"I'm not angry...just disappointed."

While I was away in Vegas, I got a call from a friend asking if he could sleep on my couch--something about a gas crisis and not being able to make it home and back with how much gas he had left. I had no idea what was going on, but considering what a Flop-House our place is anyway, I said of course he could sleep on our couch.

Gas crisis, huh? I was flying back from Utah when the ol' Blackout of '03 happened up in Cleveland and that whole area, so I missed that whole adventure, and there I was living it up in Vegas, using the hell out of non-renewable resources during the gas crisis here in the Southeast. Dang, I miss all the good stuff. Maybe this is a good sign...I'll probably be tele-skiing in Whistler when the apocalypse happens. No I won't. I just jinxed myself. Great....

Anyway, I'm sure even if I were in Asheville at the time, I wouldn't have noticed the gas crisis regardless. I think driving is about the most nerve-wracking, blood-pressing-rising, self-destructive thing you can do. So I tend not to do it very much. Maybe once every three weeks. Plus, it's terribly inconvenient. But no one else seems to think it is...instead they think biking is inconvenient, but that's only because they don't bike. I've done both. For trips less than 1/2 hour, the convenience factor is the same and driving is far worse anyway because its simply evil.

People punching people in lines while waiting for gas? That's hilarious. People thinking they need to drive to work that's four miles away? That's fucking disgusting. There's nothing funny about that, and it's such a post 1940's American concept to think driving is the best (and some people consider it the only--which is really gross) way to get from here to there and back. I recently bought a car from my brother, mainly so I could drive my mountain bike to races and bigger rides in Pisgah, which I'm sure could easily be called hypocritical, but that's fine. It is hypocritical. And if I were entirely flawless and never felt rushed or tired, I would ride my moutain bike for two hours to the trailhead, go ride my mountain bike for four hours, then ride the two hours home. But I don't want to do that. And maybe how rediculous that sounds to me is how rediculous it sounds to some people to ride their bike across town to work. Maybe that's just so far out of the question for them. It must be, otherwise they would have thought of it before they couldn't get gas anywhere in town.

I'm not pointing my fingers at everyone...just at a few key types of people. As much as I love and respect my friends, I am slightly appalled and disappointed with a few of them because the idea of riding their bikes to work or class never occurred to them until this "crisis" happened. I'm thinking especially of the ones that are actual bike riders...but not commuters. When you own at least three bikes, its hard for me to understand why you wouldn't ever consider one as your main mode of transport. You're already in shape and like bikes well enough, apparently...why are these people still so fixated on their cars? I just don't get it, and so I can't sympathize with it very well, so it makes me frustrated, and that's all.

I'm glad we had a crisis for the sake of my friends that ride bikes but never considered commuting on bikes. I'm glad there was a crisis for people that never really biked but had a townie and started using it out of necessity. I'm sorry for the folks that don't have the means of getting to work any other way but by car because they live an hour from thier work and public transportation in most parts of this country is somewhere between aweful and nonexistant, and I'm sorry for all the kids in my roommate's preschool class that couldn't show up for school that week becuase their parents couldn't get them there. But to all my able-bodied friends that drive their cars just because it's what they've been doing since age 16, and they never thought that putting on a backpack and biking to Amazing Savings or wherever is just as easy and quick as it is with a car...I'm shaking my head at them, wondering when they'll learn, and wondering why they seem to get so angry at the government for supporting their apparent needs. I don't know anything about politics at all (it reminds me of high school cafeteria gossip, so I tend not to pay attention to it.) But I know that I hate over-exploitation in all forms (excpet when it involves Halloween candy, then I, too, am a greedy bastard) and this is case #1 of "action, my friends, not words." You can't be driving to work hating on our government for wanting to increase the amount of oil available to the general public. They're doing it for people like you, silly.

I'm thoroughly convinced bikes can save the world. At the WWC homecoming last Friday, Alex and Pinkie were talking, vaguely, about the history of transportation in NYC. With Pinkie's stance being that the car was great because it replaced horses, which, of course, fouled up the streets and created the age-old American problem of having too much extra shit. Leave it to Alex to mention the bicycle. I was in-between conversations so I don't know what points were made between these two, but my own massive amount of common sense (scoff here, please) makes me back the bicycle with mule-like stubborness, mag-wheel toughness, and Chrysippus-like stoicism (don't bother analyzing those similes, especially the latter.) After the initial production, and every once in awhile for a few new parts here and there--there is nothing that goes into or comes out of a bike. No hay in, no shit out. No gas in, no CO2 and world destruction out.

Go bikes!

Or rather, go bike! To work, or class, or the grocery store, to over there and back, or, like, from the boys who got it right, you could just sit at home and drink a tasty brew: