I recently returned from a trip to Hilton Head Island, in South Carolina. Hilton Head is located at the very south part of South Carolina, close to Savannah Georgia, and is a very popular beach vacation location. My parents, who participate in the condo swapping programs that have become popular lately, had a week to spend there and invited us to come down. I’m not usually so big on this kind of vacation, but the beach is really nice on the Island, and the kids love the beach. Plus, the island is populated with tons of bike paths, which make it theoretically easy to get around (more on that later…). So we decided to go for it.

The Electric Madsen was perfect for the beach

After a very long and tiring drive, punctuated by changing a flat tire on the side of I-95, in the dark (of course) we arrived at Hilton Head. The island is built up with lots of resorts and expensive homes, grouped into “Plantations” – really just a fancy southern name for parts of the island. Maybe it had to do with the original plantations on the island back in colonial days, I’m not sure. Now, each Plantation has it’s own cache and level on the hierarchy of perceived wealth. The resort where we were staying is owned by the Mariott group, and was located in the exclusive “Sea Pines” Plantation. To access this Plantation, you must go through the guard checkpoint, where the guards collect $5 from you if you are not a “guest” and enforce a cadre of rules designed to enhance the exclusivity of the place at the expense of common sense. I think they just don’t like anything that does not conform to the aura they want to project.

For example, we brought along with us a sit-on-top kayak, in case we wanted to explore some of the area via water (it is an island after all). Well, apparently, the Sea Pines homeowners have a prohibition against any kayaks or surfboards being “displayed” in the open, on top of a car, etc. They are supposed to be kept in a building out of view at all times. The guard at the gate determined by sight that our kayak was too big for our resort to handle, and almost didn’t let us through the gate (what were we supposed to do with the kayak?). But after lengthy argument, he agreed to let us go to our resort and see if they could find a place to store the kayak out of site. They did (fortunately, the Mariott people were very helpful and accomodating) and sure enough, the guard’s supervisor came to check on us 15 minutes later, just in case we decided to ignore this prohibition.

Anyway, I’m digressing, because after that original incident, the rest of the vacation was actually pretty nice.

The island is great for family riding

So, since we had all 3 children with us, we decided to bring the Madsen bike to transport the smaller ones, and my older (5-yr-old) daughter’s kids bike, and a third bike to get everyone around. While the roads on the island are narrow, there is actually a very good network of separated bike paths that run along the sides of the roads, so you can get from your accommodation to the beach and back via bike.

Because of this network of paths, a large industry of rental bikes has been built up, and many people rent bikes for the week. Most of these are beach cruisers with one speed (the island is totally flat, the only hill being the bridge over the inlet) and appear to be fairly low quality bikes. I discovered the reason for this right away, when we rode past a rental place with a sign “$20 rental for one week”. Now, the last time I rented a bike was when I was in Moab, Utah, and rented a mountain bike. It cost me $40 for ONE DAY. Similarly, a bike rental in Boston, to get around the city, cost even more than this. So obviously if you only pay $20 for an entire week, you get what you pay for.

Well, we did quite a bit of riding while we were there, in fact we didn’t use the car at all (except to go to the tire place to buy a new set of tires that is!). My daughter could easily ride safely on the separated bike paths, and we didn’t have to worry about her getting caught up in traffic. She rode over to the Children’s museum and back with her grandparents, rode to the beach, even rode ON the beach. Riding on the beach is very easy and fun when the tide is low. The beach there is very flat, which makes for great sand for riding, and you can go the whole length of the island, several miles.

Enjoying the swings at the playground

One day we all took the trails and rode up to the harbor, where there are lots of yachts, (many of which are very, very large), a great playground, and some little shops and restaurants. We took a round-about way on the way back, having to stop and examine the bike path signs that are dotted around the intersections here and there. The signs were a good thing, because it was pretty easy to get lost with everything looking the same (the uniformity mantra works!).  In fact, I was not sure we were on a different path until we rode past what appeared to be a heritage vegetable farm, which I didn’t remember from the way out. Hmmmm… well, it was a nice day and we weren’t in a hurry.

Occasionally while riding, we would go past a little “borrow pit”, where we spotted some small alligators. (I wonder where they take them when they get too big?). A borrow pit is where they’ve borrowed some soil to fill in another place, such as where the road is. It’s common in areas that were swamps and wetlands at one time. They just move the dirt around and make them ponds and berms – easier to travel around. The kids all enjoyed seeing the alligators and the herons. We never saw the alligators move much. They have a way of making you wonder if they really are alive….just so you might come a little bit closer….and closer….

