Click here to view the embedded video.

For the past two years, Saudi Arabia has been our biggest overseas importer of oil, surpassed only by our neighbors, Canada and Mexico. And Mexico’s lead is only edging Saudi Arabia out by a thread.

So while we gulp down oil and Senators try to cut funding for more energy efficient transportation options, we churn cash into the economy of a nation with a history of oppression. I’m sure Ms. al-Sharif wants her country to prosper, but the fact of the matter is that our nation’s addiction to oil has long kept us from taking a stand on issues in the Middle East, particularly in Saudia Arabia, one of our staunchest allies in the region. I think after the revolutions against propped-up regimes across the Middle East and Northern Africa, the blinders are off about America’s true stance on “freedom and justice for all.” You just can’t trust an addict.

To sign the petition to drop charges in this case, go here. And you know where we stand on freedom from [foreign] oil (it’s scrawled across the top of our website).

Let’s face it, people already spend a lot on their cars, especially in urban areas. 2008 estimates put the average annual operating cost of a car to be $4,100, and in urban areas one can only assume it’s much higher with tolls and parking. Parking in my building is over $150 a month for a space you share, end to end, with another car. Single spots are significantly more. So it’s understandable that the idea of more cost related to automobiles is an upsetting prospect. But let’s look at the facts.

As Streetsblog recently highlighted, automobile transportation is not just expensive for car owners, it’s just as expensive for government. Yet when was the last time you heard a real outcry when it came to repaving a road or building a new highway interchange? Sure, there are always the NIMBYs, but their complaints are usually unrelated to the tax implications and more about the fact that their house is going to have to be torn down to accommodate the new superhighway.

The sad fact is, many self-defined progressives are all for bike and mass transit infrastructure until it steps on the toes they’ve so delicately placed on the gas pedal of their hybrid. And who could blame them? The subsidies are invisible to the average road user, they show up on an annual tax bill instead of a bill with “vehicle congestion toll,” written on it. Charging them for using their car feels like a personal attack.

But what do I say? I’m prepared for this argument, but the outrage has already reached a fevered pitch. Nobody wants to hear the voice of dissent at a moment like this, especially from the bike guy.

As a cyclist in my office, I am constantly aware of the potential for my own marginalization. Colleagues may like to cheer me on in principle, but nobody wants to hear me preach when they’re at the pointed end of what I’m getting at. The second I start pushing my agenda, I’m fear my status as an outlier in my workplace will quickly turn from crusader to radical. And once you’re there, it’s much more difficult to get people to listen to what you’ve got to say.

So I sit on my hands; I bide my time. I write a blog entry. I wait for a better moment to tell my colleagues, some of whom live in areas less well served by public transportation, that charging automobile drivers really isn’t such a bad idea when you consider all the space they take up and damage they cause to our city.

I’m just not sure whether a convenient time is ever going to show up.

Jasmine Herron/Valentina, an artist and cyclist who was killed in NYC this weekend when a driver opened a car door into her, throwing her into the path of an oncoming bus.

Over the weekend, Jasmine Herron, an artist and regular city cyclist was killed when she was knocked into the path of an oncoming bus by a careless driver’s opening car door. Reading about the tragedy in BikeBlogNYC made me rethink my principle of not sharing stories about cycling accidents. Should I send this to those who follow me on Facebook and Twitter? Should I link to it from my blog?

Less than two weeks ago, I was waiting on my bike at an intersection when a pedestrian stepped out in front of a fast-moving truck. As a cyclist, you learn to be on guard for everything going on around you–you just can’t take anything for granted. As the cross walk signal turned, I saw a truck coming, not slowing. The pedestrian saw the light turn, stepped forward, and looked down, lost in thought. For about a second I watched him, thinking he would look up and see the oncoming truck. Nothing. He marched forward, lost in his own thoughts.

I don’t remember thinking, I just remember doing. I called to him. Watch out. WATCH. OUT. He froze, a few seconds before the truck gassed it through the long-past-red light and passed him with what looked like inches to spare. The pedestrian, an older man in work clothes, stepped back onto the curb, turned, and stared at me in disbelief. He didn’t say anything.

“That truck just blew through that light like it was nothing.” I said to him out of a need to say something. He continued to stare.

“Thank you.” He said, emphatically, weighing the words in hopes that I would understand what he didn’t, couldn’t say for fear of fully realizing his own mortality… for saving my life.

