstar.

I don’t want to rain on the parade, but if I could point out just a couple of little problems I’m having with the idea. First, is it really a good time to be encouraging us average consumer types to take on more debt? I don’t have the other $20K+ that I would need for a new vehicle, so I’d have to borrow the rest. Hyundai and others are now offering insurance to cover your payments for a while if you lose your job, which is a great idea and will be somewhat successful at getting people into showrooms. But when gas prices head up again this summer, will the Detroit 3 still have showrooms full of SUVs? Second, well Ford don’t make a minivan anymore and I like minivans, and as the industry hasn’t introduced a hybrid or clean diesel or PZEV minivan to North America, well, what would I buy anyway?

However, if you’ve got the cash (and you like minivans), there are some screaming deals to be had. Pontiac and Dodge minivans are kicking in $7000-plus, landing a new minivan for $18,000. That’s a deal, for sure. Oh, except, GM (Pontiac) and Chrysler (Dodge) may not be around much longer, certainly not in their present form, and what of all the companies who make parts for them? Oh well, seems like another reason to sit this dance out.

I took the bus home yesterday from work. While I was waiting, I watched cars go by. I noticed that some drivers were talking on their cell phones as they drove. I wondered how many drivers do that during the evening rush hour, so I thought I’d see how many cars I could count going by until I counted a car with a driver on the phone. How high do you think I counted? Up to 20? Maybe only up to 10? I’ll tell you, I never got past 6. Sometimes I only got up to 1. In a 15 minute span, it turned out that about 1 of every 3 or 4 drivers was talking on the phone. That’s 25%-33% of every driver I saw. Now that’s good news if you’re in the business of selling cell phones, I guess. Or maybe if you own a body shop, as studies have shown drivers who talk on a phone and drive are dangerous. In fact, they can be more dangerous than drunk drivers!

Granted, my little survey was not very scientific – but man, that seems like a lot of distracted drivers. And speaking as a regular bicycle commuter, let me tell all you talk ‘n drive jockeys out there something. YOU’RE NOT AS GOOD A DRIVER AS YOU THINK YOU ARE. There, I’ve said it. So put your hands on the wheel, and your eyes upon the road (and every 5 seconds your rear view mirror), please! Shut up and drive.

Your mind’s made up? Let’s go shopping.

You may have considered the idea of cycle commuting to work, and if you haven’t tried it before, or don’t ride a lot, the whole idea probably raises a lot of questions in your mind. I think there are lots of articles that you can read that suggest the long list of health and wealth benefits of commuting by bicycle, so I’m not going to get into that. You have your own reasons if you’re even contemplating this. But here are some key areas you’ll want to consider to get yourself ready:
- A bike. You’ll need one of those for sure.
- A helmet. The bad news, most of them look dorky and make the person wearing them look even dorkier. The good news, in many jurisdictions they’re required by law, so at least we can all look dorky together.
- Clothes and accessories. You don’t need a lot of special stuff to get started, though I wholeheartedly recommend bike gloves. You’ll know why if you ever take a spill, or that is, an “unscheduled dismount”.
- Your physical condition. I’ve seen people smoking as they ride, but come on. That just makes you look like you’re riding because you’ve had your driver’s license suspended.

BIKES
There are lots of types of bikes to choose from. Consider the terrain, and notice what other cyclists are riding. After riding over the Knight St. Bridge on my 10-speed, I decided to go with something different. Riding on the sidewalk over that bridge, I have ridden over or around:
- a ladder
- kitchen cabinets
- buckets
- work gloves
- 2×4’s (usually with nails sticking out)
- plywood
- panelling
- nails
- more nails
- assorted car parts
- lots of loose sand
And on a rainy day in Vancouver, the water collected at the southwest end of the sidewalk as you came off the bridge such that the pathway disappeared under water, and I would ride through this mess (which for some reason often had chunks of Styrofoam floating in it) with the water coming up past the bottom of the chain and bike frame. Wet feet kind of went with the territory. I decided a mountain bike with knobby tires was what I needed. These days I ride a “comfort” or hybrid bike, a Gary Fisher Capitola. The seating position on my old hardtail Specialized Rock Hopper II was causing some numbness in the fingers, and in Kelowna the riding I do is generally much flatter than Vancouver, so a more upright seating position is OK.

HELMET
I recommend getting one with a visor. It doesn’t help much, but it looks slightly cooler. Don’t buy a used one. It may have damage you can’t see, and this piece of gear could mean the difference between a happy, healthy future and you spending your life answering every question with “I’m an excellent driver”. Seriously, don’t leave home without it.

