More Sunday cycling

Another pleasant Sunday morning bike ride from birds'-eye perspective through the neighborhood, this time looping the Richland Creek greenway & McCabe golf course, the girls' old tee-ball fields, Nashville State (where I taught briefly many years ago), Hillwood High School... 12 miles in an hour, threading the rain. Didn't realize so many of my neighbors had pools. We need more common ground.


   

lifestyle biking

I'm shopping for a new bike. Too bad this one's not on the market yet. Recreation is important but utility and green living are too.

Bet it'll be a hit in the Netherlands, where Russell Shorto says biking really is integrated into every facet of daily life. Where our dedicated bike lanes 

seem to be used more for recreation than transport — cyclists in Amsterdam are dressed in everything from jeans to cocktail dresses, while those in Manhattan often look like spandex cyborgs...

But while many Americans see their cars as an extension of their individual freedom, to some of us owning a car is a burden, and in a city a double burden. I find the recrafting of the city in order to lessen — or eliminate — the need for cars to be not just grudgingly acceptable, but, yes, an expansion of my individual freedom.

I'd love to eliminate my need for a car to run 80+ miles a day between home and school and school and back again, but alas. A colleague does it on a motorcycle but he lives just down the street from school and carries no passengers.


I still want my bullet train.

 

Biking in 3D

Just discovered this cool Google Earth tool/toy. Here's my bike route from this morning's spin through Belle Meade, between the Mansion and Parmer Park, then up & down the Boulevard, and finally across to the new bike lane on Post Road. Fun!

But, just for the record: it inaccurately depicts me on the wrong side of the median, weaving and veering wildly off-road onto some of Nashville's most exclusive, meticulously-manicured lawns. If you know anything about the Belle Meade police you know they'd never let anyone get away with that!