Brian LaFave of Sheboygan, WI has had enough of high gas prices, so he’s parking his truck and biking to work… for a month. Brian used to put 300 miles a week on his trusty pickup truck, but no longer. He’s biking to work, not accepting free rides unless his friends are already in his neighborhood, and taking the money he saves and donating it to charity.
From Yahoo!:
“I did like a practice run … two days in a row to make sure I could do it,” he said. “I’m not in the greatest shape. The mornings are the worst. It feels like it takes forever. I get like a mile down the road and I want to die.”
It’s a big change for someone who put 300 miles on his truck the week before he stopped driving it.
LaFave fills out a chart each day listing how many miles he bikes, the destination and the gas price that day, among other things. He plans to compute his savings and donate that amount to a charity that provides food to children in Africa.
“I think just with the gas prices being so high, everybody complains about it but no one ever really does anything about it,” LaFave said. “People continue to drive nonstop and not think about it, but I just wanted to take a stand and say, `I’m not gonna pay this much money for gas.’”
We think what Brian is doing is sweet (the charity part), but we won’t really be impressed unless he extends his project into the delightful Wisconsin winter…
Wis. man won’t buy gas for 31 days, maybe longer [Yahoo!] (Thanks, Angela!)
(Photo: Nabity Photos )
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@fumducket: Oh yeah?!?!?! Up a hill…. in the snow… Both ways!
Now if only I didn’t live 45 miles from work, without any navigable way of riding a bike safely between here and there. And oh yeah, 10 miles from the closest transit stop.
@parad0x360: That opinion shows your infinite lack of knowledge in oil markets. Greed would only appear in the foreign oil companies, from the people with weird names.
@Ssscorpion: Ireland is not the United States.
/just sayin’ is all
@strixus:
How about mix biking and bus routes ( using a bike to the bus stop and put it on a bus bike rack. )
A lot of people do that in California and NYC.
Bush is an oil man – his friends are oil men. Ever since he’s been in office our gas prices have gone up crazily. To me this is not a coincidence. He has put our country in the worst shape in decades. Thanks to all who voted for him TWICE.
@evslin: I’ll drink to that
@COELACANTH: I’m partial to the person that stuck a “collaborate and listen” sticker on the stop sign near my apartment.
@cmdrsass:
I disagree. I don’t live in the heart of downtown and am professional in my 30s.
However I CHOSE to buy a home in a neighborhood with good transit, old homes and sidewalks, and not dominated by cul-de-sacs, bix box stores, and superarterials.
I don’t want to be dependent on my car for short trips and errands, and there’s plenty of neighborhoods in many cities where you can live that way. Its all about choics. You can buy an enormous home miles from anywhere any have tons of indoor space and a huge garage, or like me find a smaller place in a great neighborhood – and every time I see a gas station sign I know I made the right choice.
@ruffedges: You’re welcome, but I didn’t expect after your first 3 sentences you would be thanking me. We are all oil men. We all consume oil. We all have 401k’s in oil. Oil spikes come from speculators screwing with the market, and from our weaker dollar. Once our dollar comes back, you’ll see oil drop. Since oil is a foreign commodity. Also after some of the hostility in the East clears, that’ll help too. First and foremost, hate the speculators.
If you think Obama will fix this, you got another thing coming. He’ll be over in Afghanistan speaking the wrong language.
@fumducket: You had boxes? Back in my day we didn’t even have boxes! The shit was so high in the bed of my truck it kept falling out and I had to jump out to save it, with the truck moving.
Ok, I agree, one-upping online sucks.
Anyway…even though I think this guy is nuts I think he has the right idea. If we park more and drive less, we’ll do good things for the enviornment, for gas prices, and mostly, for our outsized waistlines (as Americans).
@outinthedark: I have a motorcycle and commute rain and shine. My secret? Bringing a backup pair of socks and shoes. (Actually, I have one set up in my lab readily, so I don’t have to ferry it back and forth.)
Also, if your jacket isn’t waterproof, there are cheap $20 oversuits (if you’re not wearing a jacket, you should, dammit!) and $20 pvc overpants you can pick up from places like newenough.com — they’re not as fancy as gore-tex but you probably won’t need them for long enough to justify the expense of a $60 rainsuit. They compress pretty well — you can fit them in the bottom of a backpack or just about anywhere you can put something on your motorcycle. When it starts raining, pull over under an overpass or similar roof-over-head and pull them on. Then take them off at work.
@Bladefist: Didn’t say anything about Obama. I hate all politicians. I don’t think the price will ever fall back below $2.75. Prices don’t come down once they have people paying top dollar. The hostility in the Middle East won’t ever clear so that theory sucks too. Thanks for giving me a new group to hate – “the speculators”.
The moral of the story is that if it is feasible for you to bike or walk to work, you should anyway – despite how much gas is. However, like a lot of people here, I don’t have a good paved route to bike to work. Plus the stinkiness factor sets in as well.