Out of necessity, cyclists train themselves to be hyper aware of what’s going on around them. I can feel a car coming up beside or behind me. Cyclists and pedestrians are more exposed, more at risk, more underprivileged on the roads. But we’re also more in tune, more aware, more adept at recognizing our surroundings. We wheeze in the exhaust, but we also smell the flowers–without even having to stop. We break and we bleed, but we live and breathe in a way you just can’t inside a car. In my opinion, it’s only a sacrifice when others don’t respect our space or our lives.

I don’t retweet accident-related obituaries, even when they touch me, because I’m unwilling to give anyone an excuse not to get on their bike. I’m simply unwilling to link to a story that could lead someone to hang up their bike in the garage and grab the keys to their car instead.

Life is fragile. Fate is fickle. Ride like your life depended on it, smell, sense, feel your surroundings, never stop relishing the moment you’re in right now. Cancer might get you. A heart attack might get you. Yeah, a car might get you. But a life lived in fear is no life at all.

So get out on your bike and ride for Jasmine. I think it’s what she would have wanted.

To date myself by quoting Will Smith, "I make this sh** look good."

Occasionally, I get dressed up. My day job allows me the latitude, in general, to throw on a pair of jeans and whatever wrinkled balled up thing I can find in the bottom of my closet without many people batting an eye. But as I’ve continued on my path to corporate domination through tightly written copy transmitted through Outlook Email Servers, I have occasionally been required to put on some dress pants.

Now don’t get me wrong. The stripes and argyle will go with me to the grave. But I trade in my jeans for some pinstripe, now and again. Like this past week.

And when I rode back from the airport, suitcase-laden Burley Trailer in tow, garbed in all the fittings of a proper businessman, I got some looks. But I’ll tell you, I felt like a million bucks. There I was, in all my corporate regalia, clearly adopting one despicable American cultural construct while at the same time flipping the bird to another other.

A few of you do this on a daily basis, especially back East, where corporate dress codes aren’t quite as relaxed as they are for us soft Californians. And you know what? You oughta be proud. I sure was.

Outliers are the harbingers of change. And speaking of outliers, I would be remiss if I did not pay my respects to Champ, who has been so artfully portrayed in this short film that’s been buzzing around the blogosphere of late. So from the suits of SOMA, I take you to the Scrapers of East Oakland.

Click here to view the embedded video.

When I was an angsty teenager and I was freaking out about my whole life collapsing because some girl broke my heart or I thought I might fail a math test, I always just reminded myself, “It’s alright. If your life goes to hell in a handbasket, you can just pack your stuff up and go live in some shack in the woods.” Seriously. I was that kid, and there are pictures to prove it. No, I am not publishing them on the blog.

I don’t think I had any grasp of what living in a shack in the woods would actually constitute, and the fact that there were no Taco Bells in a 80 mile radius probably would have meant my chances for survival were virtually nil, but I still had in me the idea that a retreat from from stress was a retreat from suburban life, with all its impersonal commercialism and the weight of the vast machine on your shoulders threatening to crush you.

I say all this to explain how I’m really the same person, only better, because of the bicycle. My fallback plan now involves putting all my gear and a good book or two in some panniers and just taking off. Because of this I have a real affinity for the people who are out there actually doing just that. For me, they’re living the dream. Sure, I’ve done some tours, and I hope to do the Trans-America at some point in my life. But there are a some out there with even bigger goals, and they’re attaining them.

We Keep Going sport a few nice ZPG patches on their journey southward.

Last week I sent out a pack of stickers and patches to some folks from Alaska who’ve dubbed themselves Que Hubo. They’re starting their trip in just a week by boarding a ferry that will take them to Washington State where they’ll begin their journey to Colombia.

Another group I’m quite fond of is We Keep Going, two guys who rode as part of the sponsored 42 Below “We Like Bike” tour and then decided they didn’t want to stop. I found them when their photos popped up on the Zero Per Gallon Flickr Group–they’ve been rocking ZPG all the way, and we didn’t pay them a cent. They’re sharing the message because they realize they own the brand as much as I do, as much as we all do. I checked with them on their progress and to get permission to use the photo, and it turns out they’re stopped for a bit in Mexico–helping teach English to the kids and thinking about setting up a Hostel with a friend. Sweet.

Yet another of those I’m following closely is Family On Bikes, a family of four who were living the “American Dream,” until they decided they had their own dreams. They packed up what belongings they needed, and began the journey with their two boys pedaling alongside, heading to South America, where they are now.

There are thousands of others across the continent riding their bikes somewhere, or nowhere in particular. This freedom, more than anything, is what I think this company stands for, and it believes in. Whether you’re riding in the Tour de France or pedaling a few miles to work, that grin on your face, even if it’s tucked away behind a grimace, is the same one that keeps our touring friends moving their legs in circles to a cadence all their own.