There is a fantastic long article in the June issue of the Walrus by Bill Reynolds called Geared Up: On the road to two wheeled transcendence. One man’s love affair with his bicycle (entire article is online). It is great to see this kind of bike writing. Mature, utilitarian, mythic and even tragic. It’s good to see this kind of article in a general interest magazine like The Walrus. As bike writing evolves, and the dominance of the car slowly is undermined by market and environmental forces, we should see a flourishing of this kind of bike writing in the tradition of the more literary automotive related writing that has mythologized the car since they started popping out of Henry Ford’s factory at affordable prices. From Geared Up:
My friend Jeff used to wonder why I keep riding, why I couldn’t outgrow biking as I settled into marriage, a career, house, family, and five kinds of insurance. The bike is for recreation. You want to go to a grocery store, take the car, he’d say.
But not everyone is wedded to the car. Some use it to drive out to the countryside in order to ride. Others are gearheads who fall in love with every latest bike innovation; or eco-freaks who detest cars; or those shredders of mountain terrain, the off-road recreationers; or samurai couriers; or sleek, Lycra-sheathed road racers; or hybrid aficionados; or advocates knocking on city hall doors, protesting the bike’s lowly status in the transportation hierarchy; or those polyamorous swingers of sport, the triathletes. Or simply speed demons: on a bike, you feel the acceleration, not like in cars these days, which are smooth and quiet, and where the difference between 50 and 80 or, on the highway, between 100 and 140, is observed on the dashboard rather than felt in the gut. I’ve often wondered where I fit in.
Photo by jgrantmac
7 comments
The article makes it sound like cycling is a super-scary, dangerous, and psychotic pastime.
this is a great article! – agreed that it’s kind of a landmark in bicycle writing (no pun intended). maybe we’ll someday see a ‘cycling’ section in the Toronto Star?
I would not go so far as saying “landmark” because that would ignore all the good writing on bikes that has always been around. Perhaps landmark for the Walrus or mainstream general mags. But yes, a Star Cycles section could appear one day.
the article scared the daylights out of me! my sweetheart and i have been commuting by bicycle for about eight years with only a couple of minor accidents, but now i fear for our lives!
it was useful to indicate that “apparently” the city has known about some things for awhile, but zilch happens, apart from sustained bull about how much is being done for cycling. Not that bike lanes on all our roads are the solution because the way we do bike lanes here doesn’t work at all times, especially with some enforcement issues, as cars vote, many of the cops are carist, and the cartillery dominates Caronto…
A scary thing to me is Geoffrey, a takethetooker keen guy, being run down from behind while riding on the Lakeshore and the police response has been dismal. Can-bike and the legal framework says a bike can take the lane, but if the motorist doesn’t like it?….
Yeah, I did find it kind of focused a lot on the danger of cycling, making it sound like a risky form of behaviour. On the other hand, that danger is always there, and he evoked it well. I also found interesting the part where he talked about Amsterdam and how cyclists themselves could become dangerous to others when in the ascendancy. It was indeed very well written – I didn’t intend to read the whole thing, but I found I kept turning the (web) pages.
The Walrus article makes an interesting balance to Philip Preville’s article in this month’s Toronto Life, which was more thoughtful than I expected from the sensationalist headline. It’s good to see journalists spending time writing at length about cycling, from whatever perspective. It means people are realizing it’s a serious and interesting topic.
Dylan> You make the point i didn’t make, thanks. This is sort of the dark side of bike riding, written at length. It’s completely not my experience in a lifetime of casual riding, and 8 years of Toronto bike commuting, much like MKM and her sweetie’s experience. But so many people I know have had a bit of Bill’s experience, with bad things happening on two wheels. I’ve been “knocking wood” or whatever since I read it.
Does an article like this have some trickle up effect, and get drivers, maybe bad drivers, to be more aware? I hope so, but I don’t know. But none of this article is a false representation of a part of bike riding, but as we all know, it isn’t always like this.