Giving Up the Car and the 3 Phases of Biking

After two decades of uninterrupted car ownership spanning two countries, I’ve given up my car. Before the rush of applause starts, I need to confess that, as a household, we still have the van so my wife can cart the kids to where they need to be. Before kids, we were making it work with one car. I drove to work and my wife got by using transit. In fact, transit access was one of the things we looked for when searching for a house. Then, of course, kids. And all the things that magically pop into existence around kids, like toys, change tables, car seats and mysterious broken things that nobody touched, descended on us until the critical mass was reached to push us into buying a van. And, voila, one vehicle became two.

No matter what you buy them for, keeping two vehicles on the road gets expensive. So when the stars aligned this March and we had a chance to go back to a single vehicle family, I was genuinely excited. For the first time in my life, I have a job that can be reached by public transit in less than an hour. I was already used to a 45 minute commute by car to my previous job, so rather than signing on for the shorter drive, I decided to try out the 40 minute bus and train ride.

All in all, it has been a great change. As some studies have suggested, I experience way less stress riding versus driving. I’ve never been known for Gandhi-like patience, and driving often brought out the worst in me. There were many days where I would find myself swearing, shaking a fist, flipping the bird and even aggressively revving the engine, and sometimes that was before I even put the car in gear. So driving has never been a good fit as far as stress or blood pressure. Public transit, on the other hand, still feels like personal free time created out of thin air. I can read, listen to audiobooks or music, work on my tablet or even catch a quick nap. The other people taking transit at the prime hours are all pretty decent. I previously had a poor opinion of transit because I only took it very late at night when everyone on it - myself included - tends to be ridiculously drunk.

I also walk way more on a daily basis as a result of public transit. This became apparent on day one when my fitbit marked 10,000 steps over my lunchtime stroll rather than late in the evening (or not at all). Now four months later, I am actually a bit lighter than when I started and I willingly get off a stop early to add some extra walking distance to the commute. To be clear, I don’t think public transit will turn back the clock so I can fit the same pants size I wore a decade ago, but I do think it will help with general health and at least counteract some of the hours I spend in an office chair. Apparently sitting to work is the new smoking and I am definitely a three pack a day guy if that’s the case, so every little bit helps.

Between the time and the general health benefits, it was enough for me to park the car permanently. As of this July, we officially are a one car family. Another interesting development coming from the change is that I am actually excited to drive the van on the weekends. I used to hate driving any distance on my days off because I drove so much to, from and for work. Now it is a special pleasure. And, of course, there is the environmental benefit of taking a car off the road. In all honesty, I didn’t make the change for environmental reasons, but it is a nice knock-on benefit when combined with saving money, gaining time and getting a bit more fit.

That said, it is not all sunshine and roses. As part of this process, I flirted briefly with biking. I was able to cut out a bus and it shaved my commute down to 30 minutes because of the ability to go a direct route rather than the bus route designed to hit as many neighborhoods as possible before going to the train. I used to bike a lot when I lived in Japan. People in general bike a lot in Japan, although car ownership is also up there. Biking to and from work remains one of my favorite memories from living in Japan. Edmonton, however, is not Japan. It is not even half as bike friendly. I’d unscientifically estimate that one in every 30 or so Edmonton drivers is out to straight up murder you through either spite or idiocy.

I went through what I imagine to be common phases for Edmonton bike commuters. Phase 1 was the honeymoon where it was just awesome to feel the wind on my face again. During this phase I bought all the peripherals like the helmet and reflectors so that I felt well prepared to ride on the road. I was right in there with the traffic following the rules that I reread multiple times. I felt confident for the single left my route required. After several close calls - all of which occurred while going straight on residential roads rather than that tricky left - I entered Phase 2.

Phase 2 is where you know the rules, but you value your life more than you fear the ticket. You start using sidewalks, dismounting and using the crosswalk, and generally acting as a pedestrian that sometimes rides a bike. This worked better, but I felt the hatred of people watching me. Some seemed to want me to ride across and get the hell out of the way faster. Some probably would only be satisfied if I sprouted seven kinds of aggressive cancer and died in front of them, such was their need to get to the next red light. Some - and I will admit we are talking about only three over the period of a month - didn’t stop at all. I don’t know if they didn’t see the blinking lights, didn’t think a walking bicyclist counted as a pedestrian, or maybe thought it was a race to see who could occupy the space first. Either way, I entered Phase 3.

