Bikes are cheaper than cars. Well, most bikes are cheaper than most cars. But the sticker price is just the start. Few bikes offered for sale in the States come fully equipped. Kickstand? Hell, no. Fenders? In your dreams. Rack? Maybe, but don’t hold your breath. Front rack? No way! Lights? Who rides at night? Bell (a legal requirement in many places)? Please…

There are a few exceptions, of course. But even better bikes often come up short in the essential accessory department, and few of these bikes are exactly cheap. If you’re on a tight budget, you won’t have much cash left over for things like lights and racks.

It can get pretty discouraging. And the cost mounts up in a hurry. To say nothing of the time required to fit fenders and racks. Which is probably why you often see cyclists with black streaks up their backs carrying groceries in plastic bags hanging from their handlebars. Luckily, a good bike shop can do a lot to bridge the gap. But good bike shops are as rare as fully equipped, street-ready bikes. City dwellers can often take their pick from among competent, helpful shops. The rest of us have to take what we can get. Or do without.

OK. That’s the problem. What’s the solution? You might get lucky and find an online seller who’s overstocked fenders and is letting them go dirt cheap. Then again, you might not. And if you need fenders now, you can’t wait for a sale. But there is one alternative. Call it the Walmart option. More and more Big Box stores are increasing the shelf space they give to bicycle accessories. The stuff isn’t top of the line, but a lot of the time it’s plenty good enough for most purposes. The price is usually right, too. Status-conscious cyclists won’t like it, but if it’s a choice between cheap and cheerful, on the one hand, and doing without, on the other, I know which I’ll take.

What about you? Are you tired of bringing the groceries home in a plastic bag swinging from your handlebars? Then check out what I found for sale at my local Walmart, in the depth of winter:

• • Helmets for all ages and sizes, at sensible prices
• • Headlights and taillights to help you see and be seen
• • Tires and tubes (just don’t expect to find 650Bs)
• • Pumps to take along—and use at home
• • Pressure gauges
• • Rearview mirrors (watch your back!)
• • Bicycle computers (useful, if somewhat depressing at times)
• • Rear cargo racks (no front racks, though)
• • Bags galore: handlebar, saddle, and snack (but no panniers)
• • Cargo nets
• • Trailers for cargo or kids
• • Chainlube and bearing grease
• • A fair selection of basic bike tools
• • Locks
• • Kickstands
• • Bells
• • Pedals
• • Saddles
• • Padded saddle covers
• • Cycling gloves
• • Activeware (not cycle-specific, but perfectly adequate)

There were plenty of inexpensive bikes, too, some of which even boasted fitted fenders. Many of these would make perfectly adequate utility rides, even if they won’t get a second look from the gang at the local college cycle club. Farwell, returning from a hundred-mile string of errands on his bottom-of-the-line “comfort” bike late one summer afternoon, met up with one of these clubs at his last stop. The conversation went like this:

FARWELL: [Eyeing a superlight carbon confection that probably cost as much as his first car] Nice ride.

VELOMINATUS: [Taking in Farwell's dust-caked bike-shaped-object with its bulging panniers] Hmm. You must be local, right? You couldn’t get very far on a fat-tired thing like that.

FARWELL: Nope. Not far. [Glances at cyclometer] Only 97 miles today. Of course, I’ve still got ten to go…

VELOMINATUS: Oh. [Long pause] Well, you have a nice day.

The moral of the story? If money’s tight and you see your bike as transport rather than bling, then good enough is—you guessed it—good enough. And Walmart can be your friend.

Questions? Comments? Then just click here!

Winter riding in New York’s northern borderlands is never exactly pleasant. The bicycle isn’t really at home plowing through drifting snow, for one thing, and ice is…well…ice is. ‘Nuff said, I’m sure. But that doesn’t exhaust the list of miseries. There are salt and sand to contend with, too. After a few cold, dry days, the main roads are white with a scrim of salt, and every passing car trails a plume of the stuff. The curiously metallic taste lingers long in your mouth, and you’ll be coughing up the accompanying grit for hours after your ride, too.

We love our bikes, right? And we never tire of looking at them. At least I don’t, and if I’m to judge from what others tell me, I’m not alone. So each Monday I’ll publish a bike-related picture. Most of the time it will be a photo, but don’t be surprised if a few drawings and paintings get added to the mix from time to time. I might even include a sculpture or two. (OK. A photo of a sculpture.) Anything, in short, that evokes the world on two wheels. And don’t be shy. If you have a picture you’d like to share, just email it to me. I’ll do the rest.

