Happy Friday — we’re back with more Hot Bones. Figure no one needs another pep talk (see “ripples”) on the extra importance of individual and local climate actions right now, so let’s just get into it.

Last week my father-in-law got ratted out by our SimpliSafe camera after a big football game, which segued into details on the small but mighty sustainable actions you may wish to take at your next sports events.

Today’s edition is all about normal people biking. So no spandex and sock tans.

For 2 exhausting and exhilarating years after college, I taught middle and high school English, pleading with students to acknowledge the existence of commas — and to really twist the knife on my own frustration, I would bike to and from school every day, rain or shine, winter or spring. 

Usually the commute was fine — a few dodgy cars, an occasional flat tire, frequent veerings to avoid pulverized rats and doggy bags. Mostly the problem was that I was late for school and had to take the busy roads to avoid my students starting class without me (by which I mean napping under the desks or writing love songs about Tom Holland).

On the way home after school, though, I often took the long way along quieter roads, letting my teaching panic subside with every gear shift and brake squeeze. But for some reason one afternoon I had to take the busy road (must have been late for something at home this time), and that’s when things went south.

The thing about DC traffic is that it’s cerebral traffic - like, it’s there to make you suffer by both physically keeping you stuck in your car but also mentally by making you figure out if you actually are even allowed in your lane. Connecticut Avenue is infamous for changing the number of lanes going north and south depending on the hour of the day. If that doesn’t sound clear, that’s because it isn’t! 

There’s basically one lane in the middle of the road that flip flops between southbound traffic in the morning and northbound traffic in the evening — but with no guardrails or signage as to when this shift takes place. The key to not dying is to make sure there’s always one very large very expensive SUV in front of you to take the hit.

Things are different when you’re on a bike!

Which I should have remembered as I turned left into oncoming traffic, assuming I was actually turning onto an open lane, and ended up on the front of someone’s windshield. 

Thankfully, I was wearing 15+ layers that winter day, and the person was driving slowly. No broken bones, no cracked windshield, not even a dinged up laptop in my bag. But of course an ambulance was called and a big fire truck had to accompany the ambulance and then a police car pulled up. All right outside the school where I was supposed to be a teacher with authority and gravitas. Who was now instead being asked to step inside the police car, m’am, to explain the situation.

I had to answer a lot of student questions the next day instead of us analyzing peacock motifs in Flannery O’Connor.

65 advil later, and yes I was ok! Thrilled that someone thought to ask. 

Somehow, that bike accident didn’t put me off biking. Nor did 2 other accidents, nor a saddle sore after biking in the alps that was so bad I couldn't sit directly on durable surfaces for a month, nor that time I ran into a lamppost in front of my big brother. No, what actually put me off biking was a steep flight of stairs and a prickly holly tree.

That is, we moved into a new place in DC a few years ago and the only place to store my bikes was in a faraway shed, which meant even just getting out a bike for a ride involved lugging it up that steep flight of stairs and elbow battling a holly tree in need of a merciless prune on my way up. So I just started driving more instead.

But now we live in Charlottesville, and instead of being shunted into a far dark corner, my bike is locked up on our front porch (ask G how she feels about this, I dare you). 

Consequently, I’ve started biking more. Mostly just short mountain bike rides on the trails nearby, but some jaunts through town too. No spandex rides. No clip-in pedals. Nothing fancy, just me and my bike.

The key to biking more, it turns out, is simply to have your bike be more convenient to access than your car. And if we must cut down every mangy holly tree in America to do that, then so be it.

Especially during the SoCal November we’re having, biking is one of those delightful things that hits the center of the Venn diagram between living healthier, saving money, and helping the planet. Bonus points for making you happy, too. 

Two caveats, though.

1) the “saving money” part I’ve found is often a stretch because gas prices are relatively cheap compared to all the bike gear I find myself buying.

And 2) riding your bike to grab a pizza instead of driving there isn’t going to do much to reduce your overall carbon footprint — we drive across state lines and fly to Europe too much for that. And unless you live in a major city with great public transit, going car free isn’t recommended. It’s just too isolating. 

So what’s the “helping the planet” angle really about?

It normalizes biking as a viable form of transportation that we can take every so often that doesn’t emit planet-warming gasses. We need more fun ways to get around that aren’t Escalades!

When enough of us bike around with big ole smiles on our faces, drivers around town are more likely to be respectful, more bike infrastructure will get put in place (racks, dedicated lanes, etc), you’ll finally get parking right out front instead of circling the block in a car, and you won’t be ostracized as the peculiar, possibly Dutch person in your office who bikes to work. 

Case in point: bike buses popping up around the US. 

In order of importance: 

💡 Bike light

🔔 Bike bell

🌧 Fenders

🔑 Bike lock

⛑ Helmet (important! but the “safety illusion” is real and it can encourage you to do stupid things like turn left into oncoming traffic) 

You can scoop up all 5 items real quick at your local bike shop. There are 3 good ones in Charlottesville: Endeavour Cycles in Fry’s Spring (local rides every week), Blue Ridge Cyclery downtown (local ride maps here), and Blue Wheel Bikes near IX Park (been around since the 70s). 

Plus, there’s the super cool local nonprofit Charlottesville Community Bikes that gives refurbished bikes to kids in need (over 3,000 bikes and counting), as well as fixing up and selling sweet old steel rigs for anyone to buy. Lots more to unpack here - will be writing a post on this later if y’all are interested.