CLOTHES and ACCESSORIES
OK, first the clothes. If you’re like me and your cycle commute takes more than fifteen minutes, you will probably be much more comfortable riding your bike in riding clothes and then changing when you arrive at work. Where I worked didn’t have a shower, but I was able to leave a clothes bag there. My clothes bag included:
- two or three shirts
- two pairs of pants, one belt
- one or two pairs of socks
- underwear
- one pair of shoes
- Ziploc bag with soap and deodorant
- one towel
My riding clothes evolved and changed with the weather. Basically, layers are your friends. The toughest time to dress right was winter-to-spring and fall-to-winter, because the riding conditions in the morning can be much different than at the end of the day. Eventually my clothing arsenal included:
- padded baggy cycling shorts, worn over either plain cycling shorts or lined tights, waterproof over-pants
- slim running shoes, sport or thermal socks
- long or short-sleeved T-shirts, fleece vest, sweater, neon-green riding jacket, scarf, fleece skullcap, safety vest
- full-fingered riding gloves, as well as open finger style gloves
- goggles, plain and tinted

As for accessories, my bike evolved into a full-on commuter-mobile:
- fenders fore and aft
- panniers. I ditched the backpack because it was hard on my back and I sweated like crazy underneath it.
- lights fore and aft
- air pump
- spare inner tube (note, I used to carry a patch kit, but I got a few flats on the bridge, and the noise from the traffic was so loud you couldn’t possibly hear where the air was escaping to make a repair, so the solution was to simply rip out the tube and replace it so you could patch it later)
- 25 cents to make a phone call for help if I had a major mechanical problem
- latex gloves, for putting the chain back on without getting all greasy
- small bicycle tool kit
- bike bell (ding, ding)
- toe clips
- Kevlar liners, to fit between the inner wall of the tires and the outer walls of the tubes. These were a great investment and drastically reduced the number of flats I got riding across the bridge.
The idea was to be self-sufficient if I had a minor mechanical breakdown of some kind. I got great info off the internet about how to change a tire and replace an inner tube, and I tried it at home so I knew how to do it.

PHYSICAL CONDITION
I didn’t have much going on in that department when I started, but after a couple of seasons of riding from one to five days a week, I developed some definite muscle tone. It feels great to ride, your body will enjoy it, trust me. The other big benefit for me was that when I ride, I have to be totally in the moment. When you drive a car, sometimes we arrive at our destination and we don’t even remember parts of the journey because we were thinking about other things. Riding a bike, you’re focused on staying upright and not being killed, so there’s not much of a chance to let your mind wander. And being in the moment for a full half-hour stretch or whatever your commute takes is a real refreshing exercise for most of us.

So let me sum it up—if you think commuting by bike is really hard, I’m here to tell you it may not be as hard as you think. If you plan for it, do a little research, and take little steps and set modest goals, you can do it. No one ever accused me of being a jock before I started cycle commuting (or since), and there is definitely a sense of accomplishment when you realize you are helping yourself, your community, and the planet. If more of us can manage to ride even a few days a month, it does make a difference.

Can I really do this?

Once I decided to seriously consider cycling to work, the first thing I did was ride to my workplace on a Sunday (we were closed on weekends), just to see if I could even do it. I had a 10-speed bike that I’d had since I was 16. It got me there and back home in about two hours, and I got some sense of the distance and physical demands. It was kind of tough, but not enough to deter me.

The next thing I did was buy a ten-session pass from a gym that had been built near where I worked, and on some days after work I went there and rode the stationary bike. I didn’t do any other training, and I figured after ten sessions I’d start commuting. For me, it was important to set small goals so that the prospect of this commute didn’t overwhelm me. I figured I could contribute to making the world a better place if I could manage to cycle to work one day a week, at least to start. That didn’t sound too bad, because 80% of the time I’d either be commuting in the cup-holding sanctuary of my minivan or my sometime carpool buddy’s K-car.

I needed some way to take a few things to work, so a backpack was pressed into service. My workplace environment was sort of office casual, so I could potentially ride in my work clothes. And so I began.

I learned lots from doing it, and I surfed the internet and looked for advice. In Part Three, I’ll cut to the chase and provide some ideas for the novice cycle commuter, based on the lessons I learned.

PART ONE
The 40-year old novice commuter cyclist

Have you ever found yourself sitting alone in your car, stopped in traffic, looking around you at all the other individuals in their cars, and thought “I’m part of the problem here, not part of the solution.” It happened to me one day, on the Knight St. Bridge.

The Knight St. Bridge connects Vancouver to Richmond, BC. It’s a busy four-lane highway, arching across the Fraser River. Traffic merges onto it from multiple lanes at both ends, and the north end features a few additional ramp choices to and from Mitchell Island. Concrete dividers run down the middle of the bridge, separating the two northbound lanes from the southbound ones. More dividers at the curb protect the sidewalks that hang out on each side of the bridge. A metal rail fence on the very outside of the sidewalk prevents pedestrians from being blown off into the might Fraser, way below. Cyclists are also obliged to share the sidewalk with pedestrians, as the roadway shoulder is narrow.

