An Un-Bearable Policy?

As I understand, bicycles and eBikes are allowed in certain areas of US National Parks.

I hope this rider isn’t violating the policy! 

Going After The “Fat” Of The Netherlands

A Dutch woman once explained her country’s liberal social environment to me. It was the first to legalize same-sex marriage, she said, for the same reason it legalized marijuana and sex work.  “We like order,” she told me.  “It’s part of our Calvinistic heritage.” Although she, like many of her compatriots, are no longer religious, the theologian’s way of thinking “still guides us.”

That reasoning seemed counterintuitive until she offered this:  “If people are being who they are aren’t hurting anyone else, why should they be made into criminals?” and therefore “outsiders.”  To maintain order, “include everyone.”

That desire for orderliness took a turn someone like me would expect—and wish for—in Rotterdam.  In one of the world’s busiest ports, authorities seized a shipment of 16,500 electric “fat bikes” from China. Another 1000 were taken from a nearby distribution warehouse.

As the name implies, such machines have wide tires and low-slung frames that cause them to resemble low-slung motorcycles.

European Union regulations limit eBikes to speeds of 25 mph (16mph). The “fatbikes,” however, have software and other components that can be easily manipulated to make them go much faster.

Apparently, nobody anticipated the arrival of those bikes. And, when the Netherlands mandated helmets for motor-scooter riders, many—especially teenagers—switched to “fatbikes,” for which there is no helmet requirement.

So now Dutch and European authorities are not only looking at headgear policies, but also to more clearly define different categories of two-wheeled vehicles. Would that authorities in my hometown of New York (and my home country of the United States) gain some of that Calvinistic penchant for making and maintaining order.

Will The CCC Be KO’d?

 The Community Cycling Center turned 30 years old in July. It helped to make Portland, Oregon synonymous, not only with cycling, but with non-profit cycling advocacy.

It may not, however, make it to 31. The organization is in a severe financial crisis that may be a reason why it has had six executive directors in the past five years. Its directors say the CCC can survive only if it receives $115,000 in donations during the next three weeks.

So how can such an organization, with its well-re bike shop, be in such dire straits—in Portland?

According to the CCC, its troubles began during the COVID-19 pandemic. While demand for bikes, parts and services surged, lockdowns ruptured supply chains, making parts and accessories difficult, if not impossible, to find. At the same time, donations to nonprofit organizations like CCC dropped, in part because people were out of work.

But a document provides other reasons that would elicit “I told you so”s from the editors of the Wall Street Journal. One is a “top heavy”  organizational structure. According to the doc, there are too many leadership positions that could be filled with lower-paid workers.  Another reason cited is employees who are kept year-round and provided with benefits and yearly cost-of-living increases.

Now, if you have been reading my blog for a while, you have probably guessed-correctly—that I am all for shop employees, or any other workers, making a living wage and not having to worry about financial ruin if they’re sick or hurt. That it’s cites as a cause of CCC’s crisis points to an inherent dilemma in the bike industry: In most places, it’s seasonal and for all but the mega-retailers, most of whom are now online, profit margins are small and overhead costs are high, hence the low wages paid to mechanics and other employees. The lack of pay (and, in most shops, benefits) is probably why the retail bike industry isn’t seen as a career option to anyone who doesn’t own the business.

I am not familiar with CCC’s administration. I suspect, however, that one reason why it has “too many” full-time leadership positions is that, like other community-centered nonprofits , it’s trying to promote opportunities for people who might not otherwise have them. I would hate to see any organization give up on such a worthy endeavor, but I imagine that it’s not easy to sustain.

Sometimes They’re Righr

 A letter to the Baltimore Banner’s editor illustrated, for me, a problem in the planning and public perception of bicycle infrastructure.

I am not familiar with Baltimore. From reading Dr. Mark Braun’s letter, however, I get the impression that the city’s bike lanes are as sporadic and episodic as they are in other American locales.

Dr. Braun, who describes himself as a new resident and avid cyclist, says that he cannot understand why residents object to one proposed bike lane, but completely understands why they object to another. 

