B. Carfree

When you're touring, odds are you are bringing along your house, complete with kitchen and bedroom, albeit scaled down to a tent, sleeping pad and bag, cookset, fuel, food and clothing. Also, stopping for entertainment is pretty common when touring. When one commutes longer distances, one tends to skimp on everything and turn it into a fast training ride. It's different; averaging over 20 mph is the norm. It's even more different if you have several such riders grouping together for all or part of the ride

Ekdog

Those are valid points but, still, I don't think that most people will commute such a distance by bike on a daily basis unless they have no other choice. I tip my hat to those that do.

Miele Man

Very interesting.

I think that many people confuse 'living without a car' with 'living car free'.

If you make use of ANY car then you're not really car free.

I ride just about everywhere via my bicycle. I do NOT own a car and thus I'm carless. However, because I do occasionaly get someone to drive me somewhere that'd be a day-long bicycle ride EACH way, I can't really say hat I'm car free or that i survive without a car. To sdome that might seem like semantics but top be car free means you NEVER make use of a car.

The vast distances between many places in North America and the sometimes non-existant or very poor transit systems can make living totally car free a very hard thing to do. I lived carless in Toronto, Canada and even with the decent transit system here I found it fast to ride my bicycle across the city either east-west or south-north. People with cars were astounded that a bicycle could be as fast as or faster than a car for commuting. Plus I never had a problem parking my bicycle. A bicycle gives you freedom to move around/avoidtraffic jams/accident scenes. The one thing with trying to live totally car free is when you try to fetch bulky and heavy objects on a bicycle. It can be done but it's a real effort and often just not practical.

Here in tow the transit system isn't good nor is the inter-city bus system anything great.
for cities up to 50 kilometers away, I can get there FASTER by bicycle than I can if I use transit. That's because getting to the inter-city busses is a real roundabout journey by town transit and then there's the wit times for the town bus and the inter-city bus. With the bicycle i can leave when I want to and when I arrive at my destination i already have transportation with me and so I don't have to walk or depend on public transit there either. Fortunately for me I'm still healthy enough to be able to ride a metric century if I need to go to another city and back in one day. If the distance is too far to ride in one day or if I'm getting a bulky object then I'll arrange for someone to drive me.

Cheers

wolfchild

I agree...Majority of transportational urban cyclists will never even do a 70 mile ride in their lifetime, let alone commute such unrealistic distance daily in all weather conditions. Riding that much distance daily everyday all year round for many years would create some serious wear and tear on the body. It would nothing less then self induced torture.

Walter S

We all "make use" of cars. By that definition is anybody that has a job or buys food or other resources car free? Cars are involved in producing virtually any product or service there is.

When my sister drives me to visit with mom am I using her car or just spending time with my sibling?

Miele Man

No. People say they live car free yet use a car on occasion to go places. Whether rented, borrowed or a friend/relative drives you; if you're inside a car then you're NOT living car free.

Cheers

Walter S

So if you're outside of the car then you're car free?

Walter S

Based on the exhaust fumes I breathe every day I'm definitely not car free.

TheLibrarian

I'd have to move closer to work. There is a MUP across from my job but would still need to get 20 miles closer and try to be along the mup if not a few miles on normal roads. I did go a year without a car in China, in a city that i didn't know too well so the slightest wandering was a new adventure and my job there was in walking distance but i had a bike anyway. Even if i were closer its still the burbs so shopping would be limited

Ekdog

Most people are car-free in China, as in the case in many countries, so it can definitely be done.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...les_per_capita

Miele Man

No. If you're outside of the car you're free of the car.

Cheers

350htrr

You "maybe" free of the car personally, but culturally no. You generally would be dependant an car-like vehicles for everything you basically need in life...

Ekdog

"Serious wear and tear on the body"? To the contrary, anyone who's riding that far every day is more than likely incredibly fit, but you and I agree that it isn't realistic for most people. What I believe we disagree on is whether we should go on with the same old way of getting people from point A to point B. While you favor more motorways and more cars, I support a combination of public transportation and cycling. Even that most typical of car-centric cities, Los Angeles, is coming to the realization that it's time to change.

Will Santa Monica's Expo Line get you out of your car? - LA Times

oneidabow1

Actually, my wife and I could move, but she won't. Our workplaces are 5.25 miles apart as the crow flys, (there's an app for that) so we could ride to work. Where we live currently, there are no mass transit systems in place. Michigan big-shots apparently didn't think those were needed back in the heyday of the auto industry so they didn't plan accordingly.
That surely would have undermined their goal of selling cars.

