Greensboro: Bike is first in rat race

From the News-Record (Greensboro, NC), 02.40.07:

Once again, the tortoise left the hare in the dust.

It was 5:45 p.m. on Wendover near Interstate 40, and three lanes of westbound cars, trucks and even an immobilized motorcycle cop sat waiting. They stretched two miles back to the brickwork gateway at Clifton Road, which marked the old city limit before super-size sprawl sloshed over it and kept on rolling, like an ungainly water balloon ready to burst.

That's when I saw him whizzing by on the right shoulder--a 40ish man in a T-shirt and a pony tail, riding a 10-speed bike. Between the stock-still traffic and the car dealerships where they park the new models with their hoods open, as if already overheating, the bike was the only thing in motion.

The rider labored up the slope toward the interstate, thread ing his way across the overpass and into the gathering orange sunset as that carbon-emitting misnomer of a "rush hour" ticked on.(Read more.)

This light-hearted column continues with an interview with Chris Ledbetter, an urban planning major at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro, active with the student-run collective Bike Me! "A bicycle represents the ultimate freedom," Ledbetter tells the writer. "You feel a real sense of accomplishment commuting by bicycle. I can go faster than the cars. And they don't like that."

Image: Porch in Greensboro. David Gray McLean.
Visit: Gas-free Commute: Two Wheels, One Helmet, Greensboro News-Record
Visit: Paul Dorn's Bike Commuting Tips Site