Bring on the circus bikes!

Going car-free in a rural location

Unlike when I lived in Washington DC you didn’t really need a car, not having one on Orkney is highly unusual. Pretty much everyone drives.

There are practical reasons for this: we have sporadic public transport, much of our housing is spread far and wide, and our weather can put even the hardiest person to the test.

But this isn’t the whole story.

Car = freedom

Having a car is also an emotional thing, a sign of independence. It’s even a little bit wrapped up in who we think we are.

For me, our car represents our dream of moving to Orkney and starting our own business. We bought our trusty Fiat Doblo 4 years ago in Perth when we decided to relocate to this island and start a new life.

Malcolm and our new car, moving to Orkney in 2004

Malcolm’s used it since then to run his tours with Five Senses, connecting visitors to Orkney in a new way. We’ve met so many good people through this and we’ve relied on the money it’s provided.

Car = home

I think it’s also been a security blanket, this idea that even if we didn’t have a house, we could always throw our stuff in the car and have a place to call home.

So giving up the car is saying goodbye to a lot of things, a lifestyle and identity that we’ve had for four years. It’s changing Five Senses as a business, dropping the car tours and either doing more of the bushcraft and outdoor skills, or well, who knows?

Finally, ditching the car is also a practical challenge, because what we’ve decided to replace our car with, at least for now, are bicycles.

Bicycles, really?

I’m not a big fan of bicycling culture. That whole spandex, toe clips and space age helmets thing puts me off.

Then there’s the wind. In the summer, we average around 15mph wind most of the time. In the winter, it can easily go up to 40-50mph, with a nice lashing of rain.

Since we’re briskly heading into winter, I can look forward to a 9am sunrise and 3:30pm sunset in January.

Huffing and puffing

Lastly, I’m totally out of shape. It’s a good day when I take a gentle walk on the beach for 15 minutes, so cycling for a few hours into Kirkwall…hm.

I need to exercise more, but I know myself. If I have the lazy alternative, I’ll take it. So while it’s nice to think I’d go on more walks and bike rides with proper motivation, the reality is I’m not doing that if I can drive instead.

I’m just going to have to give it a go and hope for the best.

Why this? Why now?

After all this moaning about how hard it’s going to be, you may be wondering why we’re bothering. Two big reasons: Age of Stupid and Office Space.

Age of Stupid basically asks us the question from 50 years in the future when the planet is ruined: Why didn’t we do enough about climate change?

The Age of Stupid USA Trailer from Age of Stupid on Vimeo.

Malcolm and I watched the film a few weeks ago and even though we’d seen films like An Inconvenient Truth, it was this one that tipped the balance and we both said “Enough already! Let’s do this.”

So we’re going on an experiment to reduce our carbon footprint to one tonne between the both of us, from 22 tonnes the average British couple consumes now.

We’ll be writing much more on this subject as part of our work with 10:10 — a movement that asks us to commit to reducing our carbon footprint by 10% in 2010. I hope to see you there.

Humans weren’t meant to be in cubicles

The other reason is best summed up by Office Space, which I often quote, where our hero works a meaningless, soul-destroying job in an office writing code for a big, meaningless corporation. Here’s one of my favourite scenes where Peter, the hero, explains to his work colleague what he’s realised about their crappy jobs:
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I remember those days all too clearly, and I never, never want to have to go back to that again.

With our still doing Touchwood Project as volunteers, we have to either reduce our spending or make more money. Until we can get sufficient funding, the only viable income options for us here are jobs like working for the Council or one of the grocery stores.

Selling the car is far preferable to either of those options for me, and it will give us living expenses for another few months, by which time we’ll hopefully have gotten our funding.

Other car-free options

Hitchhiking and car sharing are two alternatives we’d like to develop further. We’ve written a bit about this already, and will be doing much more in the coming months.

A third option I’m pretty excited about are electric scooters.

Xero's eScooter Classic

Ooo, prrrretty.

There are several models newly on the market, but I’m all about fun design, so I prefer a retro-styled model. Xero’s eScooter Classic gets from 50 miles in a single charge, goes up to 30 mph, and is reasonably priced at £1500 ($2500).

This option is well worth a fuller post on its own, so I’ll write that one soon. However, since one of the main reasons we’re selling the car is to save money, forking over £1700 or so for the scooter and gear isn’t what we want to do just yet.

As I wrote in an earlier post, I love the idea of quadricycles but at a whopping €3450/£3000, they’re even more expensive than a scooter, so it’s just going to have to wait.

It’s gotta be stylish and fun

Nope, if I’m going to do bicycling, it’s going to be fun and it’s going to be stylish. Happily, there’s a whole movement here, best seen in the Tweed Runs, cycling events where everyone dresses in my favourite fabric, tweed!

There’s just so much to talk about but I think I’ve run on long enough for now.

Malcolm’s just left the house to hitchhike and walk the 5 miles into Stromness to do our shopping. It’s cold, raining, but he left in high spirits — just about bounced out the door — because he sees it as an adventure, a chance to meet people and do a little, humble planet-saving. Me too.