Car-centric life is of a lower quality than the worst day in a bike-centric life. I was not lowering the status of bicycles in front of cars. As a little bit of history about myself, I lived car-light from June 2008 to October 2008, then sold my car and have been living car free.

My journey living solely on bicycles has not been friction free, as is evident in some of my recent blog entries ( http://www.sheksfootprint.com ). Jacksonville FL isn’t the ideal city for such living. Even on the worst day of my bike commute, I come home to several hundred dollars worth of car related savings, a few inches off my waist and a over 20 Lbs off the weighing scale.

It was fairly easy for me to ‘spin’ the inconvineances into a ‘better way to live’ for the first 10 months or so. Then, the gumption was no longer sufficient to blanket the inconvineances. I probably shouldn’t get into detailed conversations on Carbon Trace as Andy’s readers do not live where I do and the culture here is more abrasive. My point is that after some time in a particular place, both cars and bicycles hold low quality, each for different reasons.

Lately, my bike-centric life holds low quality and I am more and more inclined to move to the urban core and buy a motor-vehicle to commute to work. I am at the break even point of financial and health gains versus mental agony, abysmal subjective safety and anxiety. This break even point exists. It is very real and continues to discourage millions of people from adopting a bicycle. and now we have come a full circle to comment #3

I guess it’s just what you’re used to/willing to accept.

I agree that convenience is not the only sign of quality but inconvenience during a part of the activity is a sign of bad quality. For example, back pains, low quality bike, frequent flats, honking and yelling motorists, debris on the path, opening car doors, portholes, etc. Some of these can be avoided, some improved, some neither.

Presence of inconvenience sometimes outweighs other aspects of the bicycle-rich-life. This is the point I am making.

Okay, it’s a silly exaggeration, but it makes the point… quality lifestyle isn’t about convenience, or only convenience, and those who think so are doomed to eat McDonald’s forever. “A better way to live” is determined by each individual, of course, but to me biking is a huge part of that and really makes me glad we moved here. We used to live in Kansas City and had to load our bikes up onto the car rack to go places to ride them. Silly. Here I can hop on and ride to the farmer’s market, the store, the library. For me, it is better. The amount of inconvenience is minor and more than offset by the benefits: fresh air, exercise, seeing my neighborhood and neighbors up close.

I don’t know why my comments on this blog always turn out to be novel-length, so I’m shutting up now… lol.