Shek's Footprint

The real world is a combination of what we are supposed to do and where we do it. It generally involves buying a car and a single family home with fake grass and a barbecue grill in the back yard. I put that concept of the real world to a test. In May 2008, I started riding a bicycle to work and grew independent from the car. In October 2008, I sold my car and went car free. In September 2009, I gave up dealing with insolent motorists in suburban Jacksonville and decided to move to Riverside, a part of town built on a human scale.

Motorcycle Ownership

I had decided to not own a car for as long as I could manage it. A voluntary car-free state is a protest against the city of Jacksonville’s mandate to buy a car. Being car free allows me to be more environmentally responsible. To be able to commute from Riverside to work, a distance of 12 miles, I decided to buy a motorcycle. Not wanting to pay too much of the car tax, I bought the cheapest motorcycle in the market. To keep my mode of transportation reliable, I bought a brand new motorcycle. In December 2009, I moved to Riverside. I have been commuting on a motorcycle and sometimes on a bicycle from Riverside to work every day since the beginning of 2010.

Benefits of the Motorcycle

I get around 80 miles per gallon. My carbon footprint is very small and I fulfilled my life long dream of owning a motorcycle.

Drawbacks

This is a very light motorcycle and Jacksonville is fairly windy. At even a 10 mile per hour wind, the motorcycle gets pushed around on the road. This is similar to the feeling if you were to ride a bicycle and someone pushed your shoulder to the side. It gets difficult to keep my position on the lane. I generally drop speed to gain front tire traction to be able to steer myself back to where I was. This gets worse when it is windy and rainy. Most of my commute is on Phillips Highway. It is an old road and the center of each lane is very uneven. When I get pushed from my left half position into the center of the lane, the motorcycle gets even more unstable. This results from the weak forks and fork mounts.

At short stretches of highway, the grooves cut on the surface tracks the front tire giving the motorcycle a mind of its own. This gets worse crossing the tall Acosta Bridge which has rain grooves and higher wind speeds.

Maintenance cost of motorcycles is very high unless you can do it yourself.

Seven months of Riding

By the first three months till March 2010, I was considering moving to Belize. It was the coldest winter in Jacksonville in decades. It was extra cold for me on a motorcycle. Some mornings, the wind chill would be around 15 degrees. My fingers have been so cold that I was unable to remove my gloves and unstrap my helmet.

When it started warming up, the weather was perfect for motorcycle riding. This lasted probably 3 weeks till the pressure system in the Gulf started working and the winds picked up. I remember my first time in a 14 mile per hour cross wind taken by surprise not knowing what to do. I remember struggling to keep my lane position and doing everything in my power to not end up in the ditch where the wind was taking me. Between April and July, there have been only a handful of days where motorcycle commute was fun. Mornings are usually uneventful but it is the afternoon commutes that create stress. Continued added stress leads to fatigue.

Solving the wind problem

Between the motorcycle’s weight of 300 lbs and mine of 220 lbs, the center of mass of the two of us sits fairly high up. This makes it easy for the wind to create an impact on the direction of the motorcycle. Scouring numerous forums and blogs about people facing similar problems with the wind, I discovered that no one faces this at under 20 mph winds. They all ride heavy motorcycles.

Therefore, buying a heavier motorcycle with thicker forks, sturdier fork mounts and thicker tires will greatly solve my woes. Alas, even a used heavier motorcycle (650 cc to 800 cc) costs between $3,000 and $4,000. Incidentally, a coworker is moving to Brazil and is selling an old Toyota in great shape for under $4,000. I am jumping on this opportunity.

The Real World

This marks my re-entry into the so called real world. It starts by buying a car. The feelings associated with buying a car now are so different than the feelings I had when I bought my first car in 2006. Now, I view a car as a bloated and inefficient tool that is unofficially mandated by the city. Back in 2006, my car was a toy, an extension of my limbs and a mode of transportation to the nearest money-draining chain restaurant.

I re-enter the real world with desperation and need of a car, not a want. I re-enter the real world with open eyes, not eyes masked by social norms designed to impress faceless members of society. I will always regret that I wont be car free anymore.