Photo by Daniel Zawodny

About the latter, he says two roads that would connect parts of other bike trails are “overbuilt” and would be “incredibly unsafe for children or inexperienced riders. He says the former is a much better choice, as it is a four-lane road where traffic is light but fast, which encourages drivers to speed. A bike lane along that road, he argues, would result in “decreased vehicle speeds” and provide “direct access” to two parks.

In other words, he is saying that on the road where a proposed lane has raised objections he can’t understand, the lane would actually make the road safer for traffic as well as cyclists. And, he understands the objections to the other proposed route for essentially the same reason.

Such considerations never seem to factor into decisions about where and how to build bike lanes in American cities. That, I believe is one factor that causes planners to create bad bike lanes and for non-cyclists to object to good lanes for the wrong reasons.

Silly Goose!

 While riding down the Hudson River Greenway, “Sam” and I had to dodge a flock of geese that strolled into the path.

I say that if you’re going to take up space in a bike lane you should, at least, be on a bike!

A “Guerilla” Bike Share

If you’ve ridden a bike from a share network like Citibike in my hometown of New York, you probably retrieved the bike from a dock by clicking an app or QR code. At least, that’s what I’ve done the few times I’ve ridden such a bike.

The earliest official share programs—like the one started in La Rochelle, France half a century ago (and still running to this day) could not, of course, have operated in such a way because we didn’t have portable phones, “smart” or otherwise, and the technological networks didn’t exist. So, I imagine, operating the share system must have been more labor intensive, and its bikes more difficult to keep track of, than its current iteration.

In my previous paragraph, I wrote that La Rochelle can lay claim to the first “official” bike share program. That is to say, it was the first to be organized and sanctioned by a city or other government. The idea of bikes publicly available to anyone who wants to ride them predates La Rochelle’s program by a decade or so:  During the mid-1960s, anarchists took abandoned bicycles, painted them white and left the Witte Fietsen on the streets of Amsterdam for anyone who wanted to ride them.

It seems that the spirit of that “Dutch treat,” if you will, has been revived in Montclair, New Jersey, only 33 kilometers (21 miles) or so from my apartment.

“Andy,” who would not give his full name, found a few bikes that were being thrown away.  He took them home, repaired them and collected more bikes. He soon had a full garage. 

One day, as he relates, he was talking to a co-worker who said getting to the bus he takes to work was ‘challenging.” “Andy”offered him one of the bikes, explaining that he could lock the bike up before he boarded the bus and hop back on it after returning.

A “Guerilla” bike in front of the Montclair Public Library.

So was the Montclair Guerilla Bike Share program born. It takes bikes from the trash, clean-outs and donors, makes them rideable and leaves them in public spaces where people can unlock them with QR codes or by visiting the website. After riding it, you can lock it in a public place for someone else to unlock it.

“Andy” says he’s improved the stickers and other markings to make them easier to find. He’s also installed trackers on them, which helps to ensure that they’re not stolen and makes it easier to check on their conditions.

I am sure he knows about Citibike and other institutionalized bike-share programs. But I wonder whether he knew anything about the anarchists in Amsterdam who were leaving bikes on that city’s streets a decade before he was born.

First Times, Again

 I’ve never been here before—on a bike.

So exclaimed “Sam,” my new neighbor and riding buddy when we stopped at City Island during our first ride together. I heard it a few more times the other day, after we pedaled the length of Manhattan on the Hudson River bike lane and looped past the Staten Island Ferry terminal and South Street Seaport to the Williamsburg Bridge.

“I’ve never crossed this on bike!”

He also rode “Hipster Hook”—the waterfront of Williamsburg and Greenpoint for the first time. In fact, our ride was his first into Brooklyn and Queens.

He apologizes for riding a pace slower than mind. I don’t mind, I assure him. He, who has asthma, is riding, and that is good. So what if we need to stop so he can use his inhaler? 

More than anything, I enjoy his company: Let’s say that he’s lived a life vastly different from mine and therefore sees things in a way I never could. Plus, I love seeing him experience those “firsts” on a bike. 

