Unless you have the fortune of owning a car, the number one most indispensable asset to have on campus is a bike.

Mine is a hot pink mountain bike I bought from Wal-Mart for $79. It was the cheapest bike there that didn’t have streamers or Hannah Montana on it.

After riding it around for a little over a month, I finally got it registered with the OUPD, thereby ordaining myself an official student biker.

As a student cyclist, I enjoy many benefits, including toned quadriceps, increased cardiovascular endurance, improved balance and lightning-fast reflexes. (I’ve also incurred a substantial loss of sensitivity in the buttocks due to the hardness of my bicycle seat. For this reason I would strongly recommend purchasing a seat cushion.) And becoming a student cyclist comes at virtually no cost.

But before you rush out to the nearest bike store to buy your first set of wheels, be forewarned: riding a bike is a lot harder than it looks.

It may not seem like it, but riding a bike is actually one of the most hazardous activities a student can engage in on a day-to-day basis.

Yes, I’m aware that the death toll is much higher for automobile crashes than for biking accidents, but have you ever stopped to consider the risks inherent in riding a bike?

For starters, you can’t fall off a car. (Well, technically you could, but you would have to be pretty dumb.)

Secondly, cars are enclosed to keep you protected on all sides. Bikes, on the other hand, are completely exposed to the elements. Unless you wear a helmet (which a few people do, I’ve noticed), the only thing between you and the pavement is, well, your bike.

Third, cars come equipped with a whole array of safety features designed to save your life should you get into an accident. Bikes don’t come with seatbelts. Nor do they come with air bags, headlights, turn indicators, rearview mirrors or windshield wipers.

Finally, many don’t know the rules for where they can and cannot ride their bikes. Therefore, bicyclists often abide by their own personal traffic laws, the result of which can be downright scary at times.

Take, for instance, the cyclist attempting to use the crosswalk on Lindsey Street in the midst of a typical pedestrian horde.

If you’ve ever played Neopets on the computer, you may be familiar with a game called Ice Cream Factory. For those of you who are unacquainted with Ice Cream Factory, the basic premise of the game is to move the computer mouse in order to dodge scoops of ice cream being fired across the screen.

Now imagine that instead of a computer mouse, you have a bike, and that those ice cream scoops are pedestrians crossing the street in the opposite direction as you.

These modifications introduce two new challenges: The first is keeping your balance, which becomes increasingly harder the slower you have to pedal. The second is that unlike scoops of ice cream, pedestrians do not travel in straight lines, but tend to change direction often, making it impossible to predict when one is going to wander into your trajectory.

In addition to putting ourselves in mortal peril every time we put our feet to the pedals, we bicyclists are universally hated.

Pedestrians hate us because they dislike having to share the sidewalk with something that’s bigger and faster than they are. Drivers hate us because they dislike having to share the road with something that’s smaller and slower than they are.

To the pedestrians who are reading this and thinking, “That’s what the bike lane is for, stupid!” let me tell you something: the bike lane is not like a lane on the expressway. You can’t just ride down it in a straight line because there are other cyclists coming at you from both directions, as well as merging from both sides.

There are also pedestrians wandering in and out of the bicycle lane at their leisure, a custom that perplexes me to no end because these people have the entire sidewalk to their disposal.

And then there’s the issue of parking: it seems as though every time I go to pick up my bike from the bike rack I somehow wind up having to physically untangle my bike from its neighbors, which are getting all touchy-feely with it.

I mean really, keep your dirty bike’s grimy handlebars away from my bike’s seat. It’s disgusting.

If after reading this column you still feel that you have what it takes to become a student bicyclist, I encourage you to have fun and ride safely!