Questions? Comments? Just click here!

Once upon a time, people of all ages walked. In the small farm town where I grew up, few families had more than one car and a surprising number had none. People walked to work at the local seed plant. Kids walked (or rode their bikes) to school. Mothers pushed babies in carriages to and from one of the three grocery stores or the many doctors’ offices. The seventy-something librarian even cycled around the village retrieving overdue books. And if you needed to get out of town you could take the train.

All that is gone now. The train doesn’t stop at my old home town anymore. The seed plant shut its doors many years ago, along with the local hospital—and the doctors left town soon thereafter. All but one of the grocery stores has closed. And while people still walk, it’s now something to do when there’s nothing interesting on television. The ordinary business of everyday life—work, shopping, taking the kids to the doctor—requires getting in a car.

Sound familiar? Of course it does. Many people I know spend about as much time alone in their cars as they spend with their families at home. And it’s not just adults. Few kids walk to school, even when school is only a ten-minute stroll from their front door. Homeowners complain endlessly about their burgeoning tax bills, but the school buses keep rolling along. The results are easy to see. Whatever his or her age, the “average American” increasingly resembles a Teletubbie in profile (minus the funny topknot). My home county is a case in point. We’re close to the top in the Empire State’s Obesity and Inactivity Stakes, a proud boast that the local Chambers of Commerce somehow forget to include in their press releases. But the Chambers’ flacks aren’t always so sluggish. For example. they’re quick to tout snowmobile and ATV trails as one-stop solutions to the county’s continuing economic malaise. Walkers and cyclists don’t drop enough money at the bars and gas pumps, it seems. So our real problem isn’t our collective inertia. It’s our tight-fisted ways. If we just had more gas-guzzling toys and more places to play with them, all would be well.

There’s more at work here than simple no-nothing perversity and the mechinations of local gasoholics, however. The face of rural America is changing. The car is king. Walkers and cyclists are left to scrabble around for whatever crumbs remain after the king has eaten his fill. Even in small towns, Main Street has surrendered to Big Box storefronts, all of them protected from the threat of pedestrian assault by asphalt moats hundreds of yards wide. Only the boldest walker will attempt to trek across these barren wastelands. And before you can tackle the moat, you first have to get to the Big Box store. Which brings up the subject of sidewalks. What about sidewalks? Often there are none at all, but when, through oversight or nostalgia, a few crumbling concrete slabs somehow survive, they’re ignored from November to May. The roads are kept clear, of course. (The king must be served, right?) As for the sidewalks… Well, look for yourself:

You can’t tell from this picture, but the sidewalk here is uneven, narrow and cracked. Two adults would be hard-pressed to walk abreast, much less pass one another. Luckily, though, pedestrian traffic is nearly nonexistent. And the best bit lies just down the road, where the sidewalk suddenly drops more than two feet to the level of the crossroad on an asphalt berm that descends at a one-in-one grade. If you’re a climber, it’s a good place to practice your flat-foot technique. If you’re not, however—if, say, you’re a young mother pushing a baby in a stroller—it’s something else. Let’s call it a challenge, shall we?

But that’s not all. As you can see, winter adds a little something extra. Since the sidewalk lies below the state highway grade for much of its length, any pedestrian foolish enough to venture out will get a faceful of salt and grit from every passing car. And if that’s still not challenging enough, there’s always the ice-slick surface concealed just below the snow, waiting to send the unwary pedestrian sprawling. Can you say “slip and fall”? Well, don’t worry. Your lawyer can.

Thank goodness the highway is clear. So there’s always a place to walk. But be ready to jump out of the way if one of the kings of the road decides to teach you a lesson, perhaps by swerving dangerously close. It’s not a rare occurrence. Roads are for cars, after all, and many drivers feel duty-bound to remind pedestrians that they belong on the sidewalk. If a few walkers are killed or maimed in the process, that’s just too bad. Kings have no need to defer to lesser mortals.

The moral of my story? Just this: There’s more to the much-ballyhooed “obesity epidemic” than simple laziness, though habitual indolence certainly plays its part. America was once a nation of men and women. Now it’s a nation of cars, and the cars are doing just fine, thanks. But for how long, I wonder? And at what cost?

Questions? Comments? Just click here!