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On yer bike!
Monday, 5 October 2009
Our car died on Friday. And I bought myself a bike on Sunday.
My bike is on lay-by. I'm not so rich that I can just trot out and spend a few hundred dollars on a bike, no questions asked.
Lay-by is a good solution - I paid a deposit I could afford, and will pay for the bike over the coming few months.
Once that is done, I'll save a bit, get a bit of riding in, then eventually be taking the bus, together with my bike, up to Christchurch.
There's a company there called The Electric Bicycle Company. They can put an electric assist on my bike, so I can ZOOM up the hills of Dunedin. I figure the easier the riding is, the more my bike will get used. And the less our car will get used.
All good.
Why an electric assist?
Anyone who lives in Dunedin would NEVER ask this question!
No I'm not lazy. Okay, well, maybe I am, but some of the hills around Dunedin are just plain scary. There's no way I could do them without an electric assist. Even the die-hard superfit teenager guys don't tackle Stuart Street or High Street. So there's no way I'm doing them!
My goal, once my bike arrives, is to get to the stage where I don't do any travel by myself in the car, unless it is really foul weather (e.g. snowing, hailing or similar). I also want to get used to riding without the electric assist before I get it fitted, so I build up a bit of muscle.
By peddling around, I should be able to really knock down our petrol bill, as well as making a dent in my own personal emissions.
We currently drive an average of 145 kilometers (90 miles) per week for our family of four. I would guess that about one quarter of that, or a little more, is my own, solo, journeys.
1010 Challenge: Number 4
4. Drive less.
Leave the car at home one day a week. Walk, cycle or take public transport. Car-pool to work. Tick the box right now if you have no car.
I'm tackling Number 4 of the 1010 Challenge head on, by getting myself a bike. I love to walk, but Dunedin is hilly. I'd take forever, and it just isn't practical for where we live.
I think public transport is great too and, for some instances, it is a great option. But I need to get to choir in the evenings and on Sundays, precisely when public transport isn't so great.
I'll still drive, but my aim is to save it for when I have the kids, when I am shopping (large loads), or when the weather is truly foul. There's no way I'm riding my bike in the snow and ice - it's too dangerous, and I'm not experienced enough.
A bike is a great option for me, for good weather, when I have trips to make by myself.
I'm pretty fit, pretty healthy, and have no injuries. I know how to ride a bike, and (touch wood!) should be okay.
I'll have paid of the lay-by in a few weeks.
Then: Ready to zoom!
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Cluttercut - Be the change
5 comments:
Daharja, I appreciated your visit to my blog and comment.
I love bicycling. I do have a bike, but unfortunately we have very narrow curvy roads, which make it dangerous in our area. Fortunately I don't need to drive often, only once or twice a week.
I am intrigued with the electric assist. Is it battery powered? Sounds like a very good idea.
Hi Leigh - I think riding will be tricky here too!
I'm from a city in Australia which is flat as anything, with big, wide roads. Dunedin, by comparison, is one of the hilliest cities in the world (if not THE hilliest) and we have the steepest street in the world (Baldwin Street). A lot of our streets are narrow and windy too, and we get ice in winter. But for more than half the year the weather is fine, and the electric assist will help me with the hills.
The electric assist works on mains. You plug it in, charge up the battery, and use it on the hills. It turns a regular bike into an electric bike, and you can convert any bike style or model with one of the kits. But they're not cheap - quite a few hundred dollars. I'll be saving for a while, while I pedal over summer getting fit.
The advantage of buying an assist rather than an electric bike is you can upgrade your bike if you want, and just shuffle the assist over. Or vice-versa, upgrading the assist. And if you already have a bike, you don't need to start from scratch.
Because New Zealand is about 60% renewable energy, and our own supply is 100% renewable (hydro and wind), apart from the energy used to manufacture the thing, my transport will be 100% green. Pretty good going :-)
So that's the theory!
But I'll still use the car to transport the kids - they're too young to ride by themselves (age 4 and 2) - and for shopping and bad weather.
Next step is convincing my husband to downsize our car to a compact or a hybrid!
Thanks for visiting. I've been lurking on your blog for a while, and found your latest post excellent :-)
I know what an electric assist is. I have one and we don't have hills ;-) More like Lumps but than hills, if you exclude the slightly extinct volcano but it's more of an oversized pimple. Sorry, rambling.
Electric assists are great, I have knee trouble and having the assist is brilliant. Mind you there was this one hill I tried to go up, both the bike and I ran out of puff and we both collapsed in a heap. Yes, I fell off my bike riding UP a hill.
Exciting stuff!
Great idea Daharja! When my kids were little we did not have a car and I did everything on foot, bike or trailing a little red wagon. Truthfully I was delighted to finally get a car to carry our 3 sons around. They were getting pretty big to be trying to carry on my back or to pull in the wagon! Still for what you plan to do on the bike, it sounds like a great solution!
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