Knope

One of the things I've loved most, unexpectedly, about moving to Boise is that I ride my bike all over the place.  Back in Colorado, which is very bike friendly in general, we lived in the suburbs, and we had to drive the kids to school because of where their school was located, and we lived on a street without bike lanes that was *just* far enough from work to make biking a real pain in the ass.  So I maybe rode my bike twice a year.

That could be an exaggeration, even.

But here, we're blocks from downtown Boise, blocks from Gram's, and I'm a 15-minute bike ride from work.  It's early fall and the weather is beautiful (except when it's still hot enough to fry your bacon).  My mom is "letting me borrow" her Schwinn cruiser, one with a super-fat seat, set low, so that you don't even have to stand up when you pull up to an intersection...you just set your feet down and sit there, cool as a cucumber, till you start pedaling again.  I especially love to ride it without a helmet, just to scandalize you further.

I've been pumped (pun!) to ride my bike more after spending time in the Netherlands and Sweden last summer, too.  There, everyone--little kids, middle agers, teenagers, grams and gramps--rides their bikes.  AND they ride all manner of bikes--shitty bikes, nice bikes, bikes with trailers.  AND they do it in their work clothes.  The ladies are in skirts and tie-blouses and pumps, pedaling around with their groceries in their bike baskets, looking very chic and unflappable.

And almost all are doing it without helmets, primarily because most Northern European cities are set up for bicyclists, so you don't feel you're taking your life into your hands every time you ride to work.

For some perspective on how backwards we do it here, you can check this out:

Or if you don't feel like watching, I'll summarize:  we're basically idiots.

But the North End is set up for lots and lots of chill, helmet-less riding (just to invite you to scold me further) and so I'm riding my bike(s) a lot more, and I'm trying to do it with less hand-wringing and preparation than I used to think it involved.  I'm not road biking or mountain biking or competing or trying to get my heart rate up, or any of those aggressively exercise-y things.  I'm trying to ride in a Brigitte Bardot sort of way, where I just stick a baguette in my basket, tie a scarf on my head, and hop on my Schwinn so as to propel myself from one location to another.  It's so romantic that I've fallen terribly in love with myself, and glean great pleasure from the whole enterprise.

We're also trying to economize a bit around here and save on gas.  Biking helps.  Added bonus.

But let's be honest.  Usually I look a lot more like

than

and rather than hopping on my Schwinn for a neighborhood spin, I hop on my commuter bike, my panniers filled with books and my heavy, heavy computer for work, and I pedal like a madwoman down to campus.  Which isn't Knope-y in itself, except sometimes I decide I'm going to be all European about even this and I try to hop on my commuter bike in a pencil skirt and pumps.

Um.

Sometimes, when I'm doing this, I have to hike my pencil skirt way, way up to even get on my bike, and I badly scratch my leg just trying to get it over the bar so I can ride.  Then I try to inch the skirt back down so as not to offend, you know, EVERYONE.  And then I have to pedal with my knees really close together.  Because I'm wearing a pencil skirt.  And then it becomes really hard to stop at intersections without hiking the skirt up high again, at which point a nice lady in a Suburban might pull up real slow beside me and shake her head and wag her finger at me real hard.

For reals.

And then I might stay at work an hour late just because I dread trying to get back on my bike in my pencil skirt.  I might even contemplate calling my husband to come get me.

But I don't.  I commit to Knope it all the way, and ride my bike home, sweaty and panting and when I get home I throw the black pencil skirt in the wash with a bunch of white towels **just to punish it**.

Sometimes it's just hard to live a life in line with your values.