Bicycles connect one to the land in a way that is exceeded only by hiking (in my experience anyway) and since hiking to work is not practical for most people we have invented the bike! If the majority of people used a bicycle for daily transport in this country we would see a revolution in the way we think about infrastucture, growth, sprawl, our consumption (retail) patterns would shift, I think I would like the place we end up with a lot better than the place we seem to be building now.
Try a little experiment for me: ride to something / or someplace which you would normally drive. Then email me or comment the blog with observations of what you noticed (that you have previously not seen) or anything that struck you differently. I have gotten so into the routine of my commute that rarely does anything strike me as new (although the changing of the seasons is a constant rythmic companion).
We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect - Aldo Leopold
I love the Aldo Leopold quotes - mostly for the pithiness, but also because few people are familiar with him. How is this relevant to a page on bicycle commuting? I will tell you. My daily commute involves four bike legs (2 going, 2 coming home) twice a day I get to ride along the shore of a lake named for Aldo here in Illinois (though he was a Madison man). The other fun part is once you know him - references will pop up on the most unusual places (like that Ecology text I grabbed off the take-a-book / leave-a-book rack in the Deerfield Metra station). So get familiar with him:
