My bike was stolen sometime between August and November of 2009. I don’t know when it was stolen since wedding planning was occupying all of my free time. I had kept my bike unlocked in the locked bike room of my apartment building believing that since only residents could access the room, it was safe. I was wrong.

Aside from being upset at myself for having been so careless, I didn’t miss my bike that much at first as cold weather had set in and I wouldn’t have ridden my bike anyways. Rather, I soon thought of it as an opportunity; an opportunity to get a road bike instead of a hybrid bike like the Marin San Anselmo that I had before.

With many things, however, I can be prone to procrastination (e.g. posting on my blog). Spring came and I still didn’t have a bike—I had yet to even look for one. This is when I began to realize how much having a bike means to me.

Time to Stop and Smell the Pizza

I enjoy exploring. Since moving into the city in 2008, I’ve taken advantage of the multitude of low traffic city streets to roam through neighborhoods on my bike I’ve only read commentary about in other forums. I’ve ridden from Frontenac to the Arch, the Chain of Rocks Bridge to the River City Casino. The thing I notice time and time again is the difference in perspective one enjoys outside the confines of an automobile. The difference is truly astonishing and for the better.

My lovely wife, for example, loves reading Sauce Magazine and highlights new (and old) restaurants we should try. Many restaurants, however, languish on our list while we return repeatedly to our old standbys. We often find ourselves driving by a restaurant’s location and telling each other we need to try that place sometime. We often don’t.

On more than one occasion, however, the impetus to try someplace has come as a result of my biking past. I biked Pershing one day instead of going through Forest Park and found myself at Atlas, stopped, and saw firsthand how good the food look. The next week we went and had a fantastic dinner! We also finally got around to trying The Good Pie after I whiffed multiple times just how good the pizza smelled from outside.

Drive-by Windshield Perspective

If you’re in a car, you generally have a destination in mind. The route you choose is almost always the one that gets you there the fastest, never mind the scenery or the places that may lie in between. There’s almost never a moment to stop and look around. At 30 mph, it’s impossible to get to know a neighborhood.

At 30 mph, a drive down Locust through Midtown Alley can take as little as two minutes. At those speeds, you could pass by buildings thinking they’re vacant and fail to notice businesses like The Fountain on Locust that are transforming the neighborhood. In a car, you’ll likely never drive down streets like Nottingham in St. Louis Hills and have a chance to marvel at the beautiful architecture and marvelous tree canopy. Nor can you pull onto the sidewalk and peer into the window of a store on Washington Avenue and find just the just the sofa you were looking for. And by driving, you will never work off the calories of a square of chocolate chip cookie dough gooey butter.

My bike was my means to explore, get to know, and enjoy my community, my home. And while I like to walk, as well, walking never got me to so many places, to see so many sights. I really missed my bike.