It’s snowing, kinda nice actually. Will give me a chance to practice some snow riding on small tires, something I have not done in a long time. I decided this weekend to switch my bike over to fixed gear, a potentially stupid idea considering I don’t all the way know how to ride fixy yet, but I went for a couple rides this weekend, so I should be ok. I use a “three pants” method of winter riding. That is I wear three pairs of pants, that way when I crash it doesn’t hurt as much. There are much smarter ways of riding your bike in the winter, but I am kind of broke, and can’t really afford different tires (or ideally a mountain bike), so I ride “three pants” style.

I used my car for the first time in a long time on Sunday. I have to tell you, it felt odd. I haven’t put gas in my car going on three months now, I am still at half a tank. I am getting to the point where I have to turn my car on and let it run every couple weeks to the battery won’t go dead. The last time I purchased gas it was 50 cents cheaper. How strange is that?

It felt all wrong to be in a car after so long on my bike. There was no wind in my hair. The air smelled wrong. I kept glancing over my left shoulder to look for cars and only saw the seat belt. It was so strange. I didn’t like it one bit. I felt slow, and stupid, constantly being stopped by traffic. I felt enclosed in a shell that separated me from the experience. Never in my life have I felt such a palpable sense of discomfort when riding a car. I never thought I would ever feel that way. The reason I used the car was because I had to go clear across town, to pick up a bag of computer books I had gotten off of Freecycle, and it was 20 degrees outside. I thought it was going to be too cold to ride, but as soon as I got half way to my destination I had already seen like 10 cyclists, clearly proving me wrong. By then it was kind of pointless to go back without the books, so I just toughed it out.

I never thought cycling would change my attitudes as much as they have. Or to put it another way, I never really realized how much the car changed the way I look at things, until I stopped using it.