Kunstler part II

Following up on yesterday's post, my friend Mike sent me this video of James Howard Kunstler's TED talk from 2004. If you don't know Kunstler it's a great intro. If you're already a fan, you'll remember why. A few brilliant laugh out loud lines, woven into his trademark deconstruction of the American Way. At least, our Way of building places and spaces over the last few generations.

What do his urbanism concepts have to do with bikes? I'd argue 'everything'. Bicycling goes hand in hand with the holistic world we create, or more precisely, the world we choose to live in. The world of, say, the pre-1960s naturally gave birth to a cycling mindset that today we might refer to as citizen cycling but then was just cycling.

Today, what North Americans typically think of as normal biking - faster, longer distances, hunched over, often with recreation or sport in mind, wearing specialized clothing and gear - was born of our very different world. People live farther apart, farther from work, in a more fractured and sprawling physical landscape, with time only on the weekends to ride for exercise or sport.

I always say biking is not just about bikes. In fact I actually don't care much about bikes themselves or biking per se as most people think of it these days. I care about cities, and the quality of life that a well-designed built landscape creates. A humane landscape that, incidentally, not only allows for more civilized biking but encourages it. Bikes, like birds or butterflies or good cafes or people walking around in a relaxed way, are a result, a symptom - when you see more bikes around, and people look happy, not grim, riding them, it means your city or town is doing many things right in creating a vibrant and harmonious human environment.

I happen to believe that a massive increase in biking - meaning getting non-bikers to consider getting on a bike - would cure a lot of what ails us. I think promoting the citizen cycling model is a good way to do that.

Better biking > better cities. Better cities > better biking (Copenhagen has a lot of bikes because it's a great city, and is a great city, in part, because it has a lot of bikes).

And no one is more about better cities than James Kunstler.

Aveiro dreaming

Saw this on Copenhagenize, it's just a beautiful, dream-like little film showing bicycling in Aveiro, Portugal.

18th St and Columbia Rd

Yes, another Adams Morgan picture. There's that curved building again in the background. What can I say, I pass that way a lot, and it usually has decent bike traffic, a CaBi station, cool cafes... The area just has a certain gravitational pull. I used to live around there and it still feels like the center of my DC universe.

18th Street

Pierce Park

If you're heading into Adams Morgan from Calvert Street Bridge, there are perfectly fine bike lanes on Calvert Street. But the walkways through Walter Pierce Park* make for a decent protected cycletrack as well. Call it the scenic route.

(*Or as my daughter calls it, 'Shady Park', since the tree canopy in the playground area makes it great on hot days.)

I should also mention, since it's hard to tell, this pair looked trés chic.

Sense, us

No mention of biking directly in this report on new census data, but seems the patterns and reasons for the recent upswing in DC transit use mirror those that can lead to the choice of a bicycle as well.

More D.C. area commuters leaving the driving to others

[It reflects] the influx of younger residents who refuse to spend long hours in the car. Many of those in their 20s and 30s have chosen to live in vibrant neighborhoods along bus, Metro and rail lines, even if it means sacrificing the suburban amenities of their childhoods.

"They came of age in an environment of urbane media influences, watching 'Friends' and 'Seinfeld,' not 'Leave It to Beaver...' "

full article

A hopefully rare post about helmets

You may have noticed I didn't point out in the previous post that the woman isn't wearing a helmet. First of all, it's obvious and speaks for itself.

Second, I don't want to be the guy saying 'see, don't wear a helmet'. I do want to be the guy saying 'make choices based on adult powers of risk assessment'.

Third, I don't want to talk much about helmets on this blog, because then the same arguments go around and around. It's boring and no one convinces anyone of anything.

With that said, ok, this is more good and sensible ammo for the next time someone says, 'hey, where's your helmet'?

If you don’t like wearing a bike helmet, you might like to read this

Why does the perception of bicycle safety seem to differ so much with the reality? One reason is this notion that you have to be wearing ’safety gear’ (aka ‘danger gear’ – helmets, fluoro) which any normal person looks at and thinks… “Gee, that MUST be dangerous. I wouldn’t want my husband/wife/child/mother/father doing that. You must be so brave… etc etc”.

I cycle over 5000km per year for commuting and every other trip I would normally take a car for. I haven’t ‘fallen off’ since I was 10 years old. I don’t wear a helmet for 99% of these trips. I’d like to not have to break the law.

full article

Parking ups and downs

Bike parking has proliferated across the city in the last few years. But of course, bikes often end up lashed to any available pole. Like a dog waiting for its owner, or a horse in front of the saloon. But hey, that's one of the real beauties of urban biking, parking right in front of where you're going.

