Guest Blog: The Team Bike Evangelist
Dear Fellow Team Bike Challenge Riders,
I’m Don Lubach. I am a career counselor, adult education instructor, and a board member with the Santa Barbara Bicycle Coalition. And for the month of June, I’ll be joining you all as a competitor in this great, decentralized group ride organized by the wonderful crew at Traffic Solutions. When someone suggested that I contribute some posts to the blog, I was very honored. Here’s my first one.
I have always had a strong negative reaction to the "true believer." I can feel the multi-level-marketing pitch coming from miles away and I run for cover; I don't like when I'm handed a clipboard in front of the market; I don't like invitations to study groups that comb over sacred texts; I screen for telemarketers. But, friends, when it comes to the bicycle commute, the Santa Barbara Bicycle Coalition, and the concept of alternative transport -- I am as fired up as the most caffeinated evangelist. I can't help myself.
There is so much joy in the simple bicycle errand, I have to share it with others. The recipients of my zeal are kind to me as I run, breathlessly, through a long list of things I like about not using the car to get to work. I appreciate their understanding.
There's a negative side to evangelism. More than 10 years of bicycle commuting happiness has made me judgmental about some of our neighbors. There's a guy who, nearly every morning, cold-starts his SUV in order to carry his child two blocks to the local elementary school. He drives a bit fast and everyone on the family bicycle keeps a close eye on him--the poor misguided soul. A religious evangelist might be worried that this two-block driver could be doomed to eternal suffering in a hot and Smokey place. From our observation, he's there now.
I guess I can only forgive the lost driver and hope that, one day, he'll come to the truth.
Yours,
Don Lubach
UCSB Team Ding Bell
7 comments:
I dig riding for commute purposes, doing our part as we sit fit. But comparing a man's life in hell to using his SUV is weak and mean spirited in my opinion.
Ride if you want, do what you can, but poitning out that someone is doing what they choos and legally can as a bad thing?? I think there are better ways to sell this thing.
So Cal Silk,
I respect your comment.
Glad you're reading the blog.
I'll try to ease up on the brimstone metaphor as the last thing I want is to come off as mean-of-spirit. Ride on!
Parents are worried that there kids are going to get hit on their way to school so, instead of having them bike or walk, they get in their SUVs and drive at excessive speeds into the school zone making it even more dangerous.
Driving two blocks is ridiculous any way you slice it. You should feel free to criticize the lazy, acquisitive, perpetrators of senseless waste.
You won't find scriptural rationalization in any religion or philosophy for such behavior.
As long as you keep walking the talk, Judge away Don!
Because of this competition, I biked round trip to Staples in Goleta from Isla Vista today. The wind was against me, but I did it for the team.
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