I suspect that if we do some of the same rides again, that sense of discovery won’t disappear: He will change as a rider as, I believe, we all do. Besides, I can take a ride I’ve done dozens, or even hundreds, of times and experience something new or anew, whether in my surroundings or my body, or the bike itself—whether I’m by myself or pedaling with a new riding buddy.

Even In A Cyclist's Paradise, Not All Is Heavenly

The Netherlands is often seen as a cyclists' paradise.  Indeed, the country's ratio of bicycles to people is roughly the same as, ahem, of that of guns to people in the United States. (That is to say, humans are outnumbered.) And comprehensive networks of bike lanes that you can actually use to get from home to school or work, or to go shopping or simply on a "fun" ride, crisscross many Dutch cities and towns.  Moreover, bicycle "infrastructure" includes facilities like parking garages that drivers take for granted.

However, even in such a velocipedic utopia, not all places are "bike friendly," according to Mark Wagenbuur, the "Bicycle Dutch" blog author.  Recently, he was asked to speak in Wageningen, a small city with a university renowned for its work in agricultural technology and engineering.  As he had never before been in the city, he spent some time pedaling in it before offering his perspective on its cycling conditions.

There, he reports, he found "a mishmash of various types of infrastructure that have developed over time." Not only did he find paths with different kinds of surfaces that weren't connected, he also found bike lanes where they "didn't need to be," like the one alongside a residential street with a 30 kph (19 mph) speed limit.  To be fair, he points out, the street was once a major road, so the bike lane may have made more sense.  But, as with any kind of infrastructure, it needs to be updated. 

Also, he found "car parking lots galore" in a city that is "warmly welcoming car drivers" and noticed that, like other cities that aren't particularly welcoming to cyclists, it's also difficult to reach and navigate via mass transit. (Though there is a bus terminal, the nearest rail station is 8 km--about 5 miles--from the center of the city.) Furthermore, the pedestrian route from the bus station to the center of town includes crossing a busy Provincial Road with no crosswalk or traffic lights. From there, pedestrians traverse a dark underpass and a car parking lot.

Americans (and people in some other countries) might dismiss Wagenbuur as "spoiled." After all, he is comparing conditions in Wageningen to those of his home city and others in the Netherlands.  But he has made a valid point:  Wageningen can, and should do better, even if its cycling conditions are better than those of most locales in the United States.

When It Was About Labor

 For many Americans, today—Labor Day—is the end of summer. Some are enjoying their last picnics, barbecues, trip to the beach or other warm-weather outdoor activities of the season. Still others are taking advantage of “sales”* in department stores and online venues.

But this day wasn’t always a day of rest, relaxation or revelry. The first Labor Day was observed in New York City on 5 September 1882–interestingly, the day after Thomas Edison flipped the switch that turned on New York City’s first electric street lights—and the “Times” sign in what would become the eponymous square (known, at that time, as Longacre).

The earliest Labor Days, in contrast to more recent ones, were serious, sometimes solemn and even feisty occasions. They highlighted the terrible conditions under which many laborers—who included women and immigrants—worked. 

Factory and business owners, understandably, used the technological advances of the Industrial Revolution to increase productivity—and profits. The more avaricious entrepreneurs also found opportunities to exploit workers. There was no minimum wage or overtime pay. Worse, there were no laws mandating safety or other standards in workplaces, and little if any recourse for injured or crippled workers.

The early Labor Days, therefore, were more likely to include rallies, protests and parades, like this one:

Unemployed workers, many of whom lost their jobs in the wake of the previous year’s stock market panic, descended on Washington for Labor Day 1894.

*—Too often, holiday sales are scams:  Prices are jacked up before the holidays and the discounts simply bring prices back to, or near, earlier levels.

It Takes All Kinds

 Five months ago, I moved into a senior apartment complex. (But I’m still in midlife, dammit! I don’t have a complex!😉) 

Some neighbors don’t know my name, but they know I’m “the lady who rides a bike.” A few know about the 105 mile ride I took last week. One thing they don’t know, however, is that it’s not the first “century” I’ve ever done.

Some of my neighbors use walkers or wheelchairs. So I guess it’s not surprising that they look at me with awe or envy, as if I’m an Olympic athlete.  I am sure that others, however, see me this way: