On Being Obvious & Oblivious

Just look at me and you'll know I'm no weekend warrior. My bicycles are an old English three-speed, complete with the white patch on the rear fender, and an American-made three-speed outfitted as a grocery bike.  Both bicycles demand an upright riding posture that screams "vehicular bicyclist." I ride in street clothes, which usually consists of a button-up shirt and trousers with cuffs turned up to mid-calf. I almost always ride with a bag or two (more depending on what errand I'm running and which bike I'm on), my bell is quite loud and frequently used, and I've recently taken to wearing a helmet (not one of those silly racing jobs, either, but a proper Nutcase). I don't flinch in traffic, but I also don't take any risks. I'm out there, traveling by bicycle, not deluding myself into thinking I'm going to race in the Olympics, and not running lights or dodging across crosswalks like some reckless kid.

So why, with all this obvious effort to be a vehicle, and to be recognized as such, did a completely oblivous driver making a left turn almost run me down just now as I passed legally through a green light? The answer, quite simply, is that if I'm going to be a vehicle, I'm going to get treated like one, including being subjected to all the stupidity, ignorance, and arrogance of every other vehicle operator on the road. The more I ride and the more I think about it, the more I realize that we need to stop thinking about cars versus bicycles, and start thinking more broadly about what it means for us all to be vehicles moving through space, sharing the road, and just simply trying not to bash into each other. I'll do my part, will you?

Ride of Silence?

I have essentially the same question as in my post below. Does the "Ride of Silence" to honor bicyclists injured or killed while riding on public roadways actually marginalize the bicycle as a legitimate form of transportation? If we act like an oppressed minority, do we not just confirm our status as an oppressed minority? Do such events (and Ghost Bikes, too) actually do anything to reach out to the non-bicycling public, or are they events that the bicycling community does for itself? If the latter, does it only further isolate, embitter, and/or enrage bicyclists, perhaps encouraging them to take their next negative encounter with a driver to the next level?

Further, these events bring accident victims posthumously into a bicycle "community" that they may not have been a part of when alive. Does making them martyrs to a cause they may not even have believed in (one doesn't need to be dogmatic to get killed while riding a bicycle, after all) really do proper justice to their memory? Wouldn't that time and energy be better spent volunteering for the local bicycle advocacy organization or bike kitchen?

My question at the end of it all is just this: Why are we doing this? We say we want bicycling to be inclusive, but don't such "nation building" events by their very form and function create insiders and outsiders? Us and Them? Us versus Them?

You can perhaps discern my own leanings on the issue, but the questions posed are genuine. What do you think? Reasonable disagreement is encouraged. Poopy-pants-ness, not so much.

Bike to Work Day?

I can guess that this post is going to cause a hubbub amongst all three of my readers, but I'll pose the question anyway. First, a little context.

In my life as an academic, I work mostly on the history of race in the nineteenth century. I read a lot of what used to be called "Black History," and more recently, "African American History." I don't find these categories particularly useful, since I think they unrealistically separate (or segregate, you might say) historical human experience based on race. Some scholars of like mind have made the argument that Black History Month (February) has outlived its usefulness because it encourages the view that the history of black people is somehow separate or distinct from "regular" history. I have similar opinions about Women's History Month (March).

So, here's the question: does designating a Bike Month (May) and Bike to Work Day similarly segregate bicycling as transportation from our idea of "regular" transportation? Shouldn't every day potentially be Bike to Work Day? In other words, does the profile-raising potential of a Bike Month/Day outweigh the implicit marginalization of bicycling into just one specific timeframe? Or is the concept of bicycling as transportation still "new" enough that we need a month specifically to highlight it? Watcha think?

Our Crumbling Infrastructure

A report out today by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials offers a grim report card on the state of the nation's roads. My hometown of San Diego, California ranked near the top for poor road conditions. Here's a link to a rather large PDF of the full report.

