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Thursday, 21 April 2011

High time to leave the car at home

There's no time like now to leave the car at home and use the bicycle. If you live in distant exurbia, your dependence on the automobile leaves you vulnerable to obesity in middle age. Now's the time to leave that car and shed some fat. If you can't cycle all the way into work, cycle to the station or nearest bus loop. Buy a fold-up bike for optimised multi-mode commuting. The weather this week in Warsaw has been perfect - clear azure skies, top temperature +16C. Not so hot you need to worry about sweating.

As I reported a few weeks ago, my usual route through the Las Kabacki forest (below) is still waterlogged. I cannot remember the forest ever being so sodden at the end of winter. The water table is dangerously high, and any prolonged heavy rain this spring will bring with it severe risk of localised flooding (podtopienie).

Just look at them. Sitting one-per-car, shuffling slowly home from work in a tin box that no longer offers liberation. Even with a litre of petrol costing 5.20 zlotys and weather as glorious as this, drivers cannot bring themselves to abandon their cars.

Photographic note: Moni borrowed my Nikon D40 on which these pics were shot; I forgot to check the colour balance which she'd set for tungsten lighting. So the colour temperature on these shots was entirely weird - so I tweaked the pics for a surreal other-worldly effect. You may like them, you may not.

This time last year:
Fold-up bike optimised for multi-mode commuting

This time four years ago:
Far away across the fields
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5 comments:

  1. Anonymous21 April 2011 at 17:26

    You should save that colour balance setting as "1950's American"

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  2. student SGH21 April 2011 at 19:22

    I would argue whether it's been really perfect. Temprerature fluctuations between morning (+5C) and afternoon (+20C) have left many ill... Temperature can change by a few degrees within an hour and not every body likes.

    Therefore I would prefer overcast sky, drizzle and gloom :)

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  3. papageno21 April 2011 at 23:28

    The faithful Micra still there :)

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  4. Michael Dembinski22 April 2011 at 07:30

    @ Scatts - you're right; the look-and-feel of 1950s Kodachrome.

    @ Bartek - I think you'd feel at home in West Wales :)

    @ Papageno - Micra's not been on the road since October 2010. It now serves as a 'gate guardian'

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  5. student SGH22 April 2011 at 19:09

    Of course I would.

    Warm winter, cool summers and lots of wet days. The climate I would yearn for, in earnest. Maybe Brits are fed up with their climate and like Poland which offers more sunshine and temperature extremes. Me not.

    The Micra... Will it stay there forever? Didn't you hunt any bargains on 2010 sale?

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