Our Favorite Machine
There are countries in Europe where the bicycle is so commonplace and utilitarian that it ranks alongside household appliances and farm equipment. Most bike riders in those countries no more consider themselves bicycle enthusiasts than the typical American in his SUV considers himself an automobile enthusiast. It’s hard to imagine that kind of ubiquity here in the U.S. where the bicycle mode share is still hovering at somewhere around one-half-of-one-percent nationwide, and where, a majority of bike riders consider themselves enthusiasts.
Yesterday, over at Bike Hugger, DL Byron made the excellent point that there still exists a major cultural divide between Europe and the U.S. in regards to the bicycle. As he put it, “We’ve got this misplaced vicarious belief system that we can become Copenhagen or Amsterdam while marketing dollars are spent on convincing you that one company’s carbon layup is better than another.”
The question is whether it’s possible, or even desirable, to change our way of thinking. Perhaps bicycle enthusiasts are actually our best evangelists. Perhaps, instead of trying to change the thinking of existing bicyclists, we need to employ riders from all of our enthusiast subcultures in the effort to get more people using bicycles for transportation.
As much as I’d love to see a mode share in the U.S. that rivals those of the great bicycling countries in Europe, I can’t help but feel something valuable would be lost if we turned the bicycle into a purely utilitarian tool like a garden spade or vacuum cleaner. I wonder if it’s possible to maintain our enthusiasm for bicycles and bicycling while mode shares grow into the double digits? It’s a question that won’t be answered anytime soon, but I, for one, hope that when (if?) the time comes, we don’t lose sight of the beauty and wonder of our favorite machine.
30 Responses to “Our Favorite Machine”
A similar comparison can be made in relation to Railway enthusiasts. In both the US and Europe the death of the steam locomotive was seen as the end of an era. The utilitarian diesel and electric locomotives did not have the same character and panache as their steam powered predecessors. Did this bring an end to the railway enthusiast ?. Of course it didn’t. In fact the railway “anoraks” as they are known in the UK are still as numerous as ever and with the privatisation of the railway network in the UK they are have been at the forefront of user groups protecting services and advocating increases in provision for items like bicycles.
David Renshaw (author of the Brompton bicycle book) is certainly a keen follower of the railway industry and may even possess an anorak.In his magazine “A to B” he has just completed a two part review of bicycle provision available on every class of locomotive operating in the UK.
What better example can there be of a bicycle/railway enthusiast helping and encouraging others to make better use of two modes of transport.
You can be an enthusiast and still ride your bike to work or shopping. Just because there are lots of cyclists in Europe that aren’t enthusiasts doesn’t stop those that are.
I don’t think we’ll lose the enthusiasts. If you look at cars in the US, you see that even though just about everyone drives one, and for most people they are essentially just an everyday tool, there is still a lot of enthusiasm for cars. It is stronger in some people than others, but almost everyone seems to feel some degree of romanticism for cars. This, I think, is one of the biggest obstacles that we face in trying to encourage people to use more ecologically sound methods of transportation.
I think Mikael at Copenhagenize has his tongue fairly firmly in his cheek when he compares bikes to vacuum cleaners. He’s posted enough drooling blogs about nice looking bikes to suggest there’s an enthusiast’s heart there. It’s just you don’t HAVE to be an enthusiast to ride in Copenhagen/Amsterdam. Even if you loathe bikes, you might use one because it’s the quickest way, the way Londoners both bemoan and use the tube (and deep down in their grimy little hearts, most Londoners secretly love the tube, however much they complain about it).
However, while I think enthusiasts have done a lot to keep cycling alive in the dark days of Anglo-saxon biking, they do need to recognise when they’re preventing the recovery from getting beyond the 5-10% of mode share that even the best town in the US or UK can achieve. There’s the determination to promote ‘vehicular cycling’ above any form of infrastructure. There’s the way walking into a bike shop can be like taking some sort of oral exam in jargon you don’t understand (and then people wonder why new cyclists get their bikes from supermarkets instead). There’s the constant commentary that implies you’re doing it wrong, you’re not a proper cyclist because your tyres are too flat, your seat is too low, your bike is too old/new/cheap/expensive and you’re wearing the wrong clothes.
