Carfreeokc

So today was my first day back to driving.  I drove primarily just for the contrast and to mark and end to the experiment.  Boy, was the irony suddenly laid on thick. I climbed in my car, turned the key and nothing happened, just a clicking noise as the starter motor tried to turn over.  My battery had died.  I had to get a neighbor to come over and give me a jump-start.  I guess the heat combined with the lack of use had drained it dry.  I had noticed that it had a hard time starting on Tuesday for my short trip to work after my tires were punctured and apparently my short commute hadn’t been enough to top off the battery.  So the great irony of the experiment is that after all of my worry about being without a car for a month, the time when I really needed help was when I returned to driving.

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So I started the day furious and frustrated. The car free experiment for this month fell apart today and it fell apart for completely unnecessary reasons. When I left work last night, I found that both of my tires were deflated. I assumed this was some moron’s idea of a “harmless” prank. I filled the tires and successfully made my way home.  However, this morning as I prepared to head to work, I found both tires flat again which means that this pathetic excuse for a human being actually punctured both tires with something that created a slow leak, probably a thumb tack.  It was too late for me to have time to replace the tubes and make it to work on time.  After swearing and fruitlessly shaking my fist I climbed in my car and with heavy heart, drove to work.  I was sooooo close . . .  One day left and I would have done it.   Instead of a feeling of triumph and because of some small-minded imbecile with delusions of adequacy, here I am fighting with stop and go traffic and I can feel my blood pressure is rising.  “DON’T YOU KNOW HOW TO MERGE????” A headache is coming on.  I can feel that throbbing starting at the back of my head.  This is just awful . . . And just like that I had an epiphany . . .

When I lived in Chicago, grocery shopping was never really an issue.  For example, at my last apartment, my grocery story was literally 25 yards away from my back door.  Thanks to the re-opening of my local grocery store by El Mariachi, this is still true for me.  However, this isn’t the situation for most people in OKC and there are times when I need to get stuff that my local store doesn’t carry, so I thought it would be great to talk about grocery shopping by bicycle.

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I’m often asked by non-cyclists about how I clean up after my daily commute. After looking over the comments from my recent post about the contents of my commuter bag, this subject is of great interest to cyclists as well. Up until just a few months I had the best possible option, an actual shower. I’ve now tried a number of products and as you might expect, nothing lives up to the real thing. However, just because you don’t have an access to a shower doesn’t mean you have to give up riding to work.

Though many of us believed that it would never happen again, over the last couple of weeks we’ve seen some decent rain storms make their way through the city. Not nearly enough to make up for the drought, but it is a start. Normally, I must admit, I am a complete wimp when it comes to riding in the rain. I will usually avoid it at all costs. Which is funny because I don’t have any particularly bad experiences, but it just doesn’t strike me as the thing to do. When you decide to go car free, you don’t really have a choice and last week I had to make a couple of trips in the rain.

I was planning on writing a recap of my car free in Oklahoma City experiment every week, but last week was extremely busy so a two-week summary will have to do.  To be perfectly honest, this makes it easier because it has really been an uneventful transition to being car free.  I had planned on feeling some sort of anxiety or experiencing some real difficulties, but really it has been smooth sailing.  Some of this has been due to the heavy work load which has kept me mostly at home or at work.  But really, as much as you can come up with the need for a car, you can also just as easily allot a bit more travel time and make your way by bike.  I can certainly say the trip will be more enjoyable.

So far in my little experiment, I’ve really only been bicycling between home and work, which isn’t really a big change for me except that it’s my only option now.  However, because I’m now completely reliant on the bicycle to get me around, I have been attempting to make myself absolutely prepared for as many problems as possible.  I’m glad I did, since yesterday I had a nasty multiple puncture flat which thanks to equipment and planning was easily handled.  In light of this and because for some reason I’m personally always fascinated by “what’s in my bag” posts, here are my commuting bag contents:

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For the past year, I have participated in a few 30 Days of Biking events.  I truly love participating in these events and it reminds me of how much I love cycling.  Lately, I have thought about my days in Chicago.  My bicycle was my only means of transportation and it was incredibly liberating.  I began to wonder how that experience would work in Oklahoma City, where car is king.  I know car-free people who get around Oklahoma City just fine, but they have a 9 to 5, Monday through Friday schedules and are near bus routes.  I neither work a 9 to 5 schedule nor have bus routes available.  After I first returned to Oklahoma City after years in Chicago, I thought going car-free would be impossible.  Now that I feel more comfortable cycling in Oklahoma City, I feel like it might just be possible and enjoyable to be car-free.  So, I thought a fun experiment would be to attempt a month of car-free living right here in the Wild West.