Car-free Modesto resident Evan Parrish confronts stereotypes of people who choose to live without an automobile. According to such stereotypes, the car-free person is a new-age liberal. "I'm proof positive," Parrish said, "that you can be a committed Christian and a conservative Republican and still be pro-bike-only and pro-environment."

Parrish attributes his preferences for simple living to his Christian convictions. "I'm pro-environment because I'm a Christian," he said. He believes that taking care of the earth is mandated in the Bible. "After all, the Bible says that God will destroy those who destroy the earth. When we waste gas ... I think God's going to hold us accountable."

A former taxi driver, Parrish hardly takes an auto-hating stance. "I don't advocate burning all the cars." He believes that bicycles should be integrated with our communities as an essential and appropriate transportation element. "What I advocate is using bikes for shorter trips. You don't use a 747 to go from here to Fresno," he said, adding that he observes many people using cars to make frequent in-town trips that could easily be handled by bicycle. Attributing the analogy to bicycle-advocate author Richard Ballantine, Parrish compared these car trips to using atom bombs to kill canaries.

Yet he remembers times before such over dependence on automobiles. During his childhood in the Bay Area, he didn't need a driver's license to get around on his own. With a bicycle, he said, "I could come and go as I pleased." At that time "nobody knew about soccer moms" having to shuttle van loads of young athletes. The car (complete with parental chauffeur) wasn't central to Parrish's youth. "Kids grew up on bicycles," he said.

By contrast, he recalls once when he was preparing to cycle home from church recently. A child, also leaving the church, couldn't get over seeing someone pedal to church, commenting on it to the family as they crossed the parking lot. "The brainwashing starts at a very young age," said Parrish, reflecting on Madison Avenue's need to sell autos and auto-related products.

Having adult experience both as a car owner and, as he puts it, "bike-only," Parrish comments readily on the downside of owning a car, if indeed anyone can claim to own one. "The thing that turned me off to cars personally: you never own them. You've got to answer to the DMV .... You've got to deal with the registration and insurance."

He said that a typical year's auto expenses would more than claim what all three of his bicycles cost him outright. The expenses and the registration hassles reverse the conventional ownership equation for Parrish. "When I have a car I almost feel like it's controlling me," he said.

Parrish frowns on such in-your-face, direct-action bicycle advocacy as critical mass rides in which crowds of cycling demonstrators take over streets and intersections. He sees the automobile congestion that results from such events as antagonizing drivers. "I think we ought to build a bridge to motorists," he said. "You don't draw bees with vinegar. You draw them with honey."

Education could be part of that honey. Getting the word out to people about the savings they could realize through reducing their dependency on automobiles would be an important message. "I don't have to own this big car or battleship," Parrish said. "I don't have any debt." He doesn't claim to be wealthy. "I live a simple lifestyle." But he observes "people make a lot of money, but they end up as broke as me," throwing their earnings away to pay for the "behemoth" in the garage.

Parrish would like to see bicycling encouraged through tax breaks to those who pedal. "Bikes ought to be treated as a vehicle," he said. Companies ought to provide facilities for employees who arrive by bicycle, such as secure parking.

Parrish's advocacy confronts objections to the bicycle as a polarizing political statement. The bicycle is no more and no less than a means of mobility in his view. Those who rely on this mobility are not all of one mind. "You don't have to be a New Ager; you don't have to be a left-winger," he said.