I love cycling. I love my bike. But when I set out to buy it I didn’t even know the words to ask for the sort of bike I wanted. I was lucky to fall into the hands of people who were able to translate my incoherent requirements into the bike I had in mind but couldn’t describe. People like me need to be welcomed by the cycling enthusiasts not baffled by them. Sites like Ecovelo make enthusiasm look like a great force for the cycling good. But others make it look like a closed shop for the few people who are good enough to be allowed to call themselves a cyclist.
I have a plea to all you enthusiasts out there: next time you encounter an obviously new biker, bite back the desire to tell them what they’re doing wrong. Even if they’re pedalling with their knees around their ears and their tyre half flat and a rusty chain. Instead, give them all the encouragement you can to keep them doing what they’re doing right: cycling. They’ll figure out the rest of it on their own.
*steps off soapbox*
The percentage of the population that can be categorized as ‘enthusiast’ when it comes to bicycles is remarkably consistent across economically developed countries. I doubt that a transportation mode shift would have any effect on the enthusiast population.
Conversely, I doubt that enthusiasts will have much effect on increasing mode share in our country. The factors that could push mode share higher are likely increased infrastructure spending for dedicated bicycle facilities (no, bike lanes probably won’t do much on existing streets where auto use is high) and increasing costs for motorized travel.
The biggest cost for most people is time – as traffic gets worse in the urban core and bicycle facilities improve we can expect to see mode shift. In the suburbs, exurbs and rural areas change will come slowly or not at all. I’d like to promote transportation cycling in my area (which is ideal and ripe for this development), but we have to demonstrate safety *and* savings of one kind or another for most people to even consider hopping out of their cars. The road to Damascus is of course paved with good intentions – it won’t substantially change non-enthusiast behavior unless safety and savings are reasonable expectations.
I think there’s very little danger of the US becoming like Copenhagen or Amsterdam if for no other reason there are very few places in this country where the terrain makes the ubiquitous utilitarian single-speed or 3-speed bikes found in those cities practical. Urban/suburban sprawl and the fact it’s not easy to find places as flat as Amsterdam mean than bicycles intend for urban transport and carrying any loads have to have a reasonable range of gear development.
That’s going to mean that most cyclists will wind up on derailleur drive trains. They’re easier to maintain and repair, whether it’s the DIY wrench or the LBS. And that’s going to keep most of us on the kind of bikes that will qualify us as enthusiasts.
Indeed, to add to what Mark says, look at the way cars are marketed here. Ads routinely try to make the car, whatever it is, seem sexy, powerful, fun, etc. Even for very utilitarian vehicles, they may push some practical consideration like seating or cargo capacity, economy, safety, etc., there’s still some effort to push emotional buttons, making the car seem romantic, comfortable, or whatever. That’s how stuff gets sold. Nothing is just an object sold on its functionality.
You want Americans to like bikes? The _last_ thing you want to do is make them seem too dull and practical. Also, bike manufacturers need to give consumers a better choice of color schemes.
I posit/agree that generalizing about European “enthusiast” culture is a blind alley. I have friends in Europe who can’t imagine having our cars-only roadways, own bikes, and ride somewhere almost every day. Maybe they aren’t card-carrying members of the spandex mafia, but they sure seem enthusiastic about bikes! In areas where there is bicycle infrastructure, whether it be Beijing, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, or Mpls, people will buy bikes because it allows them to use that infrastructure. Just like the millions who own a car even though they don’t consider themselves automobile enthusiasts. I live in central Connecticut and we have very little in the way of bike lanes, and omnipresent suburb/commuter culture (highways full of single-occupant vehicles). What we do have is some very well built, well maintained, and well used rail-trail/greenway systems, and those systems sell a lot of bikes. I don’t think the people I see on those trails are enthusiasts (a hint was the guy riding and smoking who glared at me on the trail yesterday) but they do like getting outside and have taken things one level up from a brisk walk in terms of technology.
I think it’s worth utilitarianizing bikes if it helps end component fetishes.
@Sharper
“I think it’s worth utilitarianizing bikes if it helps end component fetishes.”
OK, I’ll take the bait. What’s wrong with component fetishes? :-)
“I think it’s worth utilitarianizing bikes if it helps end component fetishes.â€Â
Oh, you just stabbed me in my Nitto loving heart! Lol!
