One week, two wheels
For five days, a reporter leaves his car at home and commutes to work the gas-free way -- on a bicycle
On a Monday morning -- the day, coincidentally, that President Bush asked Americans to conserve gasoline by driving less -- you lock your car in the driveway and straddle your brand-new, bright blue Specialized bicycle, rented for the occasion. With notebook, tape recorder, and lots of trepidation, you embark on a one-week experiment in commuting to work, Cambridge to Boston, round trip, 20 miles a day.
You're not alone. As the price of gasoline soars through the tinted roof of all those SUVs that clog Storrow Drive, sales of bicycles are soaring to perhaps 20 million this year, and many Americans are wondering whether the bicycle might not be a wiser way to commute to work.
''We're definitely getting more calls, and the preponderance of questions are from people who want to know the best route to bike to work," says MassBike executive director Dorie Clark, who commutes by bike from Somerville to her Park Square office on a $250 Trek. ''We have volunteers we call route-gurus who know Boston and bicycling so they can devise commuting routes that are efficient and safe."
In your case, however, when it comes to bikes, you don't know parallel push linkage from direct-pull cantilevers, and so, on the day you arrange the rental, you take notes frantically as Jason Suderman of Ace Wheelworks in Somerville describes the distinctions between a $350 Trek 7200FX and an $800 Specialized Globe. That may sound like a lot of money, but it's less than you paid for that SUV package with the butt warmer.
''The Trek is lighter," Suderman says. ''It's a fitness bike that makes you work. The Specialized has a softer saddle, easier shifting, and upright seating. That's why it's called a comfort bike."
After a wobbly trial spin around the block on each bike, you opt for -- surprise! -- the comfort bike with the soft saddle.
''It's a better commuting bike," Suderman says approvingly. ''It's got everything for the urban environment: fenders to keep water from your clothes, a suspension T-post, suspension fork for comfort, a back-rack, integrated urban lock, front and rear lights, and 24 gears. And the handlebars are raised to sit you upright, which means you lose some leverage, but you see traffic better and it gives you exercise without horrible pain."
Speaking of pain, you say nonchalantly, what is the risk factor here?
''Well, this happened last summer," says Suderman, holding up his left arm and drawing his finger along an ugly 10-inch scar that curves from triceps to elbow. ''It required 20 staples, and inside the elbow, there's an 8-millimeter screw."
Monday
At the height of morning rush hour, you pedal out of your driveway and onto Fresh Pond Parkway to join the estimated 3.2 million Americans who commute to work by bicycle.
In the first mile, behind a bus on Brattle Street, you make some calculations. A talk show host said that Bush has flown seven times for photo ops in hurricane states, and that each trip consumed 11,500 gallons of fuel. OK, so, every day you bike to work, you save the nation one gallon of gas, or 240 gallons a year. You can make up for what Bush has expended, but you'll have to bike to work for 335 years.
No matter, though, for once you are liberated from the automobile and aboard the bicycle, you realize that you are traveling familiar roads but seeing sights, hearing sounds, and even enjoying aromas not available to motorists.
In Harvard Square, pedaling past
Still, you cannot shake the image of that scar on Suderman's elbow, and so you ride defensively, careful of cars, trucks, buses, pedestrians, cyclists, 18-wheelers, joggers, and rollerbladers, not to mention the elderly folks with canes and aluminum walkers. Your greatest fear is pedaling past long lines of parked cars, because you know the danger that a door could be opened unexpectedly, catapulting you from your soft saddle into eternity.
Nevertheless, the first day is full of discovery, from fresh perspectives on Boston's glorious architecture to the Monet-like image of the lone red scull on the blue Charles to the modest house in Dorchester that you've sped past in a car without noticing the grand garden of colorful zinnias, all arching to the sun.
The commute takes 45 minutes each way. In tolls and gas, what you save is $4.88, and what you feel like is a million bucks.
Tuesday
They may not teach this in transportation classes at MIT, but for human beings, walking is too slow, driving too fast, and bicycling just right. Biking is a lesson in harmony, too, in the need to yield, in the wisdom of abandoning macho driving attitudes that may work in a car but absolutely don't on a bicycle.
On a bike, it's easy to vary the route, and today you pedal along Memorial Drive, where there's lots to see -- joggers, fishermen, sailors, cyclists, moms with carriages, photographers with tripods, and the early autumn reds and golds reflected in the river. Energized by the discoveries, you are suddenly 14 years old again and riding the fancy red-and-white Columbia Custom Deluxe with whitewall tires that your uncle gave you.
The most dangerous moments come along a 1-mile stretch in an industrial neighborhood of Dorchester, from Melnea Cass Boulevard to Edward Everett Square, along Massachusetts Avenue, a road that has been under construction more or less without interruption for 50 years. Thanks to paniers that are designed to hold a bag of groceries, on the way home, you stop at the supermarket and then for a coffee at a drive-through window.
