Mobile Me

 

I did it. I sold my car, and I won’t buy another one. It was almost certainly my very last car. This is a step I’ve been planning for some time, for I used the car very little. As a great fan of public transport, I generally took advantage of Zurich’s excellent offerings in this area, or I biked. It was just getting to be too expensive to pay the fixed costs of keeping the car housed and insured, its tires changed and other garage work done. I also figured I do not need the car enough to be contributing CO2 to the environment. Of course someone else will drive it and add their share of CO2, but hopefully someone with a greater need for a car.

So over the last few months I prepared well. I cleaned out the cellar and drove large recycling and second-hand items to their respective collection points. On other occasions when I thought of using the car I found other solutions; there is always a solution. More often, there are two or three.

Nonetheless, it was a lot harder to say goodbye to Huckleberry, my dark blue Corsa, than expected. It was the end of an era. I have been driving since I was 16 and have either owned or had the use of a car nearly all the years since. It also feels like an initiation of some sort. Into what, I am not quite sure. But it was an emotional time.

Part of the prep for being carless was replacing my old bike with an electrobike. Being of a certain age, I was finding the hills in this area, many of them steep, a trial on a normal bike. Also, there is something about the whole concept of this means of transport that fascinates me. I pedal as usual … and fly up the hills! I can choose more or less support from the motor, so I still get plenty of exercise. It is a strange experience, as I zoom along so smoothly, effortlessly changing gears, and at the same time am very aware that this bike handles differently and weighs a lot more. It will take time to get used to it, a fact driven home to me when I braked too suddenly with the excellent brakes and fell off, fortunately onto grass. Once the bike starts tipping sideways, its weight carries the rider with it. I’ll have to get those brakes adjusted – one can have too much of a good thing.

I’m also in the process of joining Mobility, the local car-sharing organization. I will use a Mobility car when my grandchildren or other people come to visit. I’ll get one occasionally to visit second-hand stores, friends who live in out-of-the-way places and maybe my favorite local walking area. Or I can bike to this area, or take public transport. As I say, there is always a solution.