As we rode around, we encountered many other people on bikes, some of which probably did not ride a bike except for once a year, at Hilton Head. This was evidenced by several near-crashes I witnessed involving curbs and pilot error. One couple almost colliding with each other while getting started. I thought the fact that these people were even out on bikes was pretty cool though, because here is an opportunity to see that one can actually get around by bike. How great! The side paths really were important in making people feel safe to ride a bike and not have to deal with traffic. It was obvious that the investment the Island had made in bike paths really did help people get around while they were on their vacations, and hopefully relieve some traffic and parking problems at the beach.

But at the same time there were some gaping holes in the infrastructure when it came to actually using the bike to go anywhere except the beach. This was especially true because if you had to go somewhere there wasn’t a bike path, the roads themselves were very busy, narrow, and populated by heavily traffic.

For example, we decided to go one day to get some Gelato at a great little Gelato place called Pino Gelato. The Gelato place is in a strip mall Hilton Head style – that is, the stores are arranged in a semi-circle, and there are trees in the parking lot. It’s on the north side of the main highway that transverses the island. The bike path is on the south side of this highway (no path on the north side). Fortunately, there was a stop light at the entrance. But to cross at this stop light required navigating a 4 lane highway with right and left turn lanes and turn arrows, no crosswalk or pedestrian signals. We had the Madsen bike with the 2 little kids in back, my 5-year old on her little bike, and 3 other bikes. We decided the best strategy was to cross en-masse, so we waited for the cross light to change, and then walked our bikes quickly across 8 lanes, avoiding right and left turning traffic. At least we were a highly visible group all together. It was not an easy crossing, but everyone made it safely and had their gelato. Of course we had to repeat this in the opposite direction.

The thing about it that was most annoying was there was absolutely no provision for any kind of crossing at that light. So if you were a pedestrian, you would also face a pretty big risk just getting across the street. And once across there is no shoulder, sidewalk, or any other way to travel down that side of the street if you needed to go to the next establishment, for example. The way it is set up, the only way to easily access any business on the north side of the road is by car.

More Beach Riding

The other time we ran into a similar issue, although this was not quite as bad, was our trip to the grocery store. With the Madsen, we were able to do this easily without the use of the car because it is SO easy to load that bike. (Take grocery sacks out of grocery cart, pile in the bucket, return grocery cart, off you go!). Again, there was no way to access the grocery store strip mall except for traditional car routes, so we negotiated traffic and a convoluted parking lot with a lot of cars backing out of spaces, turning, etc. There was actually a small bike rack at the grocery store (better than I’ve seen in many places!). This traffic negotiation was not a big deal for us, having ridden in traffic a lot and being very comfortable with it. But for these people who can barely negotiate the ramp up the curb to the bike path, there is no way they would ever access this store by bike.

The other strange thing I found about the bike infrastructure was that there was a lack of bicycle racks at the public access points to the beach (also a lack of car parking). As you approach the public access point, there are signs on every fence stating that bikes locked there will be removed. But I didn’t see any actual legitimate place to park your bike. I guess you are supposed to take it with you onto the beach? I think this has more to do with this idea of exclusivity and keeping the “rif-raf” at bay. Don’t provide any parking of any kind, and this discourages beach use except for the people who have actually paid for ocean-front accommodation.

So, overall, my reaction to biking on Hilton Head island was mixed. On the one hand, the island has a great network of paths to get you around most of the places you need to go. There are periodic signs that show you a map of the network and the island so you know where you are. And the paths encourage bike use by many, many people who would otherwise be driving around and clogging up the streets even more than they are.

But on the other hand, the infrastructure falls short when it comes to using the bike as an alternative to the car for practical purposes, such as groceries, or even other shopping. Those parts of the island are still heavily dominated by the car/strip-mall pattern of development, although with a flair to make it seem not so ugly. I found this to be a disappointment, because with just a few changes, it would be possible to greatly expand the way people could get around.

Because you have to have a sunset photo in any discussion of the beach!

But at any rate, I still think that most cities could learn a lot from the Hilton Head model and this kind of investment in alternative transportation infrastructure would really pay off with reduced traffic and higher quality of life.

Fear pervades our culture. That’s because fear sells. And marketers figured this out long ago, so we all get a healthy dose of fear, every day. We’ve become a society that fears far too much, and usually the wrong things.

That’s because fear sells news. It sells all sorts of products to keep you “safe”. And it makes people crazy.

Fear is one of the basest of human emotions. It drives all sorts of negative behaviors – from violence to anger to greed. Why is someone greedy? Often because they fear going “without” so they hoard.

