Spring is Here!

Okay, so it's not exactly warmed up yet, but the snow is off the roads.  Which means biking is a lot more fun again.  I actually like this time of year, because cool temps are more comfortable for riding.  Though in Boston, the wind can really get stirred up in the spring time--today, riding up Commonwealth Avenue, up Beacon Hill, the wind was definitely not my friend.  Nor are the potholes, which can get pretty serious after a long winter like we just had.

Oddly, the main challenge for me in biking isn't from winter, it's from spring gardening.  I just can't effectively carry some of the more serious loads of compost, soil, or long poles/trellises with my bike.

I'm also looking at a farm business training class that starts next fall, up in Lowell.  The good news is that I can get there by commuter rail, and I can ride my bike to the train station, and bring my bike on the train, so I can get to my destination at the end.  But the trip is still going to eat up a lot more time (probably) than it would if I had a car.  Luckily, it's not that long of a class, about six weeks, so I can swing it.

If, however, in the following year, I wanted to rent one of their incubator fields, to set up a mini-farm, I'm not sure if I could manage it.  It might be possible to do it without a car, but it'll take some serious planning.

I've got to see if I can find any blogs about farmers who aren't Amish and who manage to do without a car, if that's even possible.   I think the guy who writes the Tiny Farm blog didn't have a car for a while (but he has a tractor, or borrows one).  Or I just need to find ways to keep farming close to home (like I have been, but land in Boston is very hard to scrounge).

Winter Riding

I'd say that this winter in Boston has been a challenge for getting around without a car, but, to be honest, it's been a challenge getting around with or without a car.  I've heard lots and lots of high-pitching whining of tires on slick ice and helped dig out and push stuck cars.  I definitely haven't missed trying to figure out where I'm going to park my car, if I have to drive it somewhere.  When we had a car, I'd dread taking the car out when a third of the parking spots were filled with three feet of snow, and trying to figure out how to get out safely on the ever more narrow streets.

When the streets are icy, I stick to getting around by foot and by T.  Unfortunately, in heavy storms, the T gets super crowded and somewhat unreliable.  In December, I ended up walking all the way from Brookline to Cambridge in a snowstorm to go to a party at the Central Square Theatre.  I walked three miles each way along the bus route, and I was never passed by a bus.

In past winters, I'd be reluctant to take the bike out, but I'm getting bolder about this all the time.  Usually by the day after a storm, the streets have been plowed down to the pavement on most major roads, so I feel fairly safe getting around by bike.  If we have a hard freeze following a lot melting, I avoid going out, if I think there will be slick, frozen puddles.  Ice and bikes don't mix.  (I don't have studded tires.)

I'm still grocery shopping by bicycle every weekend, using the bike trailer.  It's been great--I like the exercise and the fresh air--though finding bike parking is getting tougher, as the snow banks continue to rise.

The hardest part about biking this winter has been the narrowing of the streets.  Some of the snow banks are cutting 2-3 feet off the width of the road on each side.  Side streets that normally are two-way now can barely accommodate one car at a time.  All of this makes it a lot harder to have room for bikes. 

I don't mind the cold at all.  I actually prefer cool weather riding to hot weather riding.  In the summer, I arrive at my destination drenched in sweat.  In the winter, if I dress right, I warm up quickly, but not too much.

This winter, with almost 70 inches of snow so far, has definitely been a good test of our "no car" life, and I feel like we've been getting through pretty well.  But I'm definitely looking forward to spring, and wider roads again.

looking towards the Minuteman

In the same issue as their article on travel by bike train, the Boston Globe also ran a good piece about the Minuteman Bikeway by Shira Springer.  It definitely made me wish the Minuteman was a lot closer to here, or that the bike paths close to home were a lot more continuous and developed.  We have great access to the Muddy River bike path (it's pretty much right outside our ), but then you get dumped into the Fenway after a about a mile (which is useful, but not exactly relaxing).  Heading the other way up the Emerald Necklace, you can get to Jamaica Pond, but after that you get stuck again.  I wish there was a more continuous path that lead to the Charles and the shore, but I don't know if that'll ever happen.  The Minuteman offers an 11-mile path, which seems like a good way to spend a pleasant afternoon.  Without the car, I never ride my bike just for fun--bicycle is how I get from place to place, rather than just a way to get exercise or get outside. 

