"NOBODY WALKS IN L.A."

Its just not talked about. The people that fear the roads like me.

BMW? I bet you felt better getting rid of it! Those things are money pits. I figured you more as a Beetle chick or a Mini cooper kinda gal.

You guys know I talk a lot of nonsense and I joke a lot. This here below is not a joke, no nonsense.

I got rid of the car I think in January, 2009. It's a date you remember, or I remember in this instance, like your wedding anniversary, the date JFK was killed, or the date you gave up smoking. (BTW, I did all these, except the wedding, and remember none. I am sorry, I said I'll be serious, which I am, that is if you think of "serious" as honest, candid, straightforward. You CAN be funny AND serious at the same time. Seriously speaking, it might sound funny to you, but humour is a serious business. It just makes no money for the owner, the income from it is a joke. SHUT UP, ANDREW, TALK ABOUT THE ISSUE. NO CAR.)

I got rid of it because the previous six months I had driven my car twice. I had been weaning myself off it.

Three plans were in making with the riddance of the car:
1. Health improvement
2. Weight reduction
3. Saving gas and other expenses related only to car ownership
(4. This was not an issue but an unconsidered effect: I save the environment, big time.)
(5. This was not a pre-meditated issue, but proved to be good: Macho man.)

1. My health did improve. I have been taking antipsychotics all my life, which put weight on me. I had become a very fat man after giving up smoking in 2000. I was diagnosed with diabtes II in 2001.

Since starting to not drive, I lost 10 lbs, which is nothing, but considering that I had only been GAINING in the 30 years prior, it's a big thing.

Diabetes stayed steady. So far so good.

My financial health improved. I make ends meet, and have a little to put aside or spend, as I like, every month. I live on disability, a meagre sum, but I get it for free.

I shan't talk about the environment, big deal. Plus everyone knows cars are bad.

Macho man: I bicycle now year round, in sun, rain, hail, sleet, freezing rain and snow.

I only don't bicycle when I get lazy (take the city bus), or when the roads have not been cleared of the snow.

I live in a smaller town now, about 15 mi across in the longest, and from where I am, I can bicycle everywhere, and home.

Traffic: this is a big problem for people. You have to learn how to become fearless and bold, while at the same time be polite and considerate of other users of the road. I wear lamps, both front and rear. This makes me visible, they don't make me see any better. I wear loud horns and bells. To alert other people of my presence when they don't see me. I keep to the rules of the road, I wait at red lights. I do run stop signs, though. I bicycle on the sidewalk at times, this is standard practice in this city. But if I see the sidewalk blocked by a little old lady with a walker or two dogs, a baby and a mother, or two or three kids walking together, then I go on the grass or on the road.

I prefer the road anyway. It's less bumpy, and goes faster.

In the winter I am macho, coz people look at me and ask "You came with your bicycle?" and when I say yes, the women go and lean on their husbands' shoulders, somewhat behind them with half their bodies, giving me an interested smile, as if I were a tamed, but wild social animal, that is still somewhat unpredictable as to when it will completely lose all of its civilized ways. I am still being serious, I can't help that people are the way they are.

Throwing away the car did have one negative impact. I never got a woman after that. You become a social outcast; maybe an interesting person, but no woman will want to touch you. You have no car? You bicycle in the winter? You are an interesting man, she says. You are also a social pariah in the dating world. An Untouchable.

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I have a few tips for seasoned bicyclists, and unseasoned ones:

1. don't take chances. Ever.
2. bicycling is like driving. Requires 100% attention and knowledge of the rules: both traffic, highway traffic act, and physics rules.
3. Slow down and proceed at walking pace in narrow passages where you can't see what's coming. It's usually a 19-year-old university kid who is coming, at full speed.
4. Do not take the temptation of rolling down steep hills if it is not safe for ANY reason.
5. Don't ever ride the bike under the influence.
6. Keep your bike in a safe condition. I fail at that, mostly my breaks.


Novices:

1. learn to ride in a straight line.
2. get used to your gearshifts, and do gear down for hills, and do gear up for straightaways and for down.
3. Do not expect people to get out of your way, or cars, or trees. It's your responisibility to ride safely.
4. Get your seat to a height where your straight extended leg touches the pedal with your heel at the pedal's farthest point. This will minimize muscle fatigue.
5. keep your tires at maximum allowable inflated pressure at all times or as much of the time as practical and possible. Every tire wall tells you this max pressure or a range of pressures in PSI.
6. Train to curb yourself when you ride on the road. Cars will zip by, on your left, sometimes close to you. Not to freak out!! They only appear dangerous, but they are not, and appear so only at first.
7. Don't stop uphill in a heavy-traffic road. It is hard to start to get going uphill again, you most likely will be reduced to having to push your bike up the rest of the hill.
8. If you do have the strength to start it up uphill, do it on the sidewalk. You wabble and can't keep the bike straight and close to the curb in such starts. Nobody can. Okay, Eddy Merckxs could.

