What do you do when it costs $100 for every fillup?

This morning I filled up my personal vehicle. It has a 28 gallon tank. Would you believe $94 to get me around 310 miles? Yep, that's my truck. I suspect that's par for many people out there driving nice big quad cab trucks, giant SUV's, and miniVans. Looks like time for a change.

I'm looking at a map of High Point, NC, and envisioning three concentric circles drawn on it: green; yellow; red. Each circle represents a distance from my house: green is a 5-mile radius; yellow is a 10-mile radius; and red is a 15-mile radius. What do I see inside these zones? First of all, I see about 90% of all the places I go in a typical month live inside these three zones. Secondly, I see the highest concentration of "points of my interest" live in the green zone. There's my post office, my Food Lion, my Harris Teeter, Starbucks ( for my wife,) my kids' daycare/school, Oak Hollow Mall, two Goodwill stores, about 15 of my favorite restaurants, a drugstore, movie theaters, bars, Bruster's, 3 Parks, my church, and about half of my family friends. So like many Americans, judging by the statistics one reads, I'm pretty average in that most of my trips are under 4 miles. Let's look at a sampling of each zone.

The green zone is the easy zone; it's a 5-mile radius of my house. Anyone can ride five miles. I can ride five miles in about 18-20 minutes, leisurely. So I could easily make my trips to the grocery store, to the movies - on rare occasions, to the drugstore, my favorite eateries and to my friends' homes. So why don't I? Even though I've got one of the most comfortable and fun bikes ever made, the Rans Street? It's because I can't quite carry stuff that rides around in the back seat area of my truck. Notwithstanding the two kids, many things I would either carry with me, or would bring back with me simply don't fit in my backpack or rear trunk bag on the rack of my bike. So while my trips are easily completed on the bike, the object of my trips are largely unattainable with the current gear. Maybe it's time to change the vehicle. The green zone should be 90% bicycle use.

The Yellow zone is a 10-mile radius. This zone contains my workplace, and a few dozen more places I like to eat. I think it also contains the SuperWalmart, Lowes, Home Depot, Babies R Us, Target, Pet Smart and maybe some more theaters and drugstores. It certainly contains a large portion of the city of High Point, and a large chunk of Greensboro. Ten miles on a bike is easily doable, I ride that and more every time I go out for a recreational ride on the Bicentennial Greenway near my house. So what keeps me from riding to work, or any of the other places listed. I'd be a little sweaty, although I could carry the things I need for work. It would take me about 45 minutes ride the 10 miles to work very leisurely, which is almost half of the mileage on the Greenway and the other half on mildly used roads. Alternatively, there's a nice path straight to my work that is actually 8 miles, but it's called US68/Eastchester and I'd share the space with nearly 300,000 people, each wearing a multi-ton vehicle and not being terribly skilled at driving with cyclists. So even though there's an alternate route that's not much further and perhaps 100 times safer, I still don't ride the bike. What's wrong with me? This zone could be at least 50% bicycle use.

The red zone is a 15-mile radius. Again, I typically ride more than that when I go out for a recreational ride, and all the charity rides are more than that. It's doable. I don't really have much need for things out this far, but even so, it's not too far to ride. This zone coud be a 50% bicycle use as well.

My other trips outside the red zone would be poor choices for the bike, like a family vacation to VA, or to the beach. I wouldn't attempt that presently with two small kids. So I'll say outside the red zone is 0% bike.

Gotta go right now, but until my return, think about a map of your area, consider the three zones, and what is within them. Why don't you ride the bike more? What would it take to get you to ride the bike more? Safer routes? Better equipped vehicle to carry stuff? Free drinks when you arrive at the destination? A $5 bill in your hand when you get there?

We'll explore these prizes later.