Fear is often misplaced. We fear the “unknown” more than the “known”. For example, many people fear biking because of the “unknown” factor of car drivers on the road who might hit us. Yet the number one killer, heart disease, does not raise the same specter of fear. Why not? Every time a cyclist gets killed in my area (about once or twice a year), that news gets rapidly spread all around amongst the cycling community. What if the same propagation of news happened every time someone had a heart attack, or cancer? There would certainly be far, far more news reports of it than the cyclist deaths. And so it becomes familiar. And because it is familiar, it is not feared. Yet many fear the very thing (biking) that would drastically help reduce the chance of heart attack. People fear a minor killer that would avoid a major killer. Fear is not rational.

But there is a more insidious difference. Why do we fear biking? For one thing, bike helmet campaigns. (I wear a bike helmet, so please don’t consider me anti-helmet). There are many people who benefit from promoting helmets through fear. If you are afraid of getting hit by a car and splitting your head open, you’re much more likely to buy a helmet than if you’re not afraid. And so marketing campaigns for helmets are often fear based – it sells more helmets. This is true not only of helmet sellers, but a small group of people who believe their will should be imposed on everyone because they are sure that helmets would save lives (contrary to the facts).

The thing all this fear does is very insidious. So many people that come into our shop have fear as the number one reason for not biking. Yet it is that very fear that makes biking less safe. It has been very strongly proved that the more people are out biking, the safer it is for everyone (helmeted or not). If many people are afraid of biking, there will be (and are) less cyclists on the road, so it is more dangerous for all of us who do cycle. Fear is self-fullfilling. Even though helmets may be good for the individual, their fear-based promotion is not good for society. That’s because so many people end up just driving their cars rather than biking, which leads to all manner of ills like hear disease, cancer, pollution, oil dependency, etc.

Perhaps an even more egregious case is another product that I see advertised in all the bike magazines, an identification device to wear in case something happens while biking and one needs to be taken to the hospital. Every one of those ads has a story about some cyclist who got hit by a car and wound up in the hospital, with the ID helping “save their lives.” Talk about promoting fear of cycling. The last time I read one of those ads, my active imagination took over, and I had repeated visions of waking up in a hospital after being hit (and no, I’ve not had similar visions of waking up in the hospital after a heart attack, though the latter is more likely). This does nobody any good whatsoever, except for the seller of the device. I’m sure they will sell more IDs through the fear they generate. But they will also convince people that biking is unsafe. In general, it might be a good idea of having an ID for any activity where one isn’t carrying another form of ID. But targeting it specifically at cycling in this fear-based way will only turn people away from cycling, which, again, makes cycling less safe for everyone.

It reminds me of something that happened last year. I was in a bike race where a fellow died, after loosing control on a steep and fast descent (he was going at least 50 mph down the hill, and the accident didn’t involve a car). Everyone in the race was shocked. I was quite amazed to see his daughter state after the fact that he died doing the thing that he loved, and she sounded very sad but not overwrought. After having lost a family member to cancer, which was a slow and painful process for everyone, it makes me wonder – is that really a better way to go (hooked up to a machine and slowly degenerating), than doing something one loves to do?

It is not that cycling is without any dangers. It is that everything else we do in life is dangerous – living itself is dangerous. Fear often misplaces that perspective. And fear causes anxiety, a form of stress that is not at all healthy. We all are going to die, and only a few of us will be lucky enough to have that death be peacefully in our sleep when we are in our late 90’s. I can’t find statistics for it, but it is probably only 1 in 10 or less that will survive that long and in good health.

It is not only in cycling that fear has run amok. There are many other examples:

