raceboy

Ha! I'm afraid not. All the more reason to enjoy it as much as possible and ride this horse until it drops.

jfowler85

What kickstart means is that you are being a bit of an ass by bragging that your awesomeness has granted you the things in life you want. Unfortunately, fortune does not shine upon all awesome people in such a manner, which makes you an ass for assuming that you have indeed created your own reality all by your lonesome.

mijome07

I applaud you Sir. That is quite an achievement.

GovernorSilver

I didn't know how to ride a bike. I just learned how to ride a couple of months ago.

There is a grocery store with a bike friendly route between it and my house, less than 10 miles long. I used to drive there, but got sick of parking the car.

That's awesome (40 yrs) btw.

alathIN

The real test of the kind of awesomeness you describe is what happens when things go wrong.

Did Mr Awesome's legendary awesomeness just suddenly wear off? Can he ever get it back? If it's only intermittent, can it really be all that awesome?

After all, Mr Awesome cannot blame any undesirable outcomes on anyone else's actions/inactions, or the inherent imperfection of the world, because all his great outcomes are the direct result of his own awesomeness.

tjspiel

A mix of good fortune, hard work, and conscious decisions that meant accepting some tradeoffs. Being able to bike to work wasn't necessarily a requirement when we last moved but being close to work was.

Location is one factor that determines what jobs I'll take.

I recognize that I may or may not be able to be as selective in the future as I have been in the past.

Having someone willing to pay me for something I like to do anyway is good luck in some ways, however it wasn't something I was born knowing how to do. It took, time, energy, and money to learn.

realityinabox

As always, @tsl says it best. I'm glad to have my health enough to pedal a bike, but living in a city that is conducive to biking and picking a profession that would give me job options were both conscious choices.

realityinabox

You realize that a large portion of low-income earners ride their bikes to work due to lack of other transportation options, right? Perhaps you should be phrasing your accusations of smugness as "do you realize that you are fortunate enough to have the disposable income required to operate a fossil-fuel burning 2-ton tin can that makes you fat and lazy, but instead you choose not to?" If anything, I'd say people who feel that they have the right to have a 60 mile commute via car, standing idle in rush hour traffic, polluting our air because it is more "convenient" to drive than to make life decisions to downsize and live closer to work are the smug ones.

Panza

I look at you with utmost jealousy as my job requires use of a car to transport clients regularly. I would be happy with even a 3 mile commute. I end up logging 600~1200 miles a month strictly from work vs less than 200 miles a month before my current job.

Looking for a new job as soon as I complete my licensing exams though ...

kickstart

I take it you don't spend much time around working class people who fall between those who are poverty stricken, and the upper middle class who choose to live segregated from the unwashed masses. If ones income gave them the choice to not raise their kids where they would be exposed to gangs, drug dealers, and poor schools by living somewhere others than close to where they work, that makes them fat and lazy?

Artkansas 

I used to live in Rancho Penasquitos and work in Sorrento Valley. Most of my commute was down the center of the Los Penasquitos Canyon Preserve. Best commute ever.

baron von trail 

I'm very fortunate to not only live and work near bike trails, but also to have a reasonable work schedule and job type which allows me to ride a bike at least 3 days a week.

realityinabox

I honestly don't understand the point you are trying to make, or what we're even arguing about.

spare_wheel

Oh...its even *worse* than that. Some low income folk don't even own cars or cannot afford to keep them running so rely on multimodal transportation (e.g. a long walk to a transit stop and several public transport connections).

spare_wheel

those people. the empathy...it burns.

kickstart

Are you saying its insensitive to recognize there is a large portion of society that falls between people that don't have choices, and people who choose to separate themselves from the rest of us? Maybe you haven't noticed but a large portion of businesses served by the working classes are in places that aren't very livable. Have you also not noticed that the decent urban neighborhoods are limited and expensive. If my circumstances were different, I wouldn't live in some ****hole near a trucking terminal just so I didn't have to drive.

InTheRain

Wow! This thread really went in a direction that I never expected when I made the opening post. I'll just say that I consider myself fortunate to have the option to commute by bicycle. I don't believe that I made a lot of decisions in my life with bicycle commuting in mind. It just worked out that way. And a lot of people in the community have put in a lot of time and effort to build up an excellent infrastructure to make bicycle commuting safe and enjoyable. I'm not one of those people... it just kind of fell into my lap... thus, again... I'm fortunate.

Based on comments in the thread, it appears there are individuals that have made life choices that have allowed them to commute by bike. That's good. I imagine if I ever move or change jobs it will be an important consideration. However, my current situation is really based on some good fortune that came my way (rarely happens in my other walks of life.)

Phamilton

I don't really have anything new to add, only that when I'm riding my commute I do have feelings of being fortunate or gratefulness that I can do it. Or given that my route is 15 miles on-road with 45-55mph traffic, maybe I am just feeling lucky to still be alive. I don't have a car right now, so maybe the fortunate feeling will increase when I have one again and choose to take the bike instead.

GovernorSilver

Another thing I'm thankful for in this area is that the bike paths/trails and bike-friendly roads are accessible to rich, poor, and middle class alike - not restricted to just gated communities. I had no idea there were other parts of the US where only the rich could use bike-friendly routes.

hyhuu

Very fortunate because driving or riding the bus is very costly. My location is farther than most people but it is ride-able. It's not my choice but it works better for my family.

realityinabox

That's the thing I don't get about @kickstart 's argument. Biking is nothing if not democratic. Sure, you can spend $2-5k on some souped up road bike, or you can also spend $200 (or less) on some squeaky chained POS, but they will both propel you down the road and to your job. I do feel fortunate that there are cities that make safe cycling a priority, but living in one of those cities is a conscious decision, one that I weighed against higher salary and more interesting job prospects. I, not my circumstances, made cycling a priority, and I made decisions based on that.

kickstart

Apparently you don't appreciate the difference between the "conscious decision" of a family choosing to have fewer luxuries and disposable income to have a certain lifestyle, and a family to whom a "conscious decision" to have a certain lifestyle would mean sacrificing basics.

Or maybe you do, and you're just making a conspicuous display of your pride.

realityinabox

First off, the original premise of the thread is about whether I personally feel fortunate to have the privilege of commuting. I do, in so far as I am thankful for the fact that bikes exist, I have health enough to pedal one, and places exist that are safe to ride them.

You seem to be coming from a frame of mind where driving a car to work is a basic human right and/or necessity, and that riding a bike to work is some sort of extreme luxury or privilege. I come from a point of view that is the exact opposite. Cars are expensive, require far more costly maintenance, require insurance, require dead dinosaurs be burned into order to make them go down the road. The barrier to entry of riding a bike is far lower than that of driving a car. Riding a bike may be more physically or temporally demanding, but there are guys on here talking about putting in 50 mile round trip commutes on a daily basis. If you can't find a decent neighborhood within a 25 (or even 10-15) mile radius in order to get away from the scourge of the earth (the supposed cities filled with drug dealers and gangs where any sane person would be loathe to live), then I can't help you.

GovernorSilver

FWIW, a couple of the major bike trails in our area (Metropolitan Branch Trail, Capital Crescent Trail, Anacostia Tributary Trails, etc.) run through some poor neighborhoods.

spare_wheel

I feel very fortunate that I have car driving options...