Ekdog

It sounds like you have the cards stacked against you. What a shame!

Walter S

+1. It's the time that makes it hard to fit it into normal life, not the miles. 70 miles per day makes you feel like a million bucks. I get a feeling after a couple weeks on tour like I'm floating on air everywhere I walk.

maxine

So, OF COURSE that simply answers his point, and he should OF COURSE immediately sell his car, because OF COURSE it's not going to affect his kayaking.

On Saturday morning I needed to get myself and my (somewhat pricey) 15-foot-long sea kayak to a site that would have been a 143-mile bicycle ride from my house (and I had to go back home that evening). Yep, the kayak went up on the roof of my motor vehicle.

Are there places closer to me to kayak? Some. But I volunteered for a training event at that location, and my assistance was much appreciated -- and would not have been practically possible, given that I have to work for a living, using one of my bikes.

I guess that's the same point that gets made, and re-made, every time these discussions come up. Could you survive without a car? In many cases (more cases than some people realize), sure. But "survival" is a pretty low bar; most folks aspire to a bit more. Could you do everything that you currently do, or that you want to do, without a car? In some cases, maybe so; in many others, no. So each person makes the tradeoffs that work best for him/her.

maxine

(Oh, and just for the record -- I was car-free when I lived in England for four years, so I am not at all hostile to the concept. It worked for my life back then; occasional inconvenience, but nothing that I couldn't (or wasn't willing to) work around.)

Re: those buses with bike racks -- I sometimes wonder, when I see them, what happens if three people show up with bikes? I guess in the bigger-picture scheme, that's a good thing -- it may mean that more people are biking and making use of transit. On the other hand, not too much fun if you're the third guy.

KD5NRH

This; when I worked graveyard shifts, I'd bike in because the kids were already in bed. On day shifts, I'd drive because it let me spend more time with them in the morning before I left and get home 20-30 minutes earlier.

For now, I'm doing the carfree thing all right, but we haven't had that many of the usual Texas spring storms. The headwind this morning was miserable enough, especially since the ride in is about 80% uphill. Throw a storm with 30+mph winds in there, and I'm staying home if I can't get a ride.

cooker

I've mentioned before that this should be a touring option. All you need is an inflatable raft to carry your bike. You cycle along towing a boat until you reach water, then pump up the raft, hop in the canoe or kayak, and tow the bike on the raft across the river or lake, then back on the bike.

tandempower

I sometimes ponder what would happen if suddenly driving was no longer an option anywhere, e.g. because global oil supplies were just gone all at once. I wonder if some places would just get abandoned to human habitation completely because they are too inhospitable in terms of climate conditions, or would people in those areas find ways to adapt?

I-Like-To-Bike

A bottom line truth/fact often ignored by a few oblivious posters who apparently have set a very low bar for themselves and wonder why not many people voluntarily choose to emulate their just "surviving" lifestyle.

Ekdog

Some posters are oblivious to issues such as global warming and have set a very low bar for themselves when it comes to protecting the environment.

Some posters are oblivious to (or just don't give a damn about) the link between car fumes and childhood asthma.

Some posters are oblivious to (or just don't give a damn about) the large number of pedestrians who are injured and killed by cars.

Some posters erroneously believe that people who live car-free are just surviving, while they, because they own motor vehicles, are living the high life.

One poster apparently has nothing better to do than to constantly fill this sub-forum with insulting posts about people who are interested in living car-free. One would think he would have better things to do with his time--like cruising around in his car and living high on the hog--but that does not seem to be the case.

Walter S

What kind of "low bar"? Interesting things like how many miles you travel in a year? Sure, there are a number of specific things that I can't do as conveniently as with a car. I'm not usually interested. The goals I pursue on the bicycle are generally more personally rewarding for me. And if I need a car I can still rent one. Not sure what I'm missing by not owning a car other than being uncomfortable with how I'm investing my resources.

Walter S

OK. But let's say that you see physical fitness as a very important part of life. Combine that with a love for cycling and the desire to promote a healthy, clean environment for your family. If your commute by cycle takes 30 minutes longer than by car, you're getting a little more time with your family than if you drove (while polluting your family's world) and then stopped at the gym for 30 minutes.