Thank every contributer to CF. This forum is enlightening, informing, and civil with just the proper amount of politics to flavor the discussions. I've been a member for over a year--never hesistating to spew my opinion, but I don't believe that I've introduced myself.
I'm a car-lite married father of three; while my children share my passion for riding my wife seems to lack the bicycling gene. I washed up on the Mississippi Gulf coast region of the States about fifteen years ago, and seem to have laid down too many roots in the community to even imagine moving at this point. Unfortunately, I've been absent from the forum for a couple of months prior thanks to Katrina--whose accounts would fill a novel.
Moving to transportational cycling was a natural evolution in my cycling passion. Perhaps the war was the final straw, I don't really know how it happened. But one day I realized that I was riding 250+ miles a week on the bike for pure pleasure while the auto was lucky to get the same; so I decide to get serious about transportational cycling. While I would like to say I do it for altruistic reasons these alone would not account for my passion for eventually achieving a carfree existence.
The combination of children and living in a rural community brings a new set of challenges to avoiding the use of the car. My choice of residing within my city of 20K has proven the greatest advantage, but cycling in a rural community with looonnnnggg stretches from point A to B on narrow, two-lane, high-speed roads is a great challenge. Furthermore, there is no public transportation, and the culture is definitely automobile oriented to the extreme. The city has no bike shop; this is not a surprise because it is not uncommon to ride for weeks or even months without seeing another cyclist, and usually just a Lance wannabe. On the plus side, the citizens are polite and tolerant--a product of living in a religous, gun culture--and there are far fewer motorists to "share" the road with as a whole. A super Walmart has wiped out much of the small town charm within the last decade, but at least I live within two miles of the mega store with easy bike access.
Naturally, my quest for speed on these long stretches of natural splendor drove me to recumbents which are my passion--the perfect weapon for my terrain. More recently my attention has been focused on electric-assists as a much needed solution to my growing need to haul children, trailers, and supplies; my carfree capabilities continue to grow as I add new CF equipment to the stable so it is a constantly evolving project. The stable presently includes:
'03 Optima Baron
'02 Actionbent Jetstream USS (first gen)
'05 Dahon Piccolo
'89 Trek 1000 (recent SS with 72V Crystalyte electric conversion--my "work" bike)
?? HiTen Steel Tandem (I liberated off Ebay)
+ half a dozen or so bikes that I took in off the street like stray cats.
I gravitated toward this fascinating subforum soon after I discovered BF some time ago. It suddenly became the first subforum that I would check every evening. And hope that I can contribute a fraction of what I have gained over the months. Again, thanks to all that make this forum work.
Ben Council