Bike Humor

There is a new miniseries that just started on IFC, Portlandia. It is a spoof of Portland, so it obviously mocks cyclists. You can watch a great clip here.

Thoughts on Flying

As I write this I am sitting in the Minneapolis airport. I had not flown through here before, and I am impressed. During my flight here, on a small regional jet that was almost completely empty, I kept feeling like I could be living out the decline from Atlas Shrugged. The airport had been almost deserted, and all the flights on the board were regional. It was well maintained, but seemed to be on the fringes. A lost corner of our infrastructure.

I admit that these impressions are probably from reading Atlas Shrugged. The section of the book I was reading was describing the winding down of the American economy, specifically the drop off in traffic on the railroads. This made me look at an empty plane and broken coffee maker differently than I normally would have.

When I got off the plane and started walking through Minneapolis, which is bright, crowded – at least for nine at night – and filled with great shops, I felt like I had just woken up from a bad dream into an invigorating morning. That was completely melodramatic, but I hope you get my point.

I have always found airports exciting. The bustle of people who need to be places, the efficiency, real or attempted, of the employees trying to get people to these places, and above all the sense of freedom that seeing all the different places one could go gives me a thrill. I admit that there can be frustrations, but that is part of the adventure for me. To have everything you need with you – I only fly carry-on – is for me the greatest sense of freedom. Being able to wake up in one city, or continent, go to a place of bustle and speed, and then join the flow of a new city like nothing ever happened, is one of my joys in life.

I realize that the picture of air travel I just painted is very different from the one commonly expressed. Frustrated passengers, long lines, and cancelled flights seems to be the narrative that is more frequently told. I agree that this happens, and I have been in those situations, but I think that is less common than it is made out to be.

I feel that since I have been talking of freedom to travel, I would be remiss if I did not say why I do not have the same feelings for the car, which is often described in the same way that I have been describing air travel. Cars, for me, a more like a prison. When you do a road trip, you have to confine yourself into a small, uncomfortable cage for hours on end. Further more, you have to leave civilization, in order to get anywhere. This fact can be an argument for the car, but I'll address that later. I feel like time stands still on a road trip, in a bad way. The hours spent sitting feel like hours irretrievably wasted. On a plane, I get a certain vitality from the interaction with human beings, but in a car you are cutting yourself off from contact.

The ability of cars to take you out from civilization is their one redeeming value. On this current trip, I am flying to Denver, but I will then continue by car up into the mountains. If my destination was Denver, I would really rather not deal with cars at all, but since they are a means of getting to nature, I don't mind as much.

The Third & The Seventh

The Third & Seventh is an amazing video by Alex Roman, I had not watched it for a few years, but the imagery and feeling stayed with me. It  beautifully explores the wonder and longing that architecture and design can inspire in us. In a way it plays like a modernist's dream, but I think that it transcends that one aesthetic sensibility and strikes something much deeper. It is twelve and a half minutes long, but is is well worth your time, as is waiting for the high definition to load. You can find it here.

Velorbis

I just discovered this great bicycle company in Denmark. Their bikes are gorgeous and really present a cycling aesthetic you do not see in the USA very often. 

The New Year

As we start the new year, there are a few noteworthy articles that are worth taking a look at. Transport Michigan has a great article outlining a transportation manifesto for Michigan. Christianity Today takes an interesting look at the theological implications of string theory, and Thomas Friedman wrote a farewell essay that perfectly captures the challenges and opportunities we can expect in the coming years.

Bicycle Commuting or Bicycle Culture

Copenhagenize has a great article on the difference between bicycle commuting and bicycle culture. He brings out the difference between the work-centered approach used by cycling advocates in the United States compared to the lifestyle in areas where bicycling is ubiquitous.

Musings

Since August I have been living car-free. This both an economic and an idealistic choice. I do not think that the convenience of a car makes the cost of owning worth it. I also would feel hypocritical arguing against car-centric development while contributing to the demand for it by driving a car myself. I have to admit that a have ridden in other people's cars pretty regularly, so I am not one hundred percent there, but I have tried to bike, walk, or ride the bus whenever possible.

Living on a college campus makes that easy since almost everything I need is within easy walking distance on campus. When I have ridden off campus, I have been pleasantly surprised by how quickly I can get places on my bike. Downtown is only about twenty five minutes away, and I can beat the bus, leaving at the same time, by at least ten minutes. Overall, Grand Rapids seems to be a bike-friendly town. My one complaint is that there are not a lot of people riding, so it can feel somewhat lonely being surrounded by cars. That said, I have yet to ride and not see another bike at some point, which is way more than I can say for San Antonio, where I lived before Grand Rapids.

In San Antonio, there is a decent mountain biking scene, and there seem to be quite a few dedicated road cyclists, but definitely no bike culture in the sense of biking as a way to get around in daily life. In the U.S. we have a good cycling culture; places like Crested Butte and Moab are great examples of that, but there is no comparable “100% Lycra Free” culture, to quote Amsterdamize. The city is starting a pilot bike share program, which should help. I am hoping to try it while I am in San Antonio for Christmas. I know these have pretty much been random musings without much point, but I hope they were interesting.

First Post

Welcome to UrbainVelo. I started it as a place to share my thoughts on pretty much anything, but since my thoughts tend to be on urbanism, biking, design, and architecture, those will probably be the focus of the blog. The name comes from my interests in all things french, urban and biking, plus the url was available, which is a plus. I will try to post at least weekly, but with school busyness and such I may not always live up to that. Thanks for reading.