Phase 3 is where you leave your bike at home and just fricking walk. Which is what I do. I even stick out a hand before I enter the crosswalk now and make pointed eye contact with the drivers. They are more attentive when I don’t have the bike - again, not sure why. Since I don’t feel pressure to run across, I have more time to judge a non-stopper versus the I-hate-my-brakes-so-I-smash-them-last-minute stopper. People still neglect to stop sometimes but my hands are no longer occupied holding the handle bars, freeing them up for the double bird.

Aside from the failed biking experiment, I’ve also had to pay more attention to weather. I’ve been drenched several times or ended up dressing for the 13 degrees when I leave rather than the 29 degrees when I return. So now I have a backpack filled with all sorts of useful stuff like windbreakers, hats and umbrellas. I still can’t shake the feeling that I am a kid again and that I should really have an adult checking my backpack to make sure I didn’t forget my lunch.

All in all though, the drawbacks have been small. And I get a little thrill telling people I don’t have a car, as this is the first time since I turned 16 that I could say that. To be sure, I am not going to swear off owning a car again. Jobs change, people move, and all of that changes the practicality of commuting. I also haven’t commuted through an Edmonton winter yet. However, with those caveats, giving up the car has been a great choice.

Thailand: You’re Going to Ride an Elephant, Just Accept It.

Like a great many tourists, I sometimes feel at odds with myself when I take the easy path and do the touristy thing in a given situation. I feel like there is some authentic experience I am missing out on - maybe apprenticing under some ancient looking master of glass blowing as the mists roll over the mountains behind us.

I am, however, a tourist. So even if an authentic experience presented itself to me, I would spend most of the time trying to get a picture of it rather than actually engaging. “Look at this picture,” I would tell my friends back home (none of whom really want to see a picture of me, whether it is of me blowing glass or even me on fire), “Isn’t it great?” And they’d be guilted into asking me how it was. To which, of course, my honest response would be “I guess it was ok. It was really hard to get the picture while holding the tube, so I actually just watched this old guy do it most of the time.”

I have come to terms with this essential flaw in my character and I accept that, if I am going to have any real connection with anything, I need time to steep it in. I am a bitter tea type of personality, I guess. This is why it took me over six years to properly wrap my head around one small city in Japan.

So when it came time for my trip to Thailand in 2004, I knew I was going to ride an elephant. It is one of those things tourists do in Thailand. I accepted it. And you should too.

I met my particular elephant on the island of Koh Samui in the south of Thailand. I was staying on Chaweng beach and had planned to make the full moon party (another tourist staple), but I’d failed to account for a Buddhist holiday. Koh Samui itself was beautiful, with jungles, beaches and an above 30 Celsius temperature during my entire stay. Of course, being of Scottish, Irish and German descent, I reacted to the sun like a hermit leaving his cave after 40 years of darkness.

So when it came time to visit the elephant show, I was resplendent in my wide-brim hat and well lubricated with several litres of sunscreen. The elephant show consisted of the mahout (a.k.a. elephant rider) taking the elephant through a workout regime similar to an early afternoon aerobics show on 80s television. The elephant backed up, lifted feet, stood up, shuffled and lifted logs with its trunk.

Elephants have a special way of doing this that conveys that shows they are still confused as to how these hairless primates ended up riding them, but they can’t be bothered enough to give a shit. After watching the elephant show, which bizarrely ends with the opportunity to shake hands with a monkey, we were finally allowed to fulfill our tourist dreams and ride the elephants.

Unlike the mahouts, who rode behind the ears of the big beasts, we got to sit in relatively comfortable seats tied to the elephant’s backs. We also mounted by walking up the steps to the loading platform rather than scrambling up the neck as the elephant kneeled before us. This was probably for the best, as many of us in the group were far beyond the age or body type needed to scramble up anything steeper than an ottoman.

I was travelling solo at this point, so I got the single seater elephant (better mileage, but more road noise). The first thing that hit me is that riding an elephant was actually kind of fun. The roll of the motion and the sense of the size of the animal carrying you is unique in my experience. The second thing that hit me was that elephants smell pretty much what you’d expect a very large animal to smell like. And they do everything large. One elephant in front of us in the tourist train stopped to piss and, by a modest estimate, released an entire lake’s worth of fluid.

So go ahead and ride that elephant when you have a chance. It isn’t going to change your life like learning to blow glass from a 100 year old monk on a mountain peak, but it is a genuinely satisfying experience that will make for a picture that no one but you actually wants to see. And, after all, isn’t that what travelling is all about?