Monday, September 8, 2008

Bike Girl Goes Car-Free - Days 1 and 2


Bike Girl was recently passed over for an interview by Green L.A. Girl on being a car-free lady. Bike Girl was initially outraged, but that outrage lasted only moments because, in fact, Bike Girl is not actually car-free.

Bike Girl has a history of driving to work Mondays with her clothes and food for the week and biking three days. She then would drive Fridays to pick up the empty Tupperware and dirty clothes. Bike Girl also has to admit that she occasionally gets lazy and just drives for no reason. For instance, last week, Bike Girl had an ear infection, which provided an excellent excuse to remain in bed until a half hour before work and drive.

This, Bike Girl realized, is not any way for someone whose Secret Identity includes the word Bike. So Bike Girl has challenged herself to be completely car-free for thirty days. The count-down began Sunday September 7th. Bike Girl will attempt to chronicle the adventure here.

Day 1 -

Bike Girl spent the morning finishing work on her new old bike which is outfitted with a rack and panniers so she can transport various Items. Satisfied that the bike was in good working order, she set out on a ride to meet fellow members of the Bike Writers Collective at an Undisclosed Location.

Just as Bike Girl and Homegrown Evolution blogger Erik rolled up to the Location, Bike Girl's rack suddenly collapsed. FAIL! A nut had disappeared during the ride and the screw was hanging precariously in its hole. Erik theorized that the nut had come loose due to vibration on the ride over. Bike Girl discovered another loose nut, but tightened it before it could fall off.

The ever-resourceful Bike Writers helped Bike Girl rig up the rack so that she could limp home.

Day 2 -

This morning was spent tightening all nuts and screws and the brake cables for a hopefully-less-eventful commute to Bike Girl's Place Of Employment. She loaded up both panniers with her clothes and food for the week and set off for her local Metro station.

Several roads were closed on the way, but since Bike Girl rides a bicycle, she was able to hop off and walk on the sidewalk with the bicycle past the construction, and hop back on without having to take a lengthy detour.

Bike Girl used the elevators on the Metro and wondered why something can't be done about the pervasive combination of smells. It seems that every elevator at every station smells like pee, disinfectant, and mildew.

Bike Girl anticipates the car free transition will be easiest during the first week, then become increasingly difficult.
UPDATE:
Bike Girl has successfully completed the challenge. Read more here.
Here are some subsequent posts updating Bike Girl's progress

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Oh man pannier racks can be such a pain. Those little nuts and bolts are hard to come by sometimes too. If Bike Girl can find one that fits, a nylon lock nut might tame her rack.

(I hope Bike Girl doesn't feel too bad about not being completely car free; I may or may not have seen Green LA Girl parking an Azteca)

Mr. Homegrown said...

I anticipate that Bike Girl will burn her car by the end of the month. Ride on!

Anonymous said...

green la girl is over rated, bike girl is where it's at!