Porridge not Petrol
I saw this as a signature on a cycling forum I've been looking at to get safe riding tips etc since starting out on the bike, and I like it. Recently I seem to be doing increasing amounts of travelling under my own steam rather than using the car or even public transport. I run, or I cycle. If I can't do either of those I look at public transport, and only if that doesn't work do I think about using the car. It's not a green thing so much as a being active thing. If I'm going somewhere and it's cheaper, quicker and more energetic to turn it into a workout rather than dead time, then I do that.
Today I even cycled to a 10k race. Normally i wouldn't dream of doing that for fear of using up precious running energy on the way there, but it wasn't a target race, and the route there is mainly downhill (shame about coming home!), so I decided to take the bike in.
It's getting to the stage where I'm seriously considering going car free over winter. I use my car in summer to get to the rugby, but over winter I often find that over the course of a month or so I've run more miles than I've driven, and I tend to play a game with myself to see how long I can go without putting petrol in the car. I usually need to call the breakdown people several times over the winter because my car battery runs down between uses. So if I'm giving my sister my car in October/November, do I really need to buy another one before February? I've got the bike and I've got public transport. I know people at running club who can give me lifts to races. If I really need a car over that period there's always WhizzGo which has cars round the corner from my office, and within cycling distance from home.
I'm not sure I'll go permanently car free, and I certainly won't be selling my car every October then buying a new one every February but I'm beginning to think that it might be doable on the basis that I'm losing the car anyway.
At least I'm getting plenty of practice cycling in crummy weather at the moment! I might need that experience come October...
Today I even cycled to a 10k race. Normally i wouldn't dream of doing that for fear of using up precious running energy on the way there, but it wasn't a target race, and the route there is mainly downhill (shame about coming home!), so I decided to take the bike in.
It's getting to the stage where I'm seriously considering going car free over winter. I use my car in summer to get to the rugby, but over winter I often find that over the course of a month or so I've run more miles than I've driven, and I tend to play a game with myself to see how long I can go without putting petrol in the car. I usually need to call the breakdown people several times over the winter because my car battery runs down between uses. So if I'm giving my sister my car in October/November, do I really need to buy another one before February? I've got the bike and I've got public transport. I know people at running club who can give me lifts to races. If I really need a car over that period there's always WhizzGo which has cars round the corner from my office, and within cycling distance from home.
I'm not sure I'll go permanently car free, and I certainly won't be selling my car every October then buying a new one every February but I'm beginning to think that it might be doable on the basis that I'm losing the car anyway.
At least I'm getting plenty of practice cycling in crummy weather at the moment! I might need that experience come October...
posted by YP at 2:44 PM
2 Comments:
It's definitely worth considering. There are so many disadvantages to owning a car, not including the huge cost of running one.
We've been car-free for ages, but then we can borrow one if we really need to... not that we do very often.
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