If the high cost of gas and the desire to lead a more environmentally clean life aren’t enough reason to leave the car in the garage, consider your health. While you can get your daily exercise by walking or rolling to your daily destinations on skates and boards, bicycles seem to be the favored by local commuters who want to use human power instead of gasoline as their fuel.
Stacy Hanson, a paralegal worker at Qwest, started cycling from Aurora to downtown Denver four years ago.
“Biking is a great way to start the day, because it not only allows for some good ‘alone time,’ but also gets in my workout,” Hanson says. “I don’t experience those midafternoon blahs like I used to, and I have a feeling of satisfaction when I get home in the evening.”
Carolyn Pooler, who works at National Jewish Health, sold her car last September because she did not want to spend money on repairs, licensing and insurance. It wasn’t only her finances that improved as a result. Her health did, too.
“Since I only live 12 blocks from work, I thought I would try to adopt a car-free lifestyle for a year and found that I really enjoy it.” She walks or rides her bike, taking the bus or a cab when absolutely necessary. She says the exercise warms up her body and mind early in the day and allows her to decompress on the way home. Her physical health has benefited, too. Her total cholesterol level has fallen 70 points.
Fifteen city and county of Denver employees have been biking to work daily for more than a decade. One member of the “Siberians” (so-called because they ride their bikes even in the snow) is Denver County Judge Ray Satter, a 12-year veteran of the daily bicycle commute.
“I bike in real early, so I miss most of the traffic, but on the 6-mile ride home, I see many more of us on the road,” he says.
Lawyer Wayne Fowler, who has been riding his bike into work since 1961, concurs. “I used to be the only one in our bike storage and changing room at our office building. There are now 12 bikes.”
Ty Steinbrook, 46, head mechanic at the Cherry Creek Bike Rack, gave up his car five years ago and estimates he saves $6,000 a year. He has several bicycles and puts a trailer on one when he needs to shop for groceries or do errands.
His employer is an extension of Campus Cycles near the University of Denver and a bicycle commuter station in Denver. It provides free and secure bike parking and such services as rentals and repairs.
“There has definitely been an increase in biking over the last two summers,” says Tracy Fifer, manager. “Our goal is to get people to come to Cherry Creek without the auto and, since so many errands are within a mile or three of home, we suggest that it is as fast and as efficient to do them on a bike as in a car. We are all about transportation other than the auto.”
More cities are offering bicycle sharing programs to assist people in getting around during the day.
For both the Democratic and Republican National Conventions, Freewheelin’ has teamed up with the Boulder organization Bikes Belong and Humana, providing 1,000 bikes for use in and around the city. This puts Denver and St. Paul on par with Amsterdam, Brussels, Lyon, Paris, Stockholm, Vienna, New York City and London, where the free bike programs were started in 2007 and early 2008. Seventy bicycles will stay in Denver after the convention, according to Dan Oftedahl, president of Humana’s Colorado operations.
Mark Jaeger, manager of Campus Cycles, has noticed that a lot more people are bringing in their old bikes to be made user-friendly for commuting, adding fenders, racks, baskets and panniers.
“I sold a bike this spring to a woman in her mid-40s who had not been on a bike since high school,” Jaeger says. “She was tired of driving the few miles to work and wanted to feel healthier, so now she commutes by bike. We are seeing more and more people with this same motivation.”
Linda J. Buch is a certified fitness trainer in Denver; linda@ljbalance.com.