@ruffedges: Ok, well I can accept your view point. I hate all of them too. You make me pick one, I pick republicans. I thought hating all of them was assumed.
It could come back down, if our dollar became valuable again.
@laserjobs:
If he’s anything like the typical American, and wisconsin is the most obese state in the union, less than none at all.
“He plans to compute his savings and donate that amount to a charity . . .”
I’ve got another idea — how about he computes what he *would have* saved if he’d been doing this all along. Then he can look at the number and kick himself really hard. That would be funny.
My husband and I just sold our minivan last week, so we won’t be buying gas for, I dunno, maybe forever. It didn’t occur to us to start contacting the press about it though.
We could all stop driving and the prices would hardly budge. The rest of the world would buy what we don’t use.
I live 4 miles from work. I can walk to work or drive to work, make the trip in 6 minutes or 60 minutes, the choice is mine. I choose 6 minutes.
Give me a holler when gas hits $10 per gallon and my position may have changed.
$2.50 worth of gas versus 1 hour walking….. hmm, I still choose the car.
No mass transit option. Biking is an option, if I want to become a hood ornament for somebody else’s car. A motorcycle is an option if I want to get a divorce from the wife.
Some of us are stuck (or choose to be stuck) with our cars.
@middy: uh, yes… but the point is WE wouldn’t have to be buying it, ergo we would save
@Corporate-Shill:
You’re joking me – you live four miles and you won’t bike? That’s insane. Unless you live on an interstate freeway exit and your office is an exit four miles uproad there must be a decent route.
Sucks to be you.
I wish I could bike or walk to work. It’s only 2 miles from home, however I live in the burbs which are NOT transit friendly. I would have to walk down a newly built 4 lane highway. You’d think with all the money they got from the state for building the new highway they could have splurged and spent a little more to give us a sidewalk. *shakes head*
I take too much in to work to not use a car. I’m not risking dropping my laptop bag off the back of a bike.
One person down, 6 billion to go. If only more people did this than gas prices and global warming would be improved.
My father at the age of 65 spent lots of money on a fancy bicycle (much to the annoyance of my mother) so he could bike into work. He works on a busy major roadway and needs to travel on other busy roadways to get to work. I told him he was a loon, and that he was going to get hit by a car. My prediction didn’t take long to come true… the very first day he got hit by a car. He had semi-minor injuries and he healed… and he is still biking to work, the nutjob. I am terrified for his life.
@r4__: Thanks I will definitely check it out!
I don’t ride in the rain or with passengers mainly because this is my first bike. I’m familiar with dirt bikes and all but being on the road is different. Here in the Tidewater area of Virginia it seems as if the Navy recruits the worst drivers.
Just being cautious for the time being. Will try a suit out next time it’s a light rain.
I wish I could do this, but my commute is over 100 miles a day…
We have a multi pronged strategy.
Were looking at buying one of these motorcycles
[www.imz-ural.com]
You can ride three people on it if you need to and have plenty of cargo room if there is only 1-2 people. Oh, and it will operate in the snow.
Also looking at getting one of these for closer in short hops. [www.genuinescooters.com]
Also one of these for things 1-2 miles out.
[www.target.com]
Oh, and were moving somewhere that isn’t a frozen tundra all winter.
@outinthedark: It’s starting to strike me as appalling that downtown buildings can’t put in “lockerrooms.” Some employers do, but it really should start to be COMMON, both for non-motorized commuters and for convenience. (Look, some days I sweat and rinsing off after lunch would be a godsend.)
My husband likes to bike to work, but it’s difficult when the weather is less-than-perfect or when he has to be in court, since he’s a lawyer and has to, you know, be in court. In a suit. If he could rinse off and change clothes at the office, that’d make it a zillion times easier than only being able to bike on days he can get away without a suit jacket and it isn’t raining.
(I can’t currently bike to work because I have to cross the river, and the nearest pedestrian/bike crossing is some three miles downstream (and still a deathtrap), adding six miles to my trip, as I live just about directly across from my workplace. And the roads to and from the pedestrian/bike bridge aren’t pedestrian or bike accessible! It’s totally maddening. I’m teaching one class on a different campus this semester, though, that I should be able to bike to, so that’ll be good.)
We should all get scooters, they get 90+ Miles to the GALLON!
Imagine only buying one tank of gas at a time…
This is the one I’m getting:
[www.genuinescooters.com]
Isn’t it cute?
I’d do this…but there’s no shoulder on the road on the 4 mile drive to work and people speed like freaks. (I would rather NOT die thank you.) Instead I just refuse to go anywhere if I don’t have to and often sit at work for break instead of going home..even if I am sitting there for two hours…yay DS.
I grew up in Sheboygan! I drove to my friend’s house two blocks away.
It’s possible. I just drove behind a guy with a CA plate that said “NO BI GAS” and had a placard above it saying “Electrical Powered”.
Great concept… if only he hadn’t blown his red light and pulled out in front of me, making me slam on the brakes.
