The road less cycled

Gas at $144.9? To be blunt, I couldn’t care less. What for many people is a fact that raises blood pressure nearly to the point of apoplexy and causes them to grumble all the way to wherever they’re combusting their way to, has been nothing but a boon to me. It’s been the final piece of motivation I’ve needed to leave the car at home with much greater regularity than when gas was at $1.20. Overall, I think I’ve saved money with the higher gas prices, especially since mileage reimbursement at my job as a delivery driver was increased. On top of that, the BC Libs sent me $100.00 to try and soften the political damage resulting from their carbon tax. On an aside, while I’ll take the hundred bucks and treat it like income, it looks like a cheap political gimmick to palatize the policy; make it annual or invest carbon tax proceeds in emission reduction programs, and then I’ll give the Libs credit.

Even when I drove to the Okanagan, and the six of us split the cost of gas among other things like camping and food, the total cost for four days of cycling, drinking, camping, and swimming including gas was around $75.00. I can’t complain about that price – chalk one up for local holidays.

Today, for instance, I cycled to the University to drop off some library books, headed over to Save-On foods for some shopping, and then over to the Matsqui Recreation Centre for a swim, all in the mid-day heat – a trip that’s not easy given the traffic on Sumas Way and the 25 + degree temperature. Cycling, though, felt great, pushin’ pedal in the midst of 2 ton SUV’s, loaded mini-vans, motorbike riders all decked out in summer gear, one vulnerable cyclist criss-crossing the town on nothing but muscle power and sweat, and then stopping in for a refreshing swim on the way home.

Flash-back to a time many years ago, at the very same pool, the MRC, with my brother and I taking swimming lessons, one of the few activities we were ever to do together. Our lack of confidence in the water was obvious; granted our swimming lessons were a luxury that didn’t last long, but both of us were terrible swimmers. Well into the lessons, the rest of the kids were diving off the low-dive for the first time, while the two of us could barely tread water. I joked about calling us “the Sinking Brothers,” bu there was Papa, off at the side watching the lessons, the frustration at watching us flounder palpable. He could swim like a fish, even as a kid, so you can understand his mounting frustration. We never did learn to swim well, and the lessons were soon discontinued, though I’ll probably never know if he was just pissed off or if he simply didn’t have the money.

That was then; since then I’ve learned to swim, and more, learned to love swimming, though by no means am I an expert. Regardless, I can’t seem to get enough of it, though I still hate the chlorine in the water at public swimming pools. It irritates my eyes and my throat (somehow I always swallow some pool water), and relegates the best swimming to alpine pools generally only accessible through 3-5 hour hikes. The kind that make you feel like you earned the swim, but also of the kind that rarely fit into my schedule.

Though I’m far from an expert, if what Richard Heinberg and others have to say about declining oil stocks has any credence, I think that gas prices will only go up from here. The trend of governments finally slapping a price on carbon dioxide emissions will only exacerbate this trend, so I won’t be surprised to see more and more bicycles on the road.

Not to mention people washing off all that sweat at the local watering holes, be they chlorinated in the city or fresh and clean hundreds of metres into the mountains. Up for a hike? Let me know.