1. Peak oil. Peak oil is a real and important phenomenon, where once we pass the production peak in world oil, it will become more expensive and more scarce. Since our economy is quite dependent on cheap oil, this will be a major hiccup for us. I don’t debate the basis for peak oil, nor do I debate that we are likely past the world’s oil production peak (Summer 2008). But for many people who inhabit places like the Oil Drum and other peak oil sites, one may notice that a sense of fear (i.e. “gloom and doom”) pervades. There are many folks who follow the views of James Kunstler that society will degenerate and fall apart. Every blog post by Kunstler indicates that the degeneration is just about to begin.
These are fear based responses. People like Kunstler gain a great amount of traction, because fear sells. And there is actually a chance that peak oil could lead to a worldwide collapse of human societies, if a lot of things go wrong. But, these folks underestimate the human penchant for muddling through. While they may point to past societies that have collapsed — the most famous case being Easter Island — there are many more societies that have survived drastic calamity and not collapsed. For example, Europe suffered the Black Death, killing more than 1/2 of the population. Yet with 1/2 of the people gone, society did not collapse. Nor did it collapse after the Irish potato famine. Nor did Germany collapse after its hyperinflation in the 20’s, the rise to power by Hitler, and its defeat in World War II. Economies have often collapsed without a societal collapse.
Economic collapse – a quite common occurrence throughout history – happens when societies and governments overspend and overreach. It is just like a household that overspends and has to declare bankruptcy. It is not fun or pleasant. But it is not the end of life, either. Collapsed economies lead to some years of hardship and pain for many, they are also opportunities – for new businesses, and for forging closer ties with ones community. And so the world keeps turning. Economic collapse has happened many times, and in only a very few of those has society itself collapsed.
My point is that the fear revolving around peak oil is useless, and worse, often incapacitating. If one pictures total collapse of society, then what is the point in doing anything to prepare? One cannot prepare for utter collapse of society. There would be nowhere to hide (unless you have access to a mighty nice spaceship). But it is possible to prepare for lesser forms of hardship, such as oil price spikes due to a US dollar devaluation. Bikes are one way to prepare, and there are many others. Those include moving closer to town, growing a garden, raising chickens, etc. Preparation shouldn’t be about fear, it should be calm and rational preparation for the unexpected disruption of things we rely on for daily survival (food, shelter, transportation). This preparation will be useful regardless of the cause of disruption – whether due to hurricane, earthquake, economic collapse, or one of many other things that could happen.

2. Fat. Seriously, people fear fat. Somehow, marketers have convinced folks that everything they eat must not have fat, or they will collapse right away due to a heart attack. But the funny thing is that the link between fat and heart attack is still not that clear. What’s more, there are many fats that are absolutely essential to body function. In fact, the Omega-3 and monounsaturated fats look like they prevent heart disease. And there’s even accumulating evidence that butter is good for you. The only true “bad” fats that consistently are linked to heart disease are – get this – trans fats that were sold as an “alternative” to butter because they were supposedly “healthier”. Talk about fear leading us up a blind alley.

3. Child abduction/etc (parental fears). When I was a kid, I started walking to school 4 blocks each way, every day, when I was in 2nd grade. Parents would never do that now. It would be considered crazy to let a child walk on their own. Yet fears of things like abduction are far overblown, it is an extremely rare occurrence. What is not so rare are cases of childhood obesity (an epidemic), childhood ADD, and many other ailments associated with kids being kept indoors and not getting enough exercise. Yes, an abduction of a child is horrific. But isn’t a child developing arteriosclerosis by age 10 similarly horrific, especially if it is 100 times more common? A lifetime of health problems and medical costs for all of us? And fear of going outside? That seems plenty horrific.

I could go on and on – the examples of fear being used to sell are all around us, and as a result, so many people I know live in fear. I have been trapped in it myself at times. When I learned of Peak Oil, I became trapped in a cycle of fear about it for quite a while. But when I’m in that mode, I can’t live life happily. A while ago, I began practicing a martial art. The initial reason was fear – wanting to be better prepared in self defense. But I soon realized that fear was not the best reason to do it. What I figured out was that I enjoyed the exercise, focus, release of aggression, and that those benefits far outweigh the whole fear thing. And doing it for those reasons, I find myself more relaxed about it, which leads to faster progress.

Fear of the future prevents enjoyment of the present. And then, what’s the point of living?

I have recently started a campaign: “say no to fear”. Except in rare instances, fear is a waste of human energy.

For more reading on the subject, check out the book “The Culture of Fear” by Barry Glassner, or “False Alarm: The Truth about the Epidemic of Fear” by Marc Siegel. Also, there’s a great podcast on Fear by Gil Fronsdal courtesy of Audio Dharma.

(I wrote this a few months ago, and am finally posting it. It still seems relevant today).

Change is scary. No doubt.

The world is headed towards major change, or so many people think. I regularly read several websites that talk about these changes, such as The Oil Drum, and iTulip. The mood on those sites has grown dark. The sites come from very different perspectives – iTulip from the macro-economic-political view, and The Oil Drum from a resource (mainly oil) point of view. Yet they seem to converge on the same conclusion: we are now past the peak of our wealth/opulence/lifestyles, for some time to come (or, according to the pessimists, forever). The recent major failures in monetary systems are taken as signs of systemic problems that indicate we as a society and species have been living beyond our means, both financially and resource-wise.

It gets worse. Visions of chaos, riots, political upheaval, and war are often brought out. At minimum, the specter of drastically declining lifestyles is brought up, or worse, of wealth destroyed.

It’s easy to get lost in depressive visions of possible outcomes and futures.

But, for those of us doing that, it is important to step back and have some perspective.

