The City of Bicycles

In Lima, Rodrigo drove everywhere. He drove to work, to the gym, to the bakery two blocks from his apartment. He was used to traffic jams, horns and the long, slow journey along the coast every evening. When his company sent him to Portland, Oregon, for two years, he bought a car in the first week. It seemed the obvious thing to do.

What he wasn't used to was the rain. In Lima it almost never rains. In Portland it rained for nine days in a row, a soft, gray rain that never really stopped. And what surprised him even more was that nobody seemed to care. From his office window he watched people cycling past in waterproof jackets, with bags on the back of their bikes, as if it were a sunny afternoon.

His colleague Megan came to work by bike every day, eight miles each way. "Aren't you cold?" Rodrigo asked her one wet morning. She laughed. "You get used to it. After a while you don't even notice the rain." Rodrigo didn't believe her. He went back to his car, which was waiting in a parking garage that cost him two hundred dollars a month.

Then, in November, his car broke down. The mechanic said the repair would take three weeks. The buses were good, but the nearest stop was far from his apartment, so Megan lent him an old bike and a helmet. "Just try it," she said. "There are bike lanes almost everywhere."

The first week was hard. His legs hurt, his jeans got wet, and he kept forgetting which side of the road to ride on. He wasn't used to hills or to signaling with his arm. But slowly he started getting used to it. He bought proper rain gear. He discovered a path along the river that was quieter than any road. He arrived at work awake and in a good mood, and he never had to look for a parking space.

By the time the car was ready, something had changed. He drove it to work on Monday, sat in traffic for forty minutes and felt strangely bored. On Tuesday he took the bike again. In January he sold the car and bought a bike of his own, a green one with a basket.

Now, when his friends from Lima call him, they can't believe it. "You? On a bike? In the rain?" they laugh. Rodrigo just smiles. He is used to the rain now, and he is used to the hills. The only thing he can't get used to is the idea of driving again.