Wednesday
The Specialized Globe is a mechanical marvel. If you were among those who were part of the bicycle boom in the 1970s and have grown away from riding, you may be surprised that no part of the bicycle remains the same. Fundamental improvements in design have made the bicycle safer, more comfortable, and easier to operate. Options range from fancy saddlebags to blinking lights to $35 computers that attach to the handlebars and provide you not only with an odometer but also such data as ride time, trip distance, time of day, current speed, maximum speed, average speed, and a comparison that informs you whether your current speed is faster or slower than your average speed. It also registers your cadence and monitors your heart. Still feel uninformed? More sophisticated computers tell you maximum and minimum temperatures, precipitation, barometric pressure, and solar intensity, which is more than you get on the TV news.
''Years ago, the 10-speed bike was as fancy as it got," says Clark. ''But today, bikes not only have a greater capacity in terms of gear speeds, but they also are made of lighter but stronger materials."
In some cities, such as Atlanta, bicycles are permitted aboard the public transportation system at all hours, but in Boston they are banned during rush hour.
Wheeling your bicycle aboard the Red Line at the JFK/UMass station midday results in the most awkward moment of the week. T riders glare as though you are intruding on their space, and you are, for there is no way to stand alongside your bike in a train without blocking the door or access to seats. From UMass to Harvard Square, you lose count of how many times and to how many people you say, ''I'm sorry."
As a bike commuter, there's no denying the geek factor. You don't want to be seen walking around the office with reflectorized ankle straps around your Brooks Brothers slacks.
''You don't have to wear the goofy biker clothing," Suderman advised, ''but don't wear anything bulky."
Still, as you pedal in front of, behind, around, and alongside cars, trucks, buses, and those endless 18-wheelers, you sometimes have a vague sense that you look foolish. That feeling vanishes, however, when you roll past a gasoline station where some sucker is filling the tank of his SUV and peeling off $60, which is one-third the cost of some new bikes.
Thursday
Recent figures show that 95 percent of those who bicycle do so for recreation or fitness, and only five percent for transportation. Certainly there are lots of reasons not to bike to work: You cannot lug as much stuff. It can be dangerous. Your clothes get wrinkled. The weather is fickle. It takes extra time, and on hot days you would benefit from a shower at work. But there are lots of reasons to bike to work: It saves money. It improves your health. It's good for your self-esteem. It's energizing, relaxing, and so much fun that it changes the potentially worst hour of the day into the best.
It can be social, too, for there's an allegiance among bicyclists. Waiting at red lights, they chat about everything from politics to baseball, and everyone's got at least one story about a dumb motorist.
Bicyclists read carefully the story about the 14-year-old boy on his bike who was killed in Yarmouth by a hit-and-run driver. And you cannot bicycle along Massachusetts Avenue in the Back Bay without recalling the Boston doctor killed in September when his motorized scooter was struck by an 18-wheel tractor trailer turning onto the Massachusetts Turnpike.
Studies accessible at the MassBike website say that in car-bike collisions, the bicyclist is more often to blame. Most collisions, about 80 percent, occur when the bicyclist or motorist is making a turn at an intersection or driveway. Studies also show that it's a good idea to obey the rules. Bicyclists riding against traffic or on a sidewalk are more likely to be involved in accidents.
''It's very safe when done properly," says Clark, whose MassBike teaches a course in safe riding that's drawn so many applicants that it has been expanded statewide. ''A lot of people don't know the right way to ride in traffic. It's different, after all, from what you were taught when you were 6 years old."
Friday
Except for mild saddle soreness early in the week, you experience no physical debilities, no muscle aches, no stressed tendons, no back pain, no shoulder discomfort, and no aches in ankles, knees, neck, or wrists -- all a tribute to the technological advances in the design of bicycles and also to Suderman's ability to fit the bike to the biker and to ensure that everything is adjusted properly.
Although websites hum with horror stories about aggressive motorists, and you begin the week prepared to be assertive yourself, and even throw a bicycle pump, if necessary, in five days of commuting almost 100 miles, you are surprised to discover that drivers are generally accommodating. You encounter less hostility than you normally do in an automobile. You experience not one moment of dispute. Nobody cuts you off. Nobody yells. Nobody makes an obscene gesture, not at least that you see. When a woman stops at an intersection and opens her passenger window to encourage you to go ahead of her, you want to get off your bike and kiss her bumper.
But that was in Cambridge, a city from which Boston could learn a lesson in accommodating bicyclists, especially in providing bike lanes, which help motorists as well as bicyclists.
By week's end, you have good memories. The weather was autumn-sweet. You have lost several pounds. You feel better, and in tolls and gas, you have saved about $25, although the experience is not as financially profitable as that might suggest.
On the contrary, it proved to be darned expensive.
On the final day, you telephone Suderman to thank him.
''And also," you say, ''I'd like to buy the bike."
Jack Thomas can be reached at jthomas@globe.com 
