Yeah I do. Within walking distance of my house is a shopping center with a hardware store, a grocery store, a Starbucks, a bakery, KFC, a drug store and a handfull of other retail places. There are fairly dense neighborhoods all around within a mile radius, and lots and lots of apartments. Within that same mile radius, the land on the mesa is fairly flat... leave the mesa and you will be tackling some pretty good hills, not to mention that speed limits on the arterial roads go up to right near ridiculous, at least relative to walking/cycling speeds.

Now I don't know exactly where you live, but you have alluded to a particular area that again is fairly flat, at least parallel to the ocean, and there is a bakery, some nice restaurants and a few stores that sell overpriced groceries... and I have noticed a bit of bike and walking traffic down that way. Down in PB there are loads of bikes parked in front of the local bars in the evenings... hey someone figured out that bikes work for something.

Further south, in the neighborhoods of Hillcrest and to the east, in NorthPark, there are clusters of areas where again there are merchants that can supply the regular daily needs of life from prescription drugs to groceries and even entertainment... all within the radius of a mile to the center of any of those clusters. Why even in Lemon Grove, where John Forester lives, there are a wide assortment of services and merchants available within a short distance.

Now to go from one area to another, that may be a bit of distance... It's about 4-5 miles from me to the beach as the crow flies, and if one were to ride a bike, then there are a few hills and fast streets that might make the journey take a bit less pleasant, and take a bit of effort. And certainly it would take some effort to go from this area to downtown, down through the valley and back up Mission Hills. And statistically some report I just glanced at earlier today said that most commutes are around 12 miles each way... so certainly that is outside both the couple mile radius and would encompass a few hills (at least around here).

But the bottom line is that in each neighborhood, in less than a two mile radius, many of our basic services are available. And for the most part, those services are are "reachable" by relatively flat land. Now if only bikes had the appropriate work cages or racks or boxes... hmmmm.

Now that is the San Diego I live in... And I imagine that similar such neighborhoods exist throughout America... after all, both you and Pete sure worked hard to try to convince me that this area is not much different from any other area.

OK you admit there are areas where local cycling on fairly flat ground is possible for simple errands... and if you really looked critically, I think you would find that most housing and development takes place around centeralized somewhat flat areas. There are exceptions of course... Mt Soladad for instance, Mount Helix is another, the slopes of Bay Ho, the Hills of Point Loma; all these fall out of the easy access of flat cycling (ever notice that those are also primarily "bedroom communities").

So the real question is why aren't bikes used for more local trips? Could it be that the bikes that are generally sold at the LBS are not quite suitable for running errands... racks are not standard equipment, neither are fenders that protect long dresses... and certainly drop handlebars would be difficult for sharing rides.

Oddly enough, in the one car garage neighborhoods such as North Park, Clairemont, Hillcrest and others, walking for groceries used to be a daily affair... along with walking kids to school and taking the baby in the stroller out while doing errands. Now the density of the neighborhoods has only increased, so it is not as if the merchants starved and moved off; the sidewalks are still there, but people are not walking. I saw a pro-walking web page today that claims that we take one less step for every 4 that our fathers took. We're lazy. We've become dependent on the car... "addicted to oil" as our president said. It's just "too hard" to walk a 1/2 mile to the local fish monger or baker... nope, we hop in the sedan and then get on the road and then whine and cry about how crowded the roads are... while we drive our land yachts down to the drive thru fast food joint... a 1/2 mile away.

We're lazy... Flat out. And we have let the car become our crutch. And quite often, our waistlines prove this point... Big Gulp anyone?

I saw a black Amsterdam bicycle in my own town last week . I said to the man, "that bike must be from Amsterdam", he said "how did you know" the fenders and hub brake were a clue.

I asked him how did he get the bike? He said he had lived in Amsterdam for eight years. He said he had paid fifty dollars for the bike. I told him theres an American company, Electra, making replicas for over $400.00.

I had to ask him how he got the bike into the US. He said he put it in the back of a shipping container with all his other stuff when he moved.

a broodje kroket. blij?