Many good points. I agree that people are, for the most part, in a hurry far too much of the time. I've got quite a number of friends that would *never* consider cycling around town to run errands, and always offer the opinion that, "Hey, I've got a car, why would I need a bike? Besides, cycling is too slow."

Of course, most of these people are at least mildly overweight, and almost all of them are in horrible shape. I was helping one of them move a table the other day, and she was *panting* after having to handle about eight flights of stairs (total). *sigh* Eight flights of stairs isn't even a decent warmup for how many people in this forum? Don't be shy, raise your hands.

Americans seem to eschew physical effort; almost as if having to do some form of physical labor is demeaning. It's a social stigma to ride a bike around unless one is "exercising". Running is more socially acceptable, but not by much; people still give you odd looks when running on the roadside. We make idols out of professional athletes, but we scoff at the everyday ones. It's a sad state of affairs.

Kids are driven to- and from school; because it's "not safe" to let them walk or ride a bike. I'm sorry, but despite the media attention paid to kidnappings and such, they are fairly rare occurrence; your child is more likely to die on campus or in a fatal auto accident than they are to be kidnapped.

I could go on, but I'm running on very little sleep, so I'm not that coherent.