Usually it works perfectly fine.

Sometimes it's slightly awkward, like when dealing with a low parking meter.

And sometimes you come back and your bike is in an undignified heap, all akimbo. That sucks.

Art and a touch of nostalgia

So, Saturday being bike-day whenever possible (meaning bike around the city and do stuff, see people, as opposed to the weekday commute), with babysitter meter running I did manage to squeeze in a short outing yesterday in the pale afternoon.

From home in Petworth, first stopped by the arts fair at Domku cafe. This year it was outside on the sidewalk for the first time.

Ran into a few neighbors, including George.

Passing through Columbia Heights, a girl going by said to her friend, 'I LIKE that bike!' Down 14th Street to Transformer gallery on P Street, to drop in on old friend Jay Stuckey, in from LA for his touring exhibit 'Alptraum'.

Coming home via Adams Morgan, I stopped for some reason in front of the old Ontario Theater, where a number of amazing bands played through the 80s and early 90s (Gang of Four, The Clash, David Bowie's Tin Machine...). The 'hood was pretty rough at that time. Then the Ontario was partitioned into a few retail spaces, mainly you'd go there when you needed a cheap suitcase, or a prescription filled. Now it's shuttered, but at least the pharmacy moved out and down the street, so I wonder if the entire building could be used again for something noble.

Bloomingdale representing

Today's City Zen Cyclist is Coburn Dukehart, pausing on her way to yoga on a cold morning.

(Ok that's a classic photojournalistic white-lie caption, it's posed of course. 'Pausing' because I said hi Coburn, thanks for meeting, this will just take a second, stand there please, click-click, done…)

Coburn bike commutes from home in the Bloomingdale 'hood to her job not far away at NPR, where she's the (first-ever) Photo Editor at NPR.org. She says she sticks to side streets, wearing normal clothes, even skirts as she proudly pointed out. Nice example of structuring your life so such urban citizen-cycling is possible.

Happy bike-day

Sometimes you have a good bike-day.

My Electra was in the shop, so this morning I CaBi'd from Petworth to Bloomingdale for a quick photo shoot. Stopped off at Big Bear Cafe for a coffee (man, the place was packed on a Saturday morning). Then CaBi'd from there to The Bike Rack at 14th and Q (100 percent on the R Street bike lane) to pick up my bike. Ran into one of my neighbors who was thinking about a new bike. I, true to recent form, gave her the upright/slow/normal clothes spiel. I know, I'm probably getting annoying.

Moseyed over to Dupont Circle to look for citizen-cycling pics. Didn't find much going on photo-wise, but did put a few of my Moo calling cards on any parked bikes that looked like candidates for the Chainguard Revolution. In a nice little moment of karma, my friend Eric sent me this cool video that was sort of apropos to the bike-day I was having. Watched it on my phone before heading up to Adams Morgan (first real hill of the day) did a few errands, warmed my hands up in a few places.

Grabbed lunch from one of the Latino vendors who set up on weekends in the little plaza outside City Bikes. Really great Puerto Rican pork and a garlicky plantain dish I can't remember the name of. The nice guy who sold it to me sat down while I was eating it and explained all the inside tricks he uses to make it.

There I met Eryn and Patrick, around the time I was taking this picture of the plaza scene:

They asked me about my bike because she was shopping for an upright bike and had been eyeing the Electras online. She actually had heard of District Citizen Cycling! ("wow, that's you?!") Very cool, first time that's happened. Further up the street, here's Eryn and Patrick taking out the last available CaBis at the 16th and Columbia station:

Riding home, dropped in for the tail end of the bike clinic behind Qualia Coffee on Georgia Avenue, where I finally made some decent photos that helped redeem the day a bit in that regard (see previous post):

Kind of cold out there, and the wind had some bite, but plenty sunny. Nice DC early winter day. Just the kind of bike-day that puts you in touch with the city in a way that driving and walking don't. Walking's great, but biking you're flowing like water through the streets, covering ground quickly while absorbing your changing surroundings, finding a kind of rhythm, feeling DC's great neighborhoods and how they connect. City zen!

Reason to bike #437

I think it's safe to say drivers don't have as much fun at stoplights.

photos © Bill Crandall

Columbia Rd and 16th St

There's got to be a better way.

photo © Bill Crandall