Why Commute?
Because, as an unathletic 40-something university teacher, researcher and parent to a little girl, I don't have much time to engage in exercise for its own sake. Biking keeps me (more-or-less) in shape and gives me a sense of liberty and even euphoria. Biking makes me feel happy almost all the time. [I also teach environmental studies courses, and biking is one way of putting the theory into practice.]

2. The sense of being engaged – physically and spiritually – with the city and its moods. I'm an urban geographer whose work focuses mainly on Toronto, and many of the ideas I've written about have unfolded while riding the city's streets and thinking about its topography, history and cultural character.