Bicycle Commuting

At the office, on June 2, to be precise, I had what I think will be a formative experience: I got my bike stolen. This was a bike I'd bought off Jacob for a very good price, and it was without a doubt the highest quality bike I'd ever owned, a 2002 Kona Cinder Cone. Very light, great shocks, and well-maintained. We'd gone out for a day in Gatineau Park, just shredding up the trails like nobody's business (well, it was pretty good for my first day, at least) and I'd resolved to make mountain biking a part of my lifestyle. The following Monday, I walked out of the office clad in my biking gear, ready for a relaxing jaunt home, only to discover that my bike was nowhere to be seen. I will long remember the unpleasantness of having to walk home, in one's nerdy running tights, sadly clutching a now-useless helmet. And I don't think it was my fault, is the thing: my combination lock was, admittedly, kind of shitty, but the ring where my bike was parked had been sawn through.

This experience has opened up new worlds of righteous indignation to me. At my building, people who cycle to work as their form of transportation are forced, effectively, to leave their personal property outside all day, unattended and completely unsupervised, as the security cameras don't even capture most of the racks on the south side of the building. Two e-mails to the facilities people haven't gotten them to remove the sawn-through ring on the rack. The bike storage situation means that people who make a choice to cycle to work - a lifestyle that reduces greenhouse gas emissions and I'd bet health care costs as well - are not being offered the same services as employees who drive to work and have a nice cozy parking garage in the basement, which cyclists are forbidden to use. We would be dangerous coming down the ramp, you see, and could get in the way. My favourite argument against letting cyclists put their bikes in the parking garage is that by permitting this, the government building could find itself competing with private bicycle storage providers in the area. Why, that would be preposterous! That would be like the government running a parking garage when there is a perfectly good privately owned parking garage right across the street!

As it is, my new and fabulous replacement mountain bike is not going anywhere near my place of work, and I'm going to purchase a beater for commuting. This doesn't actually reduce the risk of theft, since bike theft seems to take place mostly at random, but does reduce the financial impact of replacing bikes. As people become more aware of sustainability and environmental issues, as well as the advantages of an active lifestyle, I think more and more employees will place a premium on a bicycle-friendly workplace. I'm certainly learning to.