What else is new? That cliché applies to all of the change we seeing around us. Our period in history was nearly unprecedented in its lack of major war, high degree of globalism, and so much wealth distributed so widely*. There is no time in history that 30 years of adult work would generate enough wealth to support someone through a work-free retirement, except recent history.

So if the pessimists are right, wealth-wise we are simply returning to “normal”. I’m no happier than anyone else about loosing the ability to access the wealth for a nice retirement – but the skeptic in me long ago said that day would never come anyway.

Loss of wealth is scary. Just as is loss of health, loss of a loved one, or any major change. War and political upheaval are scary too.

But I do not have much control over those things. I do have some control over my own life, and how I interact with the changes.

For years, I’ve felt change was coming, in my gut. At times it was sickening. So I’ve done things to prepare, like learning to live with less. One view is: hey, if we’re going to loose our wealth tomorrow, why not enjoy it to the maximum today, and party it up?

My own view is rather than partying until the end and then crashing suddenly into unplanned misfortune, I’d prefer to gently ease myself into the change. My purchase of an Xtracycle was one of the many steps taken in that direction. I am learning to live without using a car very often, even though I still own one. I keep extending the range of use of my bike, helped by newer battery technologies and electric assist. And also helped by my enjoyment of riding the bike.

That’s the thing of it. I am enjoying not using the car, except for an occasional longer trip. The bike is really fun. But wait, wasn’t I saying above that change is scary? Now I am saying that I’m having fun with it. How can this contradiction be explained?

As I’ve mentioned before, biking is more connected with my environment, it is slower, more relaxing, more enjoyable. This is a clear case where, for me, the wealth represented by an automobile does not bring happiness, but quite the opposite.

Today in USA Today (10/20/08), there was an article, “Lower Gas Prices come as a relief“. With the lower gas prices recently, it states: “… motorists are no longer facing the kind of gas prices that had forced them to eat out less, avoid travel, and bike to work.” As if biking to work was a real hardship! Ouch.

This goes to point out that the pain of change all depends on how one responds to that change. If, say, gas prices go to $10 in the future, that change will have only a moderate effect on me (mostly in food prices), because I don’t depend on gas for my day-to-day activities any longer. I enjoy biking, and I have at least some insulation from future drastic change. My remaining car trips are mostly discretionary, and can be cut if necessary.

The same is true of things like eating locally produced food. If one develops relationships with local farms, e.g. through a CSA membership, then if gas prices go through the roof, or if other upheavals occur, one will be more insulated to change than those dependent on groceries shipped cross country. In my own experience, doing this has many other rewards, such as getting to know the people that produce my food, visiting the farmer’s market regularly, and knowing that my food is grown without supporting a big agribusiness. If, in the future, I have to ride my electric-Xtracycle 30 miles to the farm to pick up my food, I can see it as a pleasant outing rather than ordeal (especially if less fast moving SUV’s are on the road).

Change does not have to be painful. There may be regions of the globe where change results in very negative occurrences, such as dictatorship, war, famine, etc. Other places change could simply result in downshifting of standards of living**. Regardless, one can either choose to be happy and enjoy what they have, or to be sad and glum about what was lost and how things used to be. I think that the first step in being happy with change is being prepared for it, mentally if not physically. And then focusing on what one has, rather than what one doesn’t have.

I am very happy to have my health (helped by regular bicycling), have food (transported by bicycle to my home), have shelter, have transportation (by bicycle), and have the opportunity to work on things that are interesting to me.

This results in a mostly positive outlook for whatever may come. That is not a positive outlook about the external circumstances, but about my own ability to deal with whatever those circumstances are.

Biking is a change that doesn’t have to be a hardship, despite what the mainstream media may say about it. We have a lot of customers who write to us, telling us what great enjoyment they get out of riding their bikes. We have people who couldn’t ride a regular bike due to a disability, but now can with an electric assist, and really enjoy it. One such customer recently had a little glitch with her bike, and while we had it in our shop, she called every day to find out how the repair was going — she missed her bike!

It is my hope that as the change becomes more apparent, more people will discover ways to cope with the change that don’t involve desperate lashing out into war or riots or whatever, in hopes of maintaining what used to be. I hope more people will find biking as a way to lessen environmental impacts, oil dependency, and health problems that are associated with automobile use.

This is the core mission of Cycle 9 – these are our values.

* Not widely enough, but moreso than any period in history.

**Scientific studies have confirmed the following relationship between wealth and happiness:
1. Being very poor, such that one can’t afford food and clothing, makes people unhappy

2. Being very rich, such that one can afford any material luxury, also makes people somewhat unhappy (not as unhappy as #1, though)

3. Being of moderate means – enough to afford food, shelter, and clothing, but not a lot of extra – makes people the happiest.