The push to get people onto bicycles is bad for us. We are watching a 17 mile long bike trail being built along Highway 133. Who will use the bike trail? Certainly not locals who are commuting to work. The only person I’ve ever seen use that road for non-recreational use was a boy peddling home with some groceries. He was on the wrong side of the road, if that tells you anything.

No, the push to get people out of their cars is bad for the economy. Compare what a person spends on automobile costs versus a bicycle. Cars take gas-lots of gas. $3.71 per gallon gas where I live. What does it take to power a bicycle? A granola bar. Car mechanics? $75-$100 per hour. Bike mechanics? Jacques will fix your bike for free if you invite him to dinner. Purchase price? A 9 passenger van at the Ford dealer will cost me about $25,000 plus $8,000 for a Quigley conversion to four wheel drive. On the other hand, I can pick up 9 bikes for free at the dump, and have Jacques fix them.

When it comes to cars, bigger is better for me. If I want to drive a go-kart, I’ll go to the local go-kart track. No, wait a minute. That was torn down and replaced with expensive storage units which nobody is renting. (Maybe replacing go-kart tracks with storage units was the beginning of the economic downturn. It would support my car-economy theory.) Anyway, a Suburban with a third seat, front bench seat, and large roof rack is almost big enough for me. Almost.

When our family had to leave ranch work, and crashed on the shores of Marble, Colorado a few years ago, gas was almost $4 per gallon. The move about clobbered us financially. But think how good it was for the economy for us to rack up hundreds of miles with trailers loaded to the sky with dressers, beds, and several “mystery” boxes. (You know how it is when you move. By the time you get to the last load, you are so fed up with the process, that you pack a can of brake fluid, 3 lost forks, your wedding photo, grandma’s china bowls, and a flywheel from your first Volkswagen, into one box.)

Don’t think that I don’t like bikes. I do. We have several around here. Most of them should probably go to the dump, though.

In the Aspen area, we have a lot of look at me environmentalists. They put their bikes on the back of their cars and drive around, looking like they must bike a lot. They don’t all bike a lot. The real die-hard bikers peddle out of town and go miles and miles on local trails, or clog up the busiest highways by riding two abreast.

If you want to really see the economy turn around, encourage people to get back in their cars, drive to the mall, buy an auto air freshener, go to the grocery store, pick up picnic supplies, and head for the park where they can watch joggers, parents with baby strollers, and bicyclists.

As the Park Ranger in Smokey Mountain National Park said to me once, “Get back in you car!”