Sorry for being late on this post :D
Why drive when you can bike? Although it’s true that a lot more people my age drive here than back in Toronto, it’s also true that the bike culture is crazy. Who knew there were different kinds of bike crowds here?
Bikes back in Toronto were novelty items. Or antiques. No one rode a bike because it was just too inconvenient and dangerous (especially in the winter!). Getting run over by a car (cough, read: snowmobile/dogsled) is not a pleasant way to go. But Californian roads (at least around the Bay) are a lot more catered towards cyclists, with bike lanes and (mostly) considerate drivers. Kind of.
In California, bikes are part of your personality like your latte might be in Toronto. Or your coat. If you are wearing an Aritzia coat and carrying a venti nonfat doubleshot vanilla bean Starbucks with cinnamon in your custom Starbucks tumbler, then you are probably a Havergal student. If you are wearing a huge puffy coat from The Bay while carrying a watery timmy hos double double then you are probably a construction worker or something. Much the same way here, if your bike is a blah-coloured five-speed then you are probably just using it to get to work in a cheap/environmentally friendly way. If you have a multicoloured/colourblocked retro-looking fixie/singlespeed bike, then you are probably urban or a hipster, or cool, and your bike is just part of your cool image. (Believe me. I have heard/read a lot of complains/yayness about fixies since learning about Cali’s bike culture.)
People judge you based on your bike! I recently bought into the whole bike culture when I bought a singlespeed communter bike (because I do not understand gears) and as I ride down the road (in sf, palo alto, berkeley, everywhere!), I get people checking me out. Not me, but my bike. You’re not just judged by your bag and your shoes and your cardigan and your sunglasses any more. Your $100-$2000 bike is also on the line for your image.
Minus the whole bike-is-another-thing-to-cave-into-social-pressures-about, I understand the bike thing. I hadn’t ridden a bike in ages and it’s so freeing to be able to go so fast, especially down the wrong way along a smooth stretch of road at night when you’re the only one out and the stars are visible :] I also love going over bumps, as weird as that sounds! The bike is just super convenient and makes everything seem so much closer. I’m so happy I got a bike…maybe I’ll even become one of those bike junkies that hangs out and fixes my bike all day. On second thought, probably not.
Anyway, speaking of hardcore on bikes, check out this bike I spotted outside a super hip cafe (more about those to come!) in Palo Alto:
Odlaw bike! Now to find a red&white one...
Anyway. Bike it up and sound off about fixies at Misplaced Canadian.
There are more bikes than people in my res >__>. The average cost each bike is roughly $500-700? I have no idea; I can’t tell.
I wish I can ride a bike or some here, but it’s just too inconvenient for me. Places are too far with nowhere to park my bike when I get there.
Sure it can be useful to get to class, but the amount of time it takes me to lock and unlock my bike, and then have to go back to that spot to pick up my bike simply isn’t worth it. Not to me anyways.
So I walk.