Today is National Bike to Work Day, and this newspaper heartily endorses the concept, though not for everyone. The last time our editorialist was on a bicycle, he was 11 years old and Dwight David Eisenhower was in the White House. He says he is not about to get aboard a bicycle again, and in the interests of both aesthetics and public safety, we are not about to ask him to.

Still, it is not a bad idea for those with the equipment and the stamina. Lord knows our automobile tailpipes are belching out enough noxious stuff every morning to choke a heffalump, and anything we can do to reduce the pollution is certainly worthy of consideration. The Record-Chronicle’s Dan X. McGraw wrote all about Bike to Work Day on the front page of Wednesday’s paper, and revealed the observance’s two-fold purpose. Not only is the day designed to encourage us motorists to abandon our gas-guzzling behemoths for at least a day, it also strives to educate motorists about co-existing with the increasing number of bicyclists they are seeing on the streets these days.

Jen Ebel, of the North Central Texas Council of Governments, summed it up:

“Bike to Work Day,” she said, “is really about building support for the bicycle community and reinforcing the fact that all types of commuters, regardless of mode choice, should have access to safe and connective routes.”

Our editorialist was glad to hear that, even with its use of such clunky bureaucratic phrases as “mode choice,” and “connective routes.”

In his view, Ebel’s mission statement gave him an out. He is as pleased as punch to support “the bicycle community,” as long as he does not have to become a part of it.

It is sort of like all those editorials he wrote over the years urging support for the Fry Street Fair: His enthusiasm for the event was in direct proportion to the distance he was from it.

We do not wish to portray our editorialist as an enemy of the bicycle. Indeed, he yields to no man in his appreciation of the machine. When he was a boy, he says, his J.C. Higgins balloon-tire bike with New Departure coaster breaks was his Rocinante, the brave and reliable steed that carried him from one adventure to another on endless summer days.

With a MacGregor Red Schoendienst model fielder’s glove hung on the handlebars and a couple of Bicycle playing cards clothespinned to the rear frame to produce a satisfying “brrraaaap!” sound, that bicycle raced up country lanes and down gravel sidewalks, through mud puddles and into borrow ditches, across open fields and through heavy forests.

No, there is no greater lover of the bicycle than our scribe, but it is a long-ago love, not one that is apt to be rekindled except in the abstract.

Our man McGraw got some tips from experts about what bike-to-workers should do before heading out on two wheels for the first time. Steve Scaggs, a bicycle mechanic, recommended pre-selecting a route and riding it at least once before the actual commute.

The article then ended with this sentence:

“The rest, [Scaggs] said, residents will learn on the road.”

That strikes our editorialist as the most ominous phrase since, “I see dead people.” He is sure he would learn quite a lot while bicycling to work, mostly about pain and ambulance response time.

Bike on, young Denton. This newspaper is more than 100 years old, and its editorial writer is not far behind. He will get to work on four wheels.