Dave Bois: From Four Wheels to None to Two

All recollection of my first steps are long lost to me, leaving me with the still-clear memory of my first training-wheel-free bicycle ride as my earliest taste of independent mobility. It was pure glory: a bit of a jogging, steadying push from my father, and off I went. I wobbled a bit, sure, but I was absolutely in charge of the mechanics of my movement.

That bike and that first ride remain symbolic for the developmental process of claiming of my own personhood: I could move myself about, I could turn this way, or that way. It was all good. Except when it wasn't. As it turned out, that same first bike of mine serves double symbolic duty, figuring prominently in one of my earliest tastes of abject panic.

Having passed beyond the circumference of known neighborhood turf on a ride that started out enjoyably enough, I got myself good and lost. Thanks to decent young sense of direction, I was able to get back to something known: a multi-lane and heavily-trafficked thoroughfare along which I was able to find my way back home through a flood of blubbering terror tears as cars whizzed by. Good times.

Unrelated to that event when I was 5, it has been a while since I last regularly used a bicycle, and I'm feeling the pull back to it as my transportation needs evolve. About a year and a half ago, I became a car non-owner for the first time in 20 years. Apart from very occasional inconvenience, it's mostly a relief. It's certainly one less big yawning chasm into which no more money need be poured. Public transportation is nearby, and serves me well in my commute from Oakland across the bay to my job in San Francisco. I do love a good walk for local errands, but the chance to get there and back in 20 minutes instead of an hour has real appeal. And I'd still be getting exercise. And I'd still be burning no gas. Apparently, a whole lot of our fellow earthlings are having similar bike-love thoughts.

A Worldwatch Institute Vital Signs notice in my inbox this week tells the tale: Worldwide bicycle production is continuing its upward trend. OK, so the bulk of this is due to China's demand for two of three bikes worldwide; and European countries are well ahead of the U.S. in all manner of transportation issues (including planning that encourages bicycle use and fosters its safety).

But I'm taking heart, and will plow ahead with an optimistic and non-scientific set of assumptions here, because the trend is certainly discerned in the States as well. Can you feel it? Are you getting the sense that slowly, but surely, more and more people are understanding the linkages among and between energy and economy and environment and quality of life? I am. It's slow-mo, but it's happening. I see it. And sign me up for continuing to help it along.

Our initial, early rides on the road toward diminished fossil fuel use are going to be a bit wobbly. And until all the technological developments and trials sort out in the marketplaces of commerce and ideas, we could find ourselves having to revisit a turn or two we wish we hadn't have taken. But just think of it, once we're on our way: the rush! The exhilaration! The freedom!