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This article about the abrupt increase in commuter bikers in DC certainly describes me and my friends, though I certainly recall seeing people bike around town before this summer. But whatever: If people want to elevate commuter biking into a sexy new trend, I'm all for it. Particularly if they'll tell stories like this one:
It all began for Ed Cabic with a Mt. Shasta Capella that he got about 17 years ago when he was 11, growing up in Columbia. It was a nice hybrid, large for the boy, and he rode it a lot. Then he got his driver's license.Nothing beats driving, until Cabic realized he was arriving at work every morning mad and stressed.A couple of years ago, he hauled out the dependable, upright Mt. Shasta. He started riding from Petworth to his job as a computer applications developer for a law firm at 10th and K.The first day, he had to stop five times on the hills going home. Within two weeks, he didn't have to stop anymore."I went from hating my commute to having the commute be what I was looking forward to all day," says Cabic, now 28. "I come into work happy."That basically describes my experience biking. I grew up in Southern California. The first 16 years of my life were about anticipating getting a car. I got a car. Life was good. But traffic -- traffic was bad, and so was city driving. I'd arrive places unhappy. But I still loved my car (in fact, I still love my car). Then I moved to DC, and I'd walk and take the bus. That was fine, but like with the car, I was caught in traffic, caught waiting for the bus which was caught in traffic, and generally totally without control over my commute. I hated that part of it. Then I got a bike, and it vastly boosted my quality of life: It's easy exercise interwoven into the day, it puts me in control of my own transportation, I don't have to worry about traffic, I move about as fast as a car given the stop-and-go nature of city driving, and it's generally been a lot of fun. I arrive at work in a much better mood. I arrive home in a much better mood. I've sort of refrained from writing about this as I think it makes me into a two-dimensional liberal stereotype, but I'm pretty sure there's nothing about my political ideology which makes me more sensitive to traffic or more attracted to a brisk, 15-minute ride home on a nice day.
