Oxford chose locavore as the 2007 Word of the Year. A word so new it is not yet showing up in my web browser’s built-in dictionary. I’m excited about the honor awarded to this word as I’m a bit of a localist myself. Anyone who knows me knows I’m completely obsessed with my crooked-streets Woodlawn neighborhood: hanging out with neighbors, eating foods from my front yard, working on neighborhood projects… you name it.

I think being a locavore, someone who eats foods produced locally, comes easily for bikers. For one, we’re very connected to our physical environments as we bike around. Drivers see the blossoming cherry trees. We see them, smell them and maybe even feel them as they drop lightly fluttering petals upon us.And then on top of that, many of us choose to shop places close to home for ease of carrying our packages back to the coop. And while more realistically this translates into shopping at the local hardware store rather than a family farm, we’re trained to think about our local options. So when we get to the store and see local produce, it’s within our daily rhythm to consider it, and even pay more for it – despite the fact that a lot of us who ride bikes do so in part because it’s cheap transport.