Also, is a month that long? My car has a 14 gal tank and I fill up only once every 2 weeks. I can walk to the grocery store, but I drive to work.
I live in Florida. I work out of Atlanta, GA… You do the math.
The guy is doing the right thing though. If everybody would bike/walk/carpool to work ONCE A WEEK, imagine what that would do to oil consumption.
Interestingly, the EPA is tackling the issue of bike commuting in their question of the week series:
[blog.epa.gov]
I commute by bike 30mi a day and have been bike commuting for 7 years. More power to this guy. Hopefully he’ll reap the fitness benefits as well as the monetary. Those first few rides are tough though. I remember them still. Peace.
He’s doing the right thing. Unfortunately, the right thing isn’t always doable or practical for everyone. For a great many people living in major cities, highway travel is the only option to and from work. Bikes are not permitted on highways. But for those who can and do bike to work, I tip my hat to you. I wouldn’t do it but more power to you if you can.
Why not donate the money to someone who helps children in our country?
This country is hung up on helping other people while we fall apart from the inside out.
Just an observation.
I bike just over 22km each way to work, on a good day it’s just over 45min. It’s that or $4 + an hour each way on the bus..no thanks.
People around here don’t really know how to drive though, so I may end up dead from doing this. I have at least one close call a day.
Seriously? Big fuckin’ deal, dude. I bike to my office job every day.
I bike one mile to work. I look at my coworkers funny when they tell me that drive distances shorter than that. Buddy of mine drives and literally lives across the street (granted this is Texas and it’s a big street, so that’s still 1/2 mile).
@Bladefist: Greed would only appear in the foreign oil companies…. Oil is a foreign commodity.
I think you have a point with that. I think about that when I hear “windfall profits” and talk of imposing extra taxes, or otherwise punishing our oil companies for things they have little control over.
Because the thing about record profits is that the margins are reasonable, around 10%. So, sure, Exxon’s $10 billion after-tax profit sounds like a lot. But it’s not a lot when that profit cost you $90 billion dollars and you paid $10 billion in taxes.
The margins are better at McDonald’s, a company that makes a profit 17% that of Exxon’s when it’s only 5% of the size.
@Lambasted: For a great many people living in major cities, highway travel is the only option to and from work.
Almost certainly not true. I will wager $100 (payable in Monopoly money) that there is a bike-rideable route between your home and work.
@xthexlanternx: @FromThisSoil: @ezacharyk: Simply living far away is not an excuse, unless you have a really good reason that you don’t live closer. See betatron.
@Corporate-Shill: @Ajh: When there are more bikes on the road, people get used to it. When there are enough cyclers, they band together and demand reasonable accommodations like getting lanes put in (and then after that, we get them physically separated from traffic, get our own signals…). In the mean time, if obey you aalllll of the traffic laws, assume that most cars doesn’t see you, and wear a helmet, you’ll be fine.
Hooray Brian! It’s so inspiring to hear that people are starting to realize that they don’t need to take their cars everywhere!
@Corporate-Shill: @Ajh: Also, Is Cycling Dangerous? [Ken Kifer's Bike Pages] is a great summary. Short answer: it’s pretty safe if research it first and ride in a safe manner. It’s horribly unsafe if you do things like riding on the sidewalk, without lights at night, or especially riding against the flow of traffic.
You don’t want to be a monkey, do you?
i have gone the last month without refilling and driving 5 days a week
I’m doing something similar. I got a summer job that’s two miles from where I live, and I’ll be buying a bike to get me there. For my job that starts in the fall, I’ll also be living two miles from work and either biking or snowshoeing (yay for Minnesota winters).
During the school year, I live less than a mile from campus, so I just walk.
The key part is for people — when possible — to find a way to live close to where they work and then to make that trip without their car. Even more important is to make sure all areas are accessible. I know someone who lives a mile from his work, but he still drives his car because there are no sidewalks, and he’s unwilling to bike or walk in the ditch/grass.
@DeltaPurser: why not just move up to Atlanta? Or get a job in Florida?
@Leah: Because the immediate cost of moving to Atlanta is high? Maybe it’s a temporary assignment? Maybe his particular job isn’t available in Florida?
Not every job is as commonplace as yours. Heck, I know my mother has to drive an hour into work every morning. Sure, she COULD bike – she used to back before we moved – but then she’d be doing the bike ride at 02-0300 in the morning on roads that could best be described as heck, not to mention the bike lanes that are ignored and the Quality Driving (TM) by other people. Sure, she could move, but that would cost a hell of a lot of money for the effect …
If people find that they can bike to work, more power to them. I wish their supporters would try to understand why people don’t, however.
I’ll have to drive to my job, but I’ll do it in reverse. That’ll show ‘em!
FYI, some books on cutting down car use:
[www.amazon.com]
@betatron: Sorry , you don’t get a medal.645 days doesn’t even get you a sticker. The guy is doing his best. So are you. So am I. Shut up and ride your bike.
@ruffedges: Two Thumbs up, for your astute observation.