Helmet secured and pants Velcro-strapped to his leg, Doug Johnson braves Highway 29 by bicycle three times a week.

"People at school say 'You're so great to do this.' And I say 'No, I'm just lazy.' I don't want to get home at 5:30 and have to go out and do exercise. I like to have my evening," said Johnson, a longtime bike enthusiast who teaches third-grade at Dan Mini Elementary School.

Seven years ago Johnson started bicycling the 23 mile round-trip from his Napa home to Vallejo, where he teaches.

For most of the journey, Johnson shoots down Highway 29, but the 55-year-old veteran rider said he takes as many residential streets as possible. He started commuting by bike as a way of tricking himself into working out regularly.

"Sometimes you don't feel like it. But once you're there, you're gone. You still have to ride back," said Johnson, who bicycles upwards of 300 miles per month.

With this being National Bike to Work Week, Johnson hopes more people opt to pedal rather than drive. The long-distance biker posed the rhetorical question:

"Wouldn't it be great if there were so many people bicycling they had to put a bicycling strip next to the highway?"

Gas prices put more

cyclists on the road

If a recent trend noticed by local bike shops continues Johnson's dream might not be so far-fetched. Several bike mechanics said a record number of customers have been looking to bicycle more to escape ever-climbing gas prices in recent months. This week the average cost of gas in the Napa area hit $3.28 per gallon, up 45 cents from the price a month ago, according to the American Automobile Association.

"People with short commutes are looking into getting a bike instead of paying $3.50 a gallon," said Alex Janssen, a bike mechanic at Napa's Bicycle Works. "If your commute is just a couple miles, sometimes getting around on a bike can be faster than driving."

Janssen added that the warm beginnings of spring usually spur more bike sales, but this year business is more brisk than usual.

"A lot of people are digging up bikes to be serviced and fixed up for enjoyment and commuting," he said.

Greg Hall, a mechanic at Bicycle Madness on Jefferson Street, noticed a similar wave of customers turning to bicycles as an alternative to gas-powered cars.

Hall said the cheaper mountain bikes that start out around $230 are selling best.

Meanwhile, Johnson said his nearly $1,000 recumbent bicycle -- where the rider sits low to the ground and reclines -- paid for itself in gas savings long ago.

"I bought it knowing I'd ride it enough to pay for it in gas. I only fill up my tank once every two weeks," he said of the Honda Accord he drives on Mondays and Fridays when he's lugging more books to and from school for weekend work.

Learn rules of the road

The veteran cyclist expressed excitement that soaring gas costs are pushing more people to pedal. That's only a positive, he added, if the bike neophytes obey traffic laws and ride safely.

Johnson said he's long tracked local bike crashes, and according to his observations fatalities tend to happen when people aren't wearing helmets and aren't paying attention to road and traffic changes around them.

"One thing you have to do is ride defensively," Johnson said. "The bicyclist is always going to lose."

He's developed his own techniques over his riding career to try and be proactive about safety. Whenever approaching an intersection, even if he has the green light, Johnson said, he honks his shrieking air horn and signals that he's going straight. He said that's so cross traffic that might be trying to turn right on a red sees him.

"There's some (drivers) who don't want to recognize you're there. Others are in too much of a hurry to care," he said. "Behind all my thinking is how do I make sure they account for me. They've got to work together, the biker and the driver. If not, they're clashing and the meanness comes out."

He said all too often when people find out he bikes to work they respond by saying they're too scared to bike because the roads are too dangerous.

"Here's the thing: If you wanted to do it, you could. And If a company wants to promote it, it can. If a company said we advocate healthy employees, they could create a culture where people bike to work one day a week," Johnson mused. "And so you tolerate helmet hair for a day. And you're not quite as fresh looking."