Happy US Independence Day!
I hope that this isn't the last year we'll be able to use the word "independence" in reference to this day. With the Orange One in the Oval Office, I have to wonder just how independent we'll be next year. Or whether we'll be here at all.
On a lighter note: Oliver Stone made a film about me. Really! At least, the title applies to me.
I am thankful that I could come to the convictions I share with Ron Kovic without having to come to them the way he did.
Next Fourth is a round-number birthday for me. And the Mercian Vincitore Special I've ordered is the gift I plan to give myself--and ride!
We're white. We're male. After our training rides in the park, we wheel our flashy carbon-fiber machines under canopies of luxury condo buildings.
We're male, too. But we're brown and black. We pedal dilapidated-looking-bikes--or bikes that we're not supposed to be able to afford because, well... We don't speak English well, or at all. We're probably undocumented, to boot,
We are also male--and could be white, brown or black--but we're not likely to be yellow. We are riding bikes because...we can't afford to drive. Or we can't drive because we've lost our licenses, or couldn't get them in the first place.
The Rev. Laura Everett describes each of these stereotypes about cyclists in her Daily Beast editorial, "We Need To Ditch All The Old Cliches About Cyclists." She makes a very good case against each of those cariactures, using data (e.g., that the majority of cyclists are indeed poor, but don't necessarily fit into the second and third stereotypes) from various studies I have mentioned in some of my earlier posts.
She also makes a very interesting point: During the two previous "golden ages" of cycling in the US--1890-1910 and the 1970s--cycling was seen as a pastime of the leisured class. And, once it lost that status, cycling fell into a steep decline. The first "boom" ended when automobiles became affordable to average working people. (Interestingly, during the 1890s, a bicycle cost what an average worker earned in year!) The second declined with a deep recession fueled by a spike in petrol prices and suffered its death blow when the election of Ronald Reagan ended the first major environmental movements in the US.
She sees that we are in a third "golden age" of cycling. In order to sustain it, she says, all of the stereotypes have to be shattered. Cycling will never become mainstream if it is not seen, by planners and the general public alike, as a vital link in the transportation system. That, in turn, will not happen if cycling is seen only as a leisuretime activity of the privileged or as the "last resort" of the poor, nonwhite or criminal classes.
For her part, Rev. Everett says she began cycle-commuting because she was a poor recent graduate who was just starting her career. Seven years later, she continues to ride because, as she says, it really is the best transportation option for her--and because she enjoys it.
To me, she sounds like the kind of cyclist the public needs to know more about if cycling is to become mainstream And, I must add: She's a woman. Thus, she can't help but to break the stereotype. I like to believe that I am, too.
For as long as there have been bicycles, artists have been riding them. Of course, at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th Century, bicycle riding was pretty much de rigeur. But even after automobiles changed the landscapes of much of the world, artists continued to pedal. Many have ridden, and still ride, for transportation, as many live in cities where it's the most practical way to go. But others have also ridden as part of their creative process, or simply for fun.
Then there are those artists who were inspired by the machine itself:
