Gas Prices

I know what you’re thinking. What can I possibly say about gas prices that hasn’t already been said? Nothing original, I’d imagine. And yet I feel the need to tell my personal little tale.

Thursday last week I saw gas for $3.97/gal at Speedway. Unfortunately, my car was already full up. I found it interesting, in a consiracy theory kind of way, that gas prices started tickig down AFTER the 4th of July weekend. Bastards!

This weekend we filled up our Accord at a BP for $3.99/gal. But we had to pay cash. I hadn’t realized it until I was inside asking for $30 on pump 4 that I hadn’t uttered any version of the phrase in, well, years I’m guessing.

Back when my wife and I were not yet married and living in Madison Heights, before we’d moved on up to B’ham into our plush 1,100 sq ft ranch on a slab, ie sans basement, located East of the tracks, which effectively meant that I was not among the elite of this rather moneyed town, I didn’t use a debt or credit card to pay for gas. I always paid cash. It was Collen that got me to switch over. I tend to be of the Generation X ilk that does not take to new technology quickly, although I don’t think using a card to pay at the pump was really all that new at the time.

Anyhoo… I’m wondering if I’ll begin keeping more cash on hand to pay for gas, since it is often considerably cheaper to pay in dead presidents rather than with the polymer slate. (nifty phrasing, huh).

Biking it!

After droping $46 to fill up the gas tank of my Honda Civic — let me repeat that: $46 to full up the tank of a Honda Civic — I started thinking more seriously about riding my bike to work when I can. I don’t actually live that far from my place of work, perhaps a mile or two. So one could argue that I’m not really using that much gas, but at the current prices ($4.03/gal.) that will no doubt continue to rise any little bit has to help.

I went for a bike ride last night, unlatching the ride-a-long that my daughter rides on when we got on bike rides together. It was a muggy night and swarming with bugs and dandelion fuzz, but it was breezy too and ultimately a good night to ride. Remind me of those summer nights before I had a driver’s license and an available car and I’d ride my bike everywhere. I’d put 10 or miles on my bike in a day. No wonder I was so skinny then.

Back in those days I rode a GT BMX bike. The bike I bought just last summer is also a GT but a larger size hybrid, as it called, which means it’s good for road riding as well as a bit of off road. It’s a starter bike and a couple of years old, 2006 model. The guy at the bike shop was eager to move it and knocked the price down. So I took it. I wasn’t about to drop a lot of cash on a bike that I might not ride.

My impulse to buy a new bike came from a Detroit Free Press report about a bike tour in Michigan that begins, I think, in Lansing and  ends up in Mackinaw City. I thought it would be cool to do that. Of course when I got back on a bike and began to ride I realized just how out of shape I am. I’d never make that tour. Not without some training. Not sure I have the time or really the motivation to put that kind of time into it. So, for now, I’m riding when I can get my lazy ass up.

But one can’t help but wonder if it won’t be more a matter of necessity than leisure persuit. If things keep going the way they are more people are going to start pedaling it. As much as possible anyway. Imagine riding to work in a Mighian January. Brrrrrr. But we might not have that much of a choice.