Chima's Relationship to Cycling

My relationship with cycling is a very general question to ask me. Cycling to me takes on so many connotations. I could fondly remember as a younger individual Lance Armstrong and his many Tour-de-France victories, lifting the United States to worldwide fame in the arena of cycling. I have spent a great deal of my transporation history utilizing bikes as a means of transportation. I could remember as a young boy going to ride my bicycle in the BART parking lot in Oakland, California during the late 1990’s. Then again, later in my life, I remember riding my bike to my high school from 10-12th grade on most school days. I did this for many reasons. I remember that I did this because it was faster than walking and cheaper than taking public transportation. Additionally, I had to ride my bicycle to school because I could not get a ride from my parents, because they had to go to work. It was a great experience. From the late 1990’s until 2003, I did not ride my bicycle. This has to do with the fact that I was going through rough times, and I was riding my scooter. In March 2003, I moved from Oakland to Antioch, a suburb in the East Bay. I remember that I had to relearn how to ride my bike. From that period until Fall 2006 when I started 10th grade, I only rode my bike for aesthetic purposes, not for anything important. After riding my bicycle from 2006-2009 to go to school, I started to understand the importance of cycling. I admit that I did not really worry about, or really knew about the carbon footprint that I avoided by choosing to ride bikes over drive a vehicle or take public transportation. Also, I realized how healthy it was to ride bikes, because the human being became the engine, making the human being excercise by pedaling. I had to move to Tracy, California on June 26, 2009, after completing high school, this also affected my relationship with cycling. I remember that when I was riding my bike, I ran over sharp objects, my tire became flat, and I had to get my tube replaced over and over again. It got to a point that in the late summer of 2010, I had to stop riding my bike, partly because I officially received my driver’s licence on July 27, 2010. Because of this, I had to focus more on driving, because I had to travel farther I distances in order to get to school. I have not ridden a bicycle since at least 2010. I still have a positive relationship with cycling despite all of those setbacks. I am expecting to ride a bike sometime in the new future because I am in a class titled Sustainable Transportation. I now understand that when one chooses to ride a bike over drive a motorized vehicle, they reduce the carbon footprint.