A full 84% of San Diego's roads were classified by AASHTO as "Poor" or "Mediocre" and only 10% as "Good." I can attest to this dismal state of things with a vengeance. Driving or riding, the roads around here are shameful. Our car is going to need suspension work soon, I think, and I don't believe I've been on one single ride in this city that I didn't have to dodge a pothole, crack, sinkhole, ridge, bump, blob, or some other type of yawning crater that could either break an axle or untrue a wheel. Not to mention all the smaller ones I've had to just suffer through.

A few months ago, I decided I would ride around just my neighborhood and plot on a Google map all of the horrific stretches of road and dangerously neglected intersections, specifically from a bicyclist's perspective, with a view toward presenting my findings to my local city councilman. After two outings, I realized that futility of this task. All of the streets were in need of something, so pointing out just the worst trouble spots wouldn't fix the real problem. In fact, the way they "fix" potholes and other roadway damage around here, it probably would have made the worst spots even worse.

In the 1890s, when bicycling really took off, bicycle clubs were at the forefront of the push to pave the nation's streets and roads, years before automobiles would become prevalent. Today, while safer streets continue to be a focus of bicycling advocacy organizations, the simple maintenance of the roadways seems to have taken a back seat to sexier issues like protected bike lanes, bike/pedestrian boulevards, traffic calming, etc.  But damaged roads are far more dangerous to bicyclists than to motorists, and those of us who ride need to be vocal in pointing out problems and fighting not only for improvements to the transportation infrastructure, but for simple maintenance of what already exists. We tend to look down the road to solve problems we perceive in the future (increased congestion, pollution, etc.) with an eye toward progress, and rightly so, but in doing so, we ignore the potholes right in front of us at our own peril.

On Keeping Bicycle Advocacy Positive

It has been interesting over the last several days to watch different bloggers react to this New York Times story about Dutch bikes becoming the new "it" accessory. Here are a few examples, illustrating a spectrum of reactions:

Chic Cyclist: "It's heartening to see that this topic is going mainstream, and a good read. "

Bike Snob NYC: "Obviously, the fixie backlash has been going on for a long time now, but the sheer bulk and weight of these Dutch city bikes nicely embodies just how much mass this backlash movement has gained."

Drunk & In Charge of a Bicycle: "Puke. It's a bicycle, not an accessory. "

Personally, I couldn't care less whether Dutch bikes are the next big thing in New York City, or anywhere else. Aside from liking the design and features of the bikes, I really have no opinion on the matter, and I've never ridden one.

The bikes are really beside the point, it's the reaction amongst the bike blogging community that interests me. The majority of the responses to this article have been sarcastic and dismissive, with only a few positive reactions. I'll admit to leaving a somewhat critical comment at Chic Cyclist, but it was more about a specific quote from the article than it was about the article itself. And really, sarcastic and dismissive is what most have come to expect from Bike Snob and D&ICOAB on just about any topic, so that's not really a surprise.

I think, however, that we as a community need to change our tone when talking about bicycles becoming popular, for whatever reason, because unless we welcome the positive changes to our nation's bicycle culture when they do occur, we're going to seem like guardians at the gate, judging others for how, when, where, and why they ride. It's not up to bike bloggers to tell people what is authentic bike culture and what isn't.

So somebody buys a Dutch bike because it's the latest thing. So what? Yes, ideally, that person would have bought the bike to cut out car trips, be more environmentally friendly, help make the streets more livable, etc., but those things will be accomplished anyway, so who really cares why they bought the thing in the first place? The most valid reason to object to bicycles being viewed as "accessories" is that people don't take them seriously as transportation. But just get on one for a quick errand to the corner store, and you can't help but understand that a bicycle is a vehicle.

Again, simply riding the bicycle is the solution to the problem, and as long as more people are doing that, bike bloggers who feel compelled to bash their motives just look like curmudgeons. We're supposed to be opening our arms to new riders, folks, not offering caustic wit in order to demonstrate our superiority. Bicycles were the fashion accessory in the 1890s, too, an era that many consider to be the first golden age of the bicycle. The history lesson here is pretty simple: If they're popular, people will ride them. Isn't that the point?