bike transportation in the news

This year's high gas prices have inspired more than just me to reduce car trips in favor of the bicycle. Indeed, newbie bike commuting has become something of a hot media story. The following is a quick sampling:

• At Slate.com, Bill Gifford writes about the joys, but also the frustrations and lessons learned, of trying to go completely auto-free in his exurban East Coast home. The bottom line seems to be that cycling-for-transportation is a very different task than cycling-for-recreation, and those who go from the latter to the former (such as myself) have some adjustments to make. Most importantly, while it seems that recreational cycling knows almost no bounds and is an activity you can completely immerse yourself in, transportational cycling has its limits.
• Also at Slate.com, Andy Bowers is the latest to challenge the conventional wisdom that "Nobody Bikes in L.A." Like Gifford, Bowers describes in some detail how subversive/transgressive an act urban cycling can seem, which is both part of its appeal and much of its challenge. Unlike Gifford, though, Bowers' bottom line is very upbeat, revelling in how he, thanks to the bike, had "discovered a different Los Angeles." Bowers doesn't go so far as to pronounce the conventional wisdom wrong and claim that LA is actually a pretty bike-friendly place, but he provides a welcome corrective to the LA- and bike-bashing likes of the Times of London's Chris Ayres.
• Finally, in the December 2000 issue of Bicycling magazine, Dan Koeppel writes about the "Invisible Riders" who bike-commute not by choice but out of economic necessity. Specifically, he profiles the countless, mostly Spanish-speaking immigrant population of day laborers who every morning converge on employment centers such as Harbor Park. It's a fascinating story that reveals a population of cyclists who are totally anonymous and disconnected from the much more affluent (and White) world of recreational cyclists such as myself. This is quite simply one of the best articles I've read, in any publication on any topic, in a long time.