The truck is Gone!

Today I sold my truck, now I really am car free again, Yah!! Feels a bit strange, but now have a bit of extra money, don't have to pay my rego again (sold it the day before it was due), and no more stress of owning something that I don't use! I reckon that in the past 3 months I only drove it about 6 times, if that. Now it is time for electric motors for the bicycles, more cargo bikes and getting my shed together again!

Three more weeks

Near the end of May now, getting colder with winter just around the corner. Drove the truck again this weekend, first time in three weeks. Feels really weird, don't like it!

Another Month- into Winter

Still own the truck - drove it once in the past month on a VERY wet and windy morning, but very excited as I now have my Xtracycle which is another step towards becoming car free! Plan to build this bike up over the next couple of weeks, re-register the truck then advertise it for sale. Want to get some money back from it to spend on new wheels for the Xtracycle bike and seriously look at an electric assist system. So far winter has not been too bad, though it is only April, so really it is only autumn! Don't really know what we in Adelaide complain about with the cold, especially when you see stuff like this from the states, taken from the Practical Pedal magazine! Happy Days!

Everyday Cycling

I realised that I had ridden everyday during this recent heatwave we had, some days picking up my daughter and a load of shopping and heading home in 40 degree heat, on a very heavy bike. All in all riding in the heat is not too bad, I drink heaps of water and on the last day of the heatwave where I rode about 60km as it hovered around 40, I had a plastic spray bottle with me full of water, bit of my bicycle air conditioning system!

I think that a lot of people have isolated themselves through lifestyle choices that distance them personally from experiencing extremes of weather, as if this experience was a bad thing. They focus on discomfort as opposed to achievement, and do not seem to be able to cope with the weather (the natural world)and changes in this weather. This is particually apparent in a city like Adelaide where we have such mild weather really, yet people complain about the heat in summer and the cold in winter.

Easier to shut themselves away in their cars and not worry about the real world, isolated through technology, the ideology of automobile use reinforcing the distance and conectivness to issues out side of the self.

And it was only the weather!!

Car Free Readings

Tonight I have been doing research for an urban planning paper that I am writing when I came across this article, Without a Car in the World Such a great piece of writing on becomming car free, and reorientating your life around this idea.

Why use a car?

For quite some time now I have been seriously thinking about going car free again, and making a lifestyle commitment to not owning a car. In my mid 20's I did not own a car, and have never really had an easy relationship with these machines. I do not particularly like driving, find most things to do with cars so overly complex requiring way to much maintenance and upkeep (and expense). Several factors came together recently that have resolved this decision and I will sell my truck (the Toyota Hilux) as soon as possible, giving myself more money to spend on sustainable cycling solutions and other projects without the millstone of car ownership to weigh me down.

Essentially I have been using my Long Bike (see my other blogs for details) as my main daily transport, and the more I use it, the less I want to own a car - for a whole range of reasons that I will detail in later posts.

As of the past few months I have been using the truck less and less, there are some times that I am still negotiating, and these most often involve my children. When a child is feeling sick, or it is really hot (though in this recent spate of ridiculously hot weather both my kids seem to have coped fine), or we have had to travel further then possible by bicycle (one trip was a 100km round trip to take my daughter to a birthday party!!).

Yesterday Chrissy and I drove to the beach. It is almost a 50km round trip. I had wanted to encourage Chrissy to go on the back of the Long Bike with me to town then for us to catch the train down to Grange, but I think that this solution will need to come once I really have removed the possibility of using the truck from our daily life. Having an electric power assist on one of the cargo bikes would help, especially getting home from town on a hot day when it is uphill all the way!

The only other thing that I routinely use my truck for is picking up old bicycles for the Bikes for Refugees scheme, but I do have a huge bike trailer that may still allow me to do this, we will have to see.

So this little journey is about my reasons, successes and failures as I seek to become car free in the city of Adelaide, lets see what happens....