Update: For more on the philosophy behind this post, read this http://www.mnmlstlife.com/archives/83

I organized a cargo bike picnic ride last Sunday. I wanted to promote the utilitarian aspect of bicycles so people can supplement some of their car trips on a bicycle.

Seven people showed up, including me. The excellent company made up for the lack of participation by far.

The ride was promoted paper free. No posters and leaflets. In the age of blogs, RSS feeds and feed readers, it is pointless to print posters. Ride information was shared on Urban Core and Bikejax, both very  popular websites. I also created a facebook event where 30 or more people agreed to attend in spite of the Tour de Cure going on. Lakshore Shwinn, a local bike shop that carries xtracycles also sent messages on twitter and facebook.

Many people who missed the bicycle ride are probably at work watch oil spewing out of the extraction site on bp’s live feed. They shake their heads in disappointment to bp’s lack of proper oil spill containment and to the damage done to sea life and beaches. They may even shed a tear at the sight of oil drenched birds. They prepare to end their work day and make their way home in the comfort of their gasoline powered cars. Over the weekend, they will probably make their way to the grocery store or a restaurant in their cars, run into friends and talk about boycotting bp, then drive their cars back home.

I like to hope that people would do something to lessen their usage of gasoline. It causes pollution, spills and war. It also supports the car tax. I hope they replace some of their trips with a bicycle. Even a short trip.

I have been riding two days to work and am upping it to three. I am supplementing my bicycle commute to work with my motorcycle. 14 miles is quite long.

I am also drooling on the pictures from the Cargo Bike Race in Copenhagen.

I remember growing up during the beginning of consumerism in India. My father owned a car that I used for errands and to transport myself to the commuter rail station. He used the company car to commute to work. Before I have been driving, I watched my friends get motorcycles and scooters. I have been drooling over motorcycles for as long as I can remember.

Mom and Dad, fearing traffic conditions of Bombay, never bought me one. After laboriously evaluating every production motorcycle in India through magazines and internet, I had zeroed in on the Enfield Bullet 350 as the object of my affection. I got to ride a 1971 Royal Enfield Bullet 350 on the closed streets of Godrej & Boyce manufacturing campus. Even though I ended up pushing the heavy kick-start bike back to its owner for a quarter mile, consumerism was taking over. I wanted to acquire motorcycles from everything like the Enfield 350 to the over powered liquid cooled V4 engined Yamaha V-Max. Frugal options like 100 cc to 150 cc commuter motorcycles legendary for their reliability, affordability and fuel efficiency were not on my radar.

Others: Get what you really want. You will grow tired of this in three months.

Me: But I don’t have $9000 for the Triumph America. I want to keep my operating costs low.

Others: Put it on your credit card. Ask for an extension on your limit. Get financing. (in other words, get deeper into debt like the rest of us)

Me: I get 90+ miles per gallon. Insurance costs only $181 annually for Liability and Comprehensive.

Others: You will grow out of it soon. Get what you really want.

Me: I just want to commute. Not really worried about speed.

Others: You’ll think your bike is too slow in 3 months.

I am in a position where only time can tell if I grow tired of this bike quickly. Till now, my top speed has been a modest 30 mph on slippery rainy conditions with slippery new tires. I plan to own this bike for two to three years till I can afford to own and maintain a bigger motorcycle without going into debt. I am not, however, excited about being pulled into the rat race of traffic and commute. Owning a motor vehicle is one step closer to being another brick in the wall.

“I’ve used up gas just looking for gas,”

 ”Right now, I’ll pay anything for gas,” Jenkins said. “I don’t care if it’s $5 or $6 a gallon. I need it.”

A quote from the recent gas shortages in Atlanta sounds very familiar to parts of the script of ‘Trainspotting‘. See news article for the complete story (article). 

I dont understand why people have forgotton the meaning of freedom. Freedom dependent on goods and services other than basic necessities like food, clothing and shelter is addiction. See more information on addiction here (link).

Does Jacksonville have a plan B if this were to happen here or are we going to be stuck in our SUVs? I am sure that Jacksonville will be worse off because Atlanta atleast has MARTA. Jacksonville has nothing. This is a list of Jacksonville’s illustrious projects (link).