You've read and heard this stuff before, but perhaps not in a context as trustworthy as the Pedro's catalog. Chris and Jay at Pedro's (and I) would like to suggest respectfully that we'll all be better off if we ride a little more and drive a little less.

If we get creative about integrating our bicycles into our lives, we'll feel better about ourselves and everyone will benefit - riders and non-riders alike.  

We figure you're a rider or you wouldn't be reading this. As riders, correct me if I'm wrong, we like to think of ourselves as "green" and kind to the earth, as much as we can be in the real world.

We know that riding is healthy for us and less damaging to the planet than driving, but few of us can ride to work or to run all our errands. Nor can we conduct our fast-track lives at cycle pace. Like our neighbors, we depend on cars for transport.

Around the world, millions do use bikes to get everywhere. Year-round, rain, shine, they ride. Not us. We drive. For better or worse, our way of life is made workable by the automobile.

When we do ride, most of us do loops on lightly traveled roads. We drive to the quiet loop, park and unload our bikes. After the ride we load up and drive home. We ride to train for other rides – and drive to all of them.

We even drive to the bike shop. And the running shoe store next door. To Weight Watchers and Jazzercise. When we think of it that way, it sounds crazy, huh?

We enjoy our bikes as recreational tools – and forget to our loss that they are modes of transport.

We'd like to remind you that a bicycle isn't merely a piece of fitness gear. A bicycle is not an outdoor spin machine. It's a magic way to get from A to B. A bike is a component of a green, fit, healthy, faint-footprint lifestyle, an emblem of independence and inspiration and grit - and a bond with cyclists around the world.

Let's think about riding instead of driving: leaving our cars at home. Do we need to drive to run every errand? Once or twice a week, honestly, couldn't we ride our bikes? Leave our car keys on the dresser?

If we never think of our bikes as transportation, if we drive when we could ride, we're missing opportunities to enjoy our bikes - and feel good about ourselves and our impact on the world.

If we haul our bikes to and from rides in our cars, aren't we more traffic? Aren't we the very reason why we drive to rides? Aren't we why we get up early and ride on lightly traveled roads?

When I lived in big, sprawling Tucson, almost everyone drove to rides, even people who lived a mile or two from the ride start. At 7AM Saturday morning, both sides of University Boulevard would be lined with Volvos and SUVs, each with a roof rack and a Share the Road plate frame.

Now Tamar and I live in big, sprawling Denver. Folks from Denver's suburbs drive to rides. City people ride. Cycling is more appropriate here. Cyclists combine riding with trips on buses and light rail trains. Many ride across town on quiet streets and enjoy the terrific bike path network.

Remarkable numbers of local cyclists do not drive much, or at all. Instead they organize their lives so things work smoothly despite what (to most of us) would seem a huge handicap.

Getting along without a car is possible in Denver but it's not easy anywhere in the US. Using a bike occasionally instead of a car is doable anywhere. And worth the effort. That's what we had in mind for this page - to encourage you to try. Please try to use your bike as often as you can. 

We're authentic cyclists because we choose to ride. Riding is everything. And the mile that matters is the mile we would have driven in a car. A quiet loop in the country is fun and athletic but it is not green, not if we drove to get there.

A thoughtful cyclist will resist adding another car to the streaming militarized zone on our roads. One Less Car shouldn't be just a bumper sticker; it should be our aim every…single…day. We should find ways to ride, not drive, when we can. Feel good about ourselves. Set ourselves apart.  

If we ride instead of drive, we're acting as we wish others would act. We're examples to our neighbors of what can be done. Perhaps we will encourage a few of them to try it. In tiny ways we can change the world.

When we ride our bikes when we would've driven a car, we ride on the moral highroad.

After all, we're bike riders, right? It's one of the really good things about us. We ride bikes.

Riding is good for us. Driving isn't. Riding does no harm. Driving does major harm – in the short term, in the long term, locally, globally. Driving does not set us apart as people who've put their sweat where their sentiments are. Cycling does.

Cycling instead of driving says we don't just talk the talk.

Even if you can't do it every day, do it when you can. If you try, you'll find that a bit of planning may facilitate a ride today and another on Tuesday - rides that get things done, not just recreational laps on country roads.

We are confident that you'd like to think of yourself, of the way you live, as an example to others. We're sure that you'd love to believe the world would be a better place if everyone did what you do. You do feel that way, don't you?

We thought so. We feel the same way. We're trying to set aside days and find ways to leave our cars in our driveways. Join us when you can. Ride your bike. You can be a revolutionary on the way to the dentist's office.  

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