Geoff baker I agree with you all the way. I commend all the bicycle commuters but without going into the details where I live, unless you have planned out where you live and work and shop with bicycle commuting in mind then you are going to get awfully frustrated trying to commute without your own vehicle. Seattle can be a nightmare to get around regardless of what the city officials would have you believe. I tried myself for a while and decided I liked having time to do more than one thing a day. SO, since it is rare that you will travel anywhere here faster than 40mph in the first place and most of the bridges are not bicycle friendly by most standards, There is an emerging two wheel motorized vehicle culture made up of an interesting array of options. The motorized bike would fit right in.
I forget how lucky I am down here to have year round bike commuting possible thanks to the weather. I couldn't do it in Maine, because you could only cycle half the year, and the other half the year, seems like cars had all forgotten that bikes exist, and would drive right over you every time you went out in spring. Still, I used to commute 35 miles a day by bike in the good weather.
In Seattle, I'd just have to kill myself. It rains almost as bad as in Ireland, where I lived for 20 years (and cycled most of those, because I couldn't afford a car. I had a BSA motorcycle briefly though). I cycled every day in Dublin traffic, which is about as bad as you can get anywhere in the world, and nearly got myself killed a dozen times,. I can remember how miserable I was cycling home in storms... but like I said, I was young and had no choice in those days. It's where I learned to appreciate Barbour waxed jackets, though. I think about everybody I knew who had a bike or a motorbike had one...
But when I see a college kid sitting on his gasoline powered bike, to cover the 1.2 miles he has to get to his classes on a beautiful sunny day in Tucson, I just want to slap him
Ah, the young, they know nothing!... I remember how hard we had it when I was a lad. We lived in a shoebox, middle of the road. We had it lucky
[Monty Python Reference]