With gas prices soaring past the $3.50 mark, it’s officially become “only use vehicle when absolutely necessary” time. Thanks to the generous loaning of a bicycle by a friend of mine, I’ve been enjoying a newfound enthusiasm for bicycling these past two weeks. Naturally, since I’m a bit of a geek, I had to “geek out” on the bike a little bit, and since I was going to be bicycling around at night on the trips home, a couple bits of safety equipment were needed. And nobody with a brain rides around without a bike lock these days either.

It’s actually transformed into a rather silly but remarkably effective means of transportation. The headlight (steady only) and taillight (steady or blinking in various patterns) both cost under $8 each and run on standard battery sizes (4 AA for the headlight and 2 AAA for the taillight), and both units cheerfully accept rechargeable batteries. They run seemingly forever on a charge, too, though I’ve played it safe and recharged them all at least once a week so far. The U-shaped bike lock was also pretty cheap, and so was the little computer I added to the handlebar — it shows stuff like current speed, average speed, elapsed time, distance, calories & fat burned, and so on.

The speedometer thingy came with the decidedly low-rent attachment method of “zip ties,” but this worked out quite nicely because it came with extras. I used one of those to firmly attach my little GPS receiver (just a bluetooth unit with no display that can talk to my phone in my pocket) to the handlebar securely enough to always stay on but just loose enough to take off again when I get where I’m going. Everything is detachable (headlight, taillight, speedometer, and GPS receiver) so stuff doesn’t get stolen. The speedometer is wireless, too, so its sensor and the speedometer unit itself both take a single CR2032 battery. Amusingly, both batteries were pretty much flat when I got everything installed. They worked well enough on the first trip (with a bit of flakiness) but by the second the speedometer was asking me what sized tires I was riding on again

Fortunately, eBay is at least useful for this — 20 new batteries (enough for 10 changes on both units) are on their way to me for under five bucks. The bastards at Energizer and Wal-Mart conspired to bend me over for $4.78 just for two of the damned things Monday night when I realized the batteries were dying. It’s a shame those little watch batteries don’t have rechargeable equivalents in the consumer sector just yet.

Bicycling during the day on busy streets isn’t a huge deal, and lots of people do it. You have to pay even more attention to traffic than even a motorcyclist does, since you’re damn-near silent compared to everybody else in traffic, but that’s about the only major concern. It’s the night time trips that are really fun, if for no other reason but to see the world around you up close in the dark when everything (or mostly everything) is quiet all around you.

It’s also spiffy to see all the gadgets working properly — headlight shining bright and actually lighting a useful path ahead, GPS receiver blinking to show it has a good lock and is talking to the phone to record and upload it (I use Reperion for real-time tracking, btw — it’s seriously cool stuff), tail light flashing brightly to capture attention from behind, and speedometer counting revolutions to tell me how fast I’m going and how far I’ve gone.

As is the custom with anything related to the night time, some weird shit is noticeable if you pay any attention at all. Some of the sillier things I’ve noticed:

• Car salesmen will still stand outside on their car lots late at night looking at their used cars, and they’ll speak in hushed tones as you approach. Spooky.
• A bicycle with no headlight, no reflectors, and no taillight is absolutely fucking impossible to see at night and if it hadn’t been for my headlight the guy would probably have plowed right into me; heh
• You can safely roll straight past a bar brawl, even one that’s spilled out into the parking lot, without being jumped or messed with. Hell, if you’re across the street from it, you can stop and watch, and people still don’t even notice.
• The few drivers out there are generally either courteous or oblivious, and either is fine. However, every once in awhile, you’ll find somebody willing to roll down their window and actually shout criticisms at you about breaking the law. I heard “nice stop” tonight as I passed a car … that had itself blown a stop sign and blocked traffic at an intersection. I had no “stop” to obey, but I damned well knew he was there long before he noticed me. It seems that no matter what you’re doing, somebody hates you for it. Hehehe.

It’s still a hell of a lot of fun, though, and I absolutely love doing it. I feel pretty good after a ride, too — the first day, I was quite exhausted. The second day, I was tired and sweaty, but not feeling too bad. Today? I was sweating afterward (both directions) but there’s no fatigue at all in my legs or arms. Great stuff, and it’s fantastic exercise.

The next time you’re filling up your car, and you realize that even that little 14-gallon tank is eating up $50 out of your wallet, do yourself a favor and go pricing bicycles. For less than a couple hundred bucks (four tanks of gas), you can buy a human-powered vehicle with fancy gadgets to keep you amused that even exercises you as you use it. It’s fun to see a closer view of the world, without being wrapped in metal and glass. You’ll save a whole bunch of gas, too

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