'Park To Pedal': Drive, park, then bike. (Yeah. That'll work.)

Commute by Bike has been HuffPo’d!

Welcome, readers of The Huffington Post. We hope you enjoyed the article, “Bike To Work: Commute With ‘Park To Pedal’ Instead Of Driving All The Way” with it’s link to Tim Grahl’s article over here, “A Guide to a Simple Bike Commute.” And thank you for continuing to explore our site.

Bike To Work: Commute With 'Park To Pedal' Instead Of Driving All The Way
Screen Shot: The Huffington Post

Look at you there, reading this article that I wrote, when you could be back reading about the woman who faked having cancer to get money for her wedding and honeymoon.

(I just lost some of you. I should never have made that a link.)

Anyway, the whole “Park to Pedal” concept is interesting, but I see a flaw in it.

In theory, you drive halfway to work with a bike on your car (or in your car, if it’s a folding bike). Then you “park in a municipal lot (every city should have one) and then ride the rest of the way.”

But even the most committed of us know how hard it is to motivate ourselves to bike to work in the first place.

Tim Grahl’s article even confesses this reality:

Lets all be honest, weve had those mornings that we woke up with the full intention of riding the bike to work and once we saw the flat tire or realized we hadnt packed the night before, we grabbed for the keys instead.

And I’ll confess that I didn’t become a committed five-day-a-week bike commuter until the last car I owned blew a head gasket, and I decided to put it out of its misery.

Cars exploit our innate laziness. Our car-oriented culture is based on the premise that we’d rather be sitting on a mobile couch in a climate-controlled terrarium exerting no more effort than it takes to press a couple floor pedals and to turn a power-assisted wheel.

So there I am in a car. I’m cruising along. Got my favorite music on the radio. My butt has settled into my personal twin indentations on the bench seat. Up ahead is the turnoff to the municipal parking lot. And I’m supposed to stop, leave this comfy cocoon, and bike the rest of the way to work?

Aristotle said, “Well begun is half done.” He also said, “There’s no way in Hades you are going to stop this car when staying in it means you’ll still have time for a doughnut before your meeting this morning.”

Who has that kind of self discipline?

I’m a believer in the adage, It’s easier to avoid temptation than to resist it. Once I’m in a car, the battle against temptation has been lost, and temptation is gloating, wiggling it’s butt in my face.

If I had that kind of self discipline, I would have stuck with my gym membership.

Ah! Maybe that’s who this will work for: The kind of people who stick with their gym memberships; the kind of people who realize the absurdity of driving to a spin class on the way to or from work. If this is you, then you are on your way to realizing the absurdity of driving to a spin class ever.

So, Huffington Post link clicker, let me not discourage you. If you can make this “Park to Pedal” idea work, you are a more strong-willed person than I am. Check out our Commuting 101 section, you’ll like it.

And if you’re more like me (weak-willed and lazy) be sure to read “The Slackers Guide to Bike Commuting.”

Congratulations! You made it to the end of an article written by a nobody like me. Maybe you do have what it takes to be a bike commuter. I won’t take up any more of your time, because now it’s time you learn “Why Barbra Streisand, at 70, Is Still the Greatest Star.”

Come on back anytime. We’re here to help.

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