Bike Explorations: dreaming of Cape Ann

The Boston Globe ran a great article last month in the Explore New England section about a bike trip I'd like to take, one that seems both fun and affordable.  Stephen Heuser wrote about taking the bike car on the commuter rail up to Cape Ann and exploring Gloucester, Rockport (one of my favorite places), the North Shore.  I'd sure like to give this a try next year (it's just not going to happen this fall).  I definitely want to talk Tracy and the kids into trying the bike train--I just love the idea of it.

RelayRides. Possible alternative to Zipcar?

At a recent Boston green festival at Government Center, I came across a new company, RelayRides.  They're a carsharing company/service that works sort of like Zipcar--you reserve a car online, pay a certain hourly rate, and drive.  The big difference is that RelayRides doesn't own the cars--they're owned by your neighbors.  In fact, if you own a car, you can join up and start renting out your car.  They provide the insurance.

Their web site is pretty detailed.  On the surface, it seems like a good model.  It's a way to make a lot of cars available for sharing, people who own cars get compensated, and the company makes some money but doesn't
have to own a zillion cars.




I know there are tool sharing and other kinds of sharing sites out there, but this car site is the first I've seen in the Boston area.

Has anyone out there tried this yet?  Let us know.

A Mad Man Without a Car (in a good way)

There's a fun article in Sunday's NY Times about Vincent Kartheiser, one of the stars of the hit show, Mad Men.  He lives in LA and doesn't own a car--he gets around by bus and subway.  Maybe someday it'll be cool after all.  I found this interesting: 

“They’ve done a study and they’ve found that people under 30 no longer view cars as status symbols or even positive things,” Mr. Kartheiser said. “They look at them as pollutants.”

Maybe I'm younger than I thought (at heart, anyway).

weekly tallies #11 and #12 and weekly ramblings

Okay, so I've been busy with end of summer stuff and haven't written down my logs.  Not that anyone necessarily cares, but it's a good way for me to keep track.  Numbers make me happy.  Here are the numbers for the past two weeks:

August 23-29
walking:  23.6 miles
biking:  16.4 miles
subway: 4.5 miles

This week started with three days of rain, and also Noah had a friend over to play during the days, and we didn't have a bike for him, so we rarely went anywhere by bike this week.


August 30-September 5
walking:  20 miles
biking:  40.2 miles
subway: 14 miles
car:  64  (60 by zipcar--we had to drive Saugus and beyond, 4 by cab--we bought a new vacuum cleaner in Cambridge and there was no way we were going to haul it home on the T.  The trains on Sunday were PACKED, because it was a beautiful day and 100,000 college kids just moved back to Boston last weekend, with nothing to do (no homework or exams yet)).


Now that school is back in session, my miles will continue to shift more towards walking (I put in 4 miles a day just from walking Noah to and from school and walking the dog).  Though tomorrow, I'm working a handyman gig for a friend, and that'll be a 12 mile ride (round trip), with heavy tools in tow.


Summer is officially over--car rental rates have dipped back down to normal levels.  We have to drive to Connecticut to visit family this weekend, and our two-day rental will only cost $80 (not including gas), so it's now cheaper to rent a car for excursions from the airport rather than using Zipcar.  (Too bad, because I like Zipcar better.)


Did some renovations on our bikes this week.  The cargo racks on Tracy and my bikes were broken, and the collapsible metal baskets that attach to the racks were all busted, too.  So last night and today, I replaced the racks and baskets.  Not complex, but a lot of futzing.  I'm glad to have two baskets in the back, where before I only had one (which made me very unbalanced with gallons of OJ on just one side).  All that extra metal in the back is heavy, though--that's my excuse for going so slow, I'm hauling all those pounds of steel with me.

I also replaced my bike chain, which my new chain wear gauge told me was worn out.  The bike runs a lot better now.  (I initially misthreaded it, so it was making odd noises.  Kudos to the woman at the REI bike shop (at Landmark in the Fenway) who did NOT make me feel stupid when I took it in to figure out what was wrong.  They're my favorite bike shop (tied with Broadway Bicycle School), because they are always polite and never intimidating.  The last thing I need from a bike shop is attitude.