Just wanted to post thoughts about being 7 months and car free. I'm liking my past car use to addiction and it was truly that. I used to commute for 75 miles on a round trip to work. The drive took between 26 minutes and hours depending on the weather, accidents, road kill, etc. The Colorado mountains are beautiful, but if you have a daily job it's a killer. You need a reliable car that is warm which means it's most likely expensive and requires payments. In the winter we had to walk two miles to the road to get to our car towing our son in a sled with the trash. Headlights at 5 am in blowing snow. All to get to work in our car. Beautiful at times but not sustainable.
Moving to Thailand was driven by our desire to reduce our commute time with the ability to do it our bikes. We now ride five minutes to work with the kids. I can take my kids on our Yuba Mundo and my wife rides her Heron. We wake up at a reasonable hour, have our morning coffee/ chat, get the kids up and roll. Easy. With our bikes we now can travel with the family anywhere within 15 km with no problems. We feel better physically. We eat what we want without guilt. I'm not consistently pissed/stressed like I was before. No worries about mechanical difficulties because I can fix most things on the fly. Not constantly looking out for cops because I'm speeding because I'm late. Just much less stress. Traffic is heavy here and we often arrive just 5 minutes behind our friends who drove, had to fight traffic, had to find a parking spot, etc. I used to call myself a cyclist, but in America it was just posturing. The most I could reasonably fit in was two rides a week and many of those I drove to because of time restrictions. I had the clothes and the gear but if I wanted a label I should have called myself a "driver." I feel like a real cyclist now as I get places on my bike under my own power. No car with a roof rack. No car. Kip Otteson Chiang Mai, Thailand -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bu...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en.