Workhorse bike drivers:

1. Have mudguards.
2. have a permanent rack in the back, not the front.
3. Make your own sidebags or saddle bags; no need to pay big money for them.
4. make or get a detachable trailer. I have several, like those new grocery carts that are a big canvass bag on a pushable/ pullable frame with wheels.
5. Have, buy, or make a wheel, that has an easy and a very easy and an extremely easy gear. On the back wheel they should be larger and larger, on the pedal crank they should be small. Especially if you live in a hilly place.


Disabled drivers:

I did not list it specifically on the first list of "planned benefits", but the biggest reason I got the bike was to reduce the amount of walking. My plantar fasciitis (ache on the sole of my foot) was killing me. I could not walk 10 steps without pain, and I could not stand in spot for more than half a minute without agony. Grocery stores were the worst. You know, walking on cement a mile inside the store to get to the milk and bread.

I had other health problems that made it very difficult to walk. Lower back pain, and skin tags between my thighs that created very bed pain when my skin sweated and the tags rubbed.

When I had my heart troubles, the hardest thing to between diagnosis and the operation was to stay away from my bike. That... was tough.

1. If flexibility is a problem, get a bike that you can put your leg across in the centre. That means female frame, or even a child's frame, for the bike, and never a male frame.
2. If arthritis is a problem in your hands, fingers, thumbs, wrists, elbows or shoulders, always lift the handle bar very high and ride that way. This will take the pressure off your aching joints.
3. This will sound stupid, or sick, or gross, but it's true: try to empty your bowels before riding. If you don't, and you are overeight, then your tail bone will hurt (that is not the peeeenis, but small portion of your spine that curves inward in your abdomen) and/or you will hurt in other ways. This happens as a function of an unemptied bowel, not as a function of your sensation of needing to got to the bathroom.
4. If you are short: 5'5" or so or shorter, get a kid's frame. I am not joking, this is serious. I kept noticing later in life that I am almost like lying on my stomach on every bike. This was very uncomfortable. I said, at age 46, to the heck with this, and started to buy kid's bikes at GoodWill, and I felt comfortable on the bike from then on. Twenty inch diameter wheels. Small frame. With a low middle, so I can step across. Raise the seat, raise the steering bar, to require heights. People stop me on the street to admire my bike, kids go gaga over my bike.


Bikers in cold climates:

1. wear warm, but not too warm clothing. The rule of thumb is that biking adds 10 degrees celsius or 15 degrees Fahrenheit to the ambient temperature to make a perceived temperature.

You bike, so your muscles constantly move. You generate more heat than you can handle.

The big things are to protect from the wind. Get a face-cover, a balaklava or baklava, I don't know which is the pastry. Wear gloves below 10 C or below 50 F. Your coat should be light and not let in wind.

I have never once felt cold on the bike, other than in the falls, when I got soaked and thoroughly wet.

2. NEVER TACKLE SHEER ICE. If you have to combat a moderately high (knee deep) occassional heap of snow, usually at itersections when the plows just have gone buy, tackle it like a commando. But if there is sheer ice on the sidewalk, stop before you get to that. Road ice is okay, but not standing water after it freezes.

3. Don't go out in fresh snow. You'll slip-slide, and in snow over 5 cm (2 inches) it's like pedalling in wet mud. The effort gets mulitplied to 10 to 20 times normal on the same road in good condition.

Bikers in hot weather:

1. Wear those newfangled sweat-wicking materials. They are truly wonderful.
2. Don't be shy to rehydrate. But don't go overboard either. Drink when you are thirsty, but only then. Don't "stack up" with water in your stomach. In the city it's not absolutely necessary, but on road trips water in a bottle is a must.
3. Wear light and little clothing. If getting sunned is a problem, use cream.
4. Always have sunglasses on you; in the pocket or in the purse, even when it's overcast when you start off.
5. WITH A CAUTION wear a cap with visors. I used to wear them at age 50. I started to go bald in the front. I stopped wearing them, and the hairloss stopped. I believe the two are connected. I wear now only sunglasses, which still don't work as good, but better than staring at the bright, glaring sun. In the snow they are a must, too, when it's sunny.
If you wear a hat or a cap, have a string like the cowboys used to have. The wind can blow your top off, and you don't want that to happen.

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Please feel free to copy this script and distribute it. Please make sure you cite the author "Wux on Mingle2.com", always, in or on every copy you distribute.

haha I really gotta start acting more bad a$$ then. Honestly if I had a good set of wheels in general, something that didn't dysfunction on me daily, I'd still be on the roads. Even those cars would do. In fact I had some green for a down payment on a used, but decent Mini, again my procrastinating nature perked up and never got around to purchasing it.