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.