People of Earth!&bsp; More accurately, readership of the Tryon Daily Bulletin! I come bearing news. As you may or may not know, depending upon the diligence with which you follow my life happenings, I, some months ago, asked my readers to donate a bicycle to me. I asked this for three basic reasons:1. I needed a bike to ride the seven or so blocks to my college campus from my new house, which would give me a commute of about five minutes.2. I believe in the goodness of the human spirit and the value of charity (especially when the recipient of said

charity is me).3. I don&squo;t have any money.Thankfully, the world came through for me, and I was given three bikes by three very generous individuals. After weighing their relative benefits (it was pretty tough because all three bikes were great in their own ways), I decided upon a Raleigh Sports bike from the 1930&squo;s which, while it isn&squo;t very nice-looking, is in such great condition that it will more than likely keep working after the nuclear apocalypse, or if the world is going to end in 2012 as that one movie trailer would have you believe.Anyway, I just thought that I&squo;d take some time to update you guys on how that&squo;s working out for me.I&squo;m pleased to say that after about two months of riding the bike, I&squo;m not sure how I survived without it. It&squo;s saved me countless amounts of money in gas, as I generally ride it anywhere that&squo;s less than two or so miles away, which cuts down on precious, precious petroleum considerably. And because of the fact that I can get to pretty much anywhere in town in less than two miles, I rarely ever drive my car.&bsp; Sometimes I even forget what my car looks like, or that it smells like socks. Come to think of it, another reason I like to ride my bike is because I don&squo;t have to deal with the sock-smell in my car.I really feel like I&squo;ve entered into a new realm of mobility meant for the 21st century.&bsp; Ever since something like 2004, Chevrolet has promised the world that it would come out with the Volt, the world&squo;s first mass-produced vehicle to not run on gas. Hey, guess what Chevy, somebody already made that and it was called a bike.&bsp; Man, I am so green for having switched over to the bike. It&squo;s also a source of entertainment; if I&squo;m ever bored, I no longer have to surf TV channels, hoping against hope that something interesting (or at least an episode of Judge Judy) will be on. I can now just strap on a helmet, hop on my bike, ride off into the distance and hope I run across something interesting. In fact, I think I&squo;ll go for a ride right now.