Shifting Gears

Will Campbell over at blogging.la pointed to a special report in the Times’ Health section: “The Cycling Commute: Shifting Gears”.

As more Angelenos ditch their cars, the city is opening bike lanes, companies are holding cycling seminars and federal officials are pushing for tax incentives.

With the ever-ampling traffic, not to mention the current astronomical gas-price gouging[1], how can we not explore the alternatives? Personally, I’ll be looking to up my biking significantly this year.

Think of it as a protest march where you get in great shape instead of gassed, shot, or arrested by the establishment stormtroopers. To paraphrase George Orwell, if you want my vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on bike pedals - forever. ;)

Which reminds me I wanted to mention another cycling story from Will last week, Freakin’ MTA Bastids, about the hypocrisy of the MTA promoting Bike To Work Day:

If our transit agency is all gung-ho to get more people out of their bucket seats and onto bike saddles I’m curious as to how they insist bikes are a solution when they forbid the things on the red/blue/green/gold lines every workday of the year — including Bike To Work Day — from 6:30 to 8:30 in the morning and again from 4:30 to 6:30 in the afternoon. Some solution.

[1] Not convinced about price gouging? You know something’s going on when you have both FOX News and AlterNet rocking the same story. ;)