Ok, that “Almost” is doing a lot of the heaving lifting… In 2025 when I got the ebike I tried to ride my bike instead of driving to work, and between August and November I did 50 days (10 weeks worth) of biking to work. I also biked to stores occasionally, and just biked for fun.
There were times I needed to use the car. Days I had doctor appointments, or had to run errands that were farther away or I could not get to safely by bike… and there was a period of a week or two when my daughter’s car was non-functional and she borrowed my car.
So while I am not “car-free” now, and probably won’t be in the foreseeable future, I have been mostly car-free the past few weeks. Once again the Madeline’s car was in need of repair, and I just gave her my car and rode my bike.
I did have to borrow the car back to get to a doctor appointment, but otherwise I tend to just go to work and go back home most weekdays and the ebike does fine for that.
If Dana and I go someplace we take her car. It’s a newer hybrid and gets 36mpg versus my 2010 Subaru that gets about 20mpg when all I do is drive to work most of the time.
But what if it rains!? As the old saying goes “You’re not made of sugar.” I Did get soaked on a ride to work one day. I just dried off when I got there, and changed clothes, which I do anyway in the summer due to the heat and sweat.
What about the winter? I don’t mind the cold. I have winter gear. I should be fine. I can probably handle 30 minutes in the cold each morning and evening. What about snow… and ice? We’ll see. I did get a studded tire for winter riding which should deal with the ice. (Last year a friend wiped out their bike on the ice and broke their leg. Nasty!)
But again, I will have the car for backup on days when it’s too brutal to ride to work. If I get to work and there’s an afternoon snowstorm I can probably bum a ride home if I have to leave the bike.
Ah, yes… I work at a great company that provides indoor bike parking, which is huge, because it means I don’t need to worry about locking up outside when I get to work. My employer has been extremely supportive of my biking to work.
So not car-free yet, might not ever be, but I love having the car as a backup option and biking to work when I can. I pay less in gas, auto maintenance, and there is one less car on the road most days.