Friend or foe?

Go ahead and admit it.  If you saw something like this coming down the road toward you, you would be afraid.  But intrigued.  Which reaction would you heed?  

I had to decide the other day when I looked up and saw this thing coming down Row River Road while I was at Territorial Seed.

Yikes!  What is it?  I wanted to know.  Would it come my way so I could confirm to myself that I was really seeing this?  If it passed on by, I would never find words convincing enough to get others to believe what I saw.

Besides it looked a little too much like an alien transport machine of some sort and I wasn't entirely sure who or what would emerge from it.  

And then it made the left onto Palmer, and the next right into the Territorial Seed parking lot and parked right next to me.  I had no choice but to talk to it, or him, or her, or whatever or whomever emerged.

The lid lifted and sitting down in there was Taylor.  He was just a regular guy -  not an alien at all.   See?

He makes these things.  Right here in GroveAtopia.

It's called a velomobile and if you are like me, you had never heard that word so you looked it up.  

Turns out velomobiles have been around a long, long time and they are waiting,  just waiting for their time in history.  It hasn't come yet, but who knows beforehand when history has come?  No one does, until the idea catches on for long enough to become history.  Then we ask ourselves why we didn't see it coming.

So the idea behind velomobiles is to combine the efficiency of a bicycle with the protection of a car.  They aren't cheap, since they are built to order, but you know as well as I that something like this would be perfect for GroveAtopia.   

If we all used velomobiles to get around, we could reduce noise and pollution and all become more physically fit.  GroveAtopia is just the right size.  Four square miles of mostly flat terrain.  We even have bike lanes.

But that is a question.  Do velomobiles rightly belong in the bike lanes, or car lanes?  This one approached as if it was a car.  But it didn't have a license plate, nor did it require a drivers license.

I don't suggest you buy a velomobile right now.  I do however, encourage you to look at the Velocity Velo website and become familiar with this way of getting around.  When gas returns to $4.00 or more a gallon, the velomobile may turn out to be history's best option.