My story

and when I wasn't driving around Redondo Beach in my convertible Fiat, I was on my bike: a Bianchi 10-speed that I rode all over the South Bay in Southern California. But then I went away to college, got a job, and, you know, life happened, and I forgot about my love of cycling. Fast forward more years than I’d like to admit, and I decided to buy a bike. This time, it was a Linus Dutchi, a bike made for casual rides around town instead of tackling the hills of Palos Verdes. I loved that bike, but it probably wasn’t the smartest choice since I lived in Silverlake, CA, a Los Angeles neighborhood with a lot of very steep hills. So when the pandemic hit, I bought an ebike, and it changed my life. Now, in addition to experiencing the joy of cycling, I could use it to commute around town to run errands, go to work, to meetings, and, yes, even get some exercise. 

​

All that changed when I moved to middle Georgia about two years ago. The change in lifestyle was a shock and took a toll on both my physical and mental health. Regularly getting yelled at—usually by some dude in a pickup truck—to “Get off the road!” didn’t really inspire me to get on the bike every day, and eventually, I stopped riding altogether. That’s when I knew it was time to get out and move back out West. Since my car was old and I wasn’t entirely confident it could make the trip to Tempe, Arizona, I decided to sell it.  would be the first time in 40 years(!) that I didn't own a car. However, since the League of American Bicyclists designated Tempe a gold-level bicycle-friendly community in 2023, and public transportation was easily accessible, I was confident that the city had the infrastructure to support a car-free lifestyle. 

 

So, on June 1, 2024, my experiment began! If you’re curious about living car-free or even car-light, I hope you’ll follow along.