As a European cyclist (although not in one of the great cycling countries – although here in the UK we do have some great cycling cities – I am immensely jealous of the range and quality of cycling gear (bikes and accessories) that are available to you in the US as utilitarian cycling enthusiasts. We still lead the world wit the Brompton, but in every other area you have overtaken us, I’m sorry to say.
Without component fetishes, the enthusiast bike shop as we know it would cease to exist. I’m not saying that’s necessarily a bad thing, but it would put a lot of bike geeks out of a job..
I recently toured the California coast and, for the second time, rode through Marin County to San Francisco on a Saturday. The number of bikes on the road was astonishing–literally hundreds. Virtually ALL of these were fitness/sport riders out for a fast workout/fashion show. Nothing wrong with that, but I wondered how many use their bikes for practical purposes. I saw only a handful of bikes with racks.
In contrast, when I rode through Santa Cruz, mostly I observed utilitarian cyclists, and, to be honest, I was happier to see them. Somehow, we need to get beyond bikes as toys or bikes as the prerogative of the uber-fit, racing elites, which, I’m sure, is how all those Marin Saturday riders come across to the non-cycling public.
I think this transition will only really start to kick in when gas really gets expensive in the USA, like $8+ a gallon.
As an cyclist transplanted from America to Utrecht, here in the Netherlands (9 years ago), I was at first awed and impressed and inspired by the number of cyclists and bicycles in daily use here. However, in my time here, it has become clear that the percentage of bicycle ënthusiasts amongst the general population or amongst the cycling population is roughly the same as in many of the “bicycle friendly” cities in America. What is truly disheartening to me is to see the vast numbers of “utilitarian” bicycles literally rotting away in the public bicycle racks that are spread around the city. One could say that the dutch do not use bicycles for the love of bicycles or bicycling, but for the fact that it is their culture and habit to use them. (Much the same could be said for the use of the auto in America.) Also at play, is the fact that 99% of the Netherlands is reachable with only 3-speeds. The point I am trying to make is that when something, like a bicycle, becomes “normal, a habit. routine, every-day” that that does not translate into “a love of…” Here, we have “throw-away” bicycles and it does not take so very many throw-away bikes to make one wonder.
Bikes are like shoes. There are fancy ones, sporty ones, plain ones. Some people like to collect them, others just put them on to get from point A to point B. Still, there is nothing like a good pair of shoes, and there is nothing like a good bicycle.
You can survive without a bicycle. But you lose some of the pleasure of life, and you lose some of the practicality. You can even survive without shoes. There is a trend or fad now to run barefoot. Will there soon be a trend to show up to the office barefoot?
In some places, cars and pedestrians have to share the road, just like cars and bicycles have to here. It isn’t safe or enjoyable for pedestrians to walk in the road in those places. No one blames shoes for the problem though. As countries become more affluent, they solve the problem either by having everyone ride in cars and buses, or by creating separate paths for pedestrians or bicyclists to keep them away from the danger and unpleasantness of the automobile traffic.
But places like Copenhagen must have some faults. Judging by the pictures the streets are filled with stunning young women riding bikes. There must be some hidden drawback to the place, otherwise why are we all not living there?
I recently moved from a neighborhood that was perfect for utilitarian biking to one that is perfect for recreational biking. The old nabe featured narrow, twisty streets with shops relatively close to one another. The new features winding, wooded roads with not much along the way. What I’ve noticed is that there are roles for bicyclists to play in each. While I’m not part of the Lycra crowd, I’ve been very impressed in my new environs with the numbers of them that I see on the roads and, recently, with the way they’re actually making an effort to stop at stop signs and lights and signal their intentions. These riders pave the way for the rest of us. They get drivers used to the idea of sharing the road with bikes. That is absolutely key to improving the lot of bike riders of all stripes.
The other thing I notice is how many non-Lycra riders will take to the sidewalks. Yes, I know – sidewalks are for pedestrians, but these people don’t know that. What they do know is that they feel safer on a sidewalk than on the road. That tells me two things – it makes the case for separated bike lanes, and we still have a long way to go to mainstream bike riding.
If I may add one more analogy, the U.S. is a nation of Budweiser drinkers, but it is also a world leader in high quality craft beers. It’s not an either/or situation.
