My commute to work is a relatively short one. It's three miles from my home in Kingston's Rondout area to our office here in the Stockade district. For the most part it's a straight shot up Broadway past the high school, the YMCA, and Ulster Performing Arts Center, and various take-out joints. On the mornings when I come in to work early, around 7am, it can take me as little as eight minutes to cruise through the deserted streets, every light turning green in glorious mechanized serendipity as I approach. If I drive to work closer to nine, however, my commute stretches to almost 15 minutes as I lurch along in a halting procession. I jockey for position at every stoplight, make last-second turns onto side streets to avoid school bus stops, and grip the wheel in white-knuckled frustration as I glare at my fellow motorists, my steel-cocooned nemeses.

Compared with most Americans (and most of my coworkers), my commute is a piece of cake. Even snarled in what passes for a traffic jam in Kingston, I don't suffer for long. The average commute in this country is almost an hour (though interestingly, and somewhat paradoxically, more than half of all Americans live less than five miles from where they work; I'm guessing that all the New York City firefighters and cops who live in Orange County and make what analysts call "extreme commutes"—trips of 90 minutes or more—are skewing the numbers). An informal poll of our office reveals that the average commute time here at Luminary Publishing is 23 minutes; the average distance 12 miles. Lisa, our office manager, lives in Cairo and drives 34 miles to work each morning. David, Chronogram's new art director, lives on Fair Street, and walks about 150 yards from his apartment to our back door.

Part of the luxury that living close to my office affords me is that from April through October, I bike to work two or three times a week. I'm not fanatical or obsessive about it, I just do it as often as I can and when it's not raining. Door to door, it takes me on average 12 minutes, about the same as driving my car. Unlike driving, riding has the added benefits of moderate physical exercise (an average 150-pound person burns about 500 calories riding a leisurely paced 30-minute commute); no rage-inducing traffic snarls (bikes, unlike cars, can maneuver through traffic); I don't have to pay for parking, I just lock my bike up downstairs; and it allows me to leave my world-killer parked in the driveway.

Sadly, less than one percent of all urban trips in the US are made by bicycle. (Compare this with the Netherlands, where 30 percent of city jaunts are made by bike and it's not uncommon to see young women in skirts and high heels cycling to a club or a banker in a three-piece suit pedaling to work.) The US is a car-based culture, and cyclists are generally viewed as roadside nuisances, dangerous distractions for speeding cars to avoid rather than equal partners sharing the road. It doesn't have to be this way, however. The League of American Bicyclists has named May as Bike Month, and they're sponsoring events throughout the month to highlight the competitive, recreational, and utilitarian aspects of cycling.

Friday, May 20 is National Bike-to-Work Day. While we cannot all ride our bicycles to work, if you live closer than 10 miles to your office, I urge you to oil up your chain, don your helmet, and pedal to work on that day; studies show that once people start bicycle commuting, they often stay bicycle commuters. In case you're not convinced, here are some facts about health, cars, and cycling:

·  60 percent of Americans are overweight or obese.

·  80 percent of Americans do not get the recommended 30 minutes of moderate daily activity.

·  The average number of barrels of oil consumed daily in the US is 19 million. Driving is responsible for 43 percent of them.

·  A gallon of gas is currently $2.25. In a few years, gas at this price may seem like a bargain.

·  Motorized vehicles are responsible for 70 percent of the carbon monoxide, 45 percent of the nitrogen dioxide, and 34 percent of the hydrocarbons we produce.

·  Nearly a third of the gas used in the US goes for trips of three miles or less, usually to transport a single passenger.

·  More than half of all Americans live less than five miles from where they work.

·  One hundred bicycles can be produced for the same energy and resources it takes to build one medium-sized automobile.

The bicycle, in its way, is the perfect machine. You don't have to feed it oats or gasoline—the only fuel it needs is human power, willpower. As David Herlihy writes in his exhaustively researched and lively illustrated chronicle Bicycle: The History (Yale University Press, 2004): "It's cheap, speedy, and efficient personal transportation."

For more information on Bike-to-Work day, visit www.bikemonth.com.

—Brian K. Mahoney