The Knight St. Bridge is what you might call a blue-collar bridge. It has none of the architectural appeal of the Alex Fraser Bridge that connects Delta to New Westminster, or the old world charm of the Burrard St. Bridge, or the modern, crisp feel of the Cambie St. Bridge. It is strictly functional, built to handle loads of trucks and waves of commuters in their automobiles. But as Vancouver and Richmond have grown, those waves of commuters often become not so much a wave, as a standing pool. Driving across the bridge at rush hour is what the perky radio ‘copter-riding reporters might call “stop ‘n go”.

Sitting in my minivan one morning, in the stop ‘n go, I noticed a cyclist ride by on the sidewalk. He looked hardcore—helmet, sunglasses, fluorescent-coloured bike jacket under a beat up backpack, army green shorts and black leggings, and riding a stripped down mountain bike. Over the next several minutes a few other hardy souls rode by as I inched along. “Man”, I thought, “those guys are crazy”. I could not imagine myself ever doing that.

That night I woke up in the middle of the night, with a chest pain. I’d heard of 40-year old guys like me dropping dead of heart attacks. Was I having a heart attack? I waited, kept breathing and seemed to be OK. But I had more nights like that, so I went to my doctor. She figured it was stress, but just to be safe she sent me to get an ECG. “If there’s any problem, I’ll phone you, otherwise everything’s fine.” The next morning when I arrived at the office, there was a message waiting from my doctor. She was sending me to a heart specialist, pronto. Uh-oh.

The specialist got me on a treadmill, wired me up, and then nearly killed me running on the thing for 30 minutes. I got off, drenched in sweat and with a burning sensation in my legs. I was gasping for air, and feeling sorry for myself. The result was I had a heart arrhythmia. Maybe I’d had it all my life, no way to tell. But he did tell me I needed to get going with some cardio exercise immediately. This desk-jockey was going to have to get physical.

I took up running. Well, jogging, really. The problem was, I hated it. And when you hate something, you resist doing it, right? So I decided to try something I had really enjoyed as a kid—riding a bike. Recreational riding was fun and I got into it, and eventually I started to think about those nuts commuting to work.

Consider the sports car. Ah yes, the quintessential symbol of a full blown mid-life crisis. If you find yourself with a little disposable cash, and an urge to recapture a youth that you probably didn’t actually have because you couldn’t have afforded it at the time, then you my friend may find yourself seriously contemplating acquiring that big toy. But before you lay your money down, let’s have a little look at a few do’s and don’ts.

First of all, it will have to be a vehicle that says “sporty”, even if only in name and looks. So, for example, if you’re thinking that a restored ’56 International Harvester pickup truck just like the one your Dad used to drive would be the ticket, forget it. Nope, sorry, that won’t do. Really it comes down to two choices: foreign two-seater or Detroit iron muscle car.

If you want to say to the world “I’m eccentric”, look for a used Italian or German sports car from 40 or 50 years ago. If you want to say “I’m jolly eccentric, and I like to spend more time under the car than in it”, then get yourself an old British sports car (don’t forget to budget for a tweed cap and jacket, pipe optional, for those times you can actually get the thing to run). Unfortunately, if you decide Detroit iron is the ticket, you may be saying “my best days are behind me”, just like Detroit. I mean, what do you really think when you see a gray-haired guy piloting a ’74 ‘Vette into the parking lot at the mall? Yeah, me too; Viagra. And if he’s driving a brand new ‘Vette, you’re probably thinking “has a boatload of money, has left his third wife and taken up with some 21-year old he’s constantly trying to impress. I’ll bet he’s not really happy”. Admit it, you do.

But the feeling won’t go away. You still hanker after the kind of car you couldn’t have as a teenager. The manufacturers know this. Look at the surge of old-is-new-again designs out there: Mustang, Camaro (coming soon), Mini, Challenger (also soon), VW Beetle and so on. Even Fiat figured it out.

If you’re not a weekend mechanic, then new is probably the way to go. The upside is better reliability, better fuel economy, lower CO2 emissions, airbags, traction control, ABS, and of course the most significant automotive advancement in a long time—cupholders! What you’ll be missing is chrome, fins and carburetors.

If you sit tight and do nothing, the feeling may pass. Or you may settle for a compromise. I’ve told my wife if the urge hits, she may come home one day to find I’ve bought a set of mags for the minivan. In the meantime, you can window shop to your heart’s delight online. You can find a lot of cool stuff here. But be warned, we tend to make the world out of those thoughts we keep feeding, so if you’re not careful, you could wind up with a ’73 240Z (some rust, runs good) and a puddle of oil in your driveway. But hey, if that’s what it takes to find your mojo, let’s go for a ride!