I don’t know if I really consider myself a bicycle enthusiast or not but I really enjoy using my bike to get to where I want to go. I starting bike commuting somewhat reluctantly as a response to the extreme high cost of living in Flagstaff, Arizona and near $4 gas a few years back. I really had to be convinced bike commuting was do-able and hit sites like Copenhagen Cycle Chic and Girls and Bicycles for inspiration. Paul Dorn’s site helped me with the how-tos.
At this point I’d welcome the US adopting more of the European attitude and commitment to getting people out of cars. I truly believe the only way to do it is to make bike commuting and use of public transit easier and using a car harder and more expensive. I’m not opposed to car ownership, but I don’t want to HAVE to own one because it’s simple a money pit. My bike costs me little other than the initial purchase price. A tune up is rarely more than $50. This I can manage.
Everyday I read about the economic crisis but when I try and bring up solutions used by other countries the response is often “but this is Flagstaff, people will never do that here”. What a cop-out. American culture has to get beyond the same old “we’ve never done that . . . . but this is American not Copenhagen” mentality if we are ever going to solve problems like increasing alternative transportation or bringing about greater economic equity. So many city councils pay lip service to those sustainability goals but from what I can see, very few really don’t follow up with meaningful action and their citizens don’t demand it.
I toured the bicycle section of Cosco today. Most were cruisers, some were mountain bikes, but a growing percentage of their for-sale bikes were comfort bikes. These are geometry wise similar to the Dutch city bikes and what I call an American city bikes. It looks like the consumer sees the value of a good, solid, and comfortable all round bicycle.
I think the gentrification of the American population will see that walking and cycling are the best way to keep the old body and mind in shape and hopefully show the way to the up and coming generations that team sports have severe limitations as a lifetime health strategy. The main argument for cycling in my opinion is that inserting a bicycle into your everyday routine has benefits well beyond the obvious for yourself, family, and community.
Alan,
Not really on topic, but does rivendell have any stats on how many sam hillbornes they’ve sold b/c of completely sexy pictures like the one at the top of this article?
Just curious.
:)
-sv
It helps not to get too attached to you bike if it’s bound to get stolen at some point, as they seem to be in Amsterdam etc.
“Not really on topic, but does rivendell have any stats on how many sam hillbornes they’ve sold b/c of completely sexy pictures like the one at the top of this article?”
At least one! :-)
Pete,
Everytime I see one of Alan’s pictures of the hillborne the thing that goes through my head is “hmm, if I put a hook up over there I could get another bike in here….”
I love riv’s bikes, but Alan’s pictures really make them look even sexier than they are.
@Seth
“Not really on topic, but does rivendell have any stats on how many sam hillbornes they’ve sold b/c of completely sexy pictures like the one at the top of this article?”
I know a few people personally who purchased Sam Hillbornes this past year. I can’t necessarily take full credit for their purchases, but I like to think I had at least a little influence. :-) To answer your question, as far as I know, Riv hasn’t kept a formal tally.
Regards,
Alan
I recently visited Yosemite National Park. There were more bikes than cars in the valley. They ranged from roadies to mountain bikes but cruisers were the most common type. Maybe this could tell us something about bike use in the USA.
Distance were short, the routs mostly flat, speed limits low, most people were not in a hurry and in a good mood, etc.
@MohjhoRyde:
Not really on topic, but so-called “comfort” bikes are very different in geometry from Dutch bikes, and frankly suck. More info here:
http://clevercycles.com/2007/06/26/dutchness/
I just want to see cyclists outnumber car drivers. I don’t care how enthusiastic they are.
@Alan: There’s nothing inherently wrong with component fetishes, but when I’ve seen the fetish expressed around new cyclists or those considering a switch to the bicycle, it’s often seemed counterproductive to getting that person out on a bike.
Inundating newbs with model names that would make their bikes more theftworthy, more finicky about maintenance, and potentially less useful for their expected riding isn’t helpful. For most riders, a bike’s value is found in what it does for the rider, not how it’s built.
Admittedly, I see a very interesting cross section of interacting bicyclists, so it’s likely I’m just seeing an odd mixture of the race/performance crowd (where components certainly matter) and the utility/transportation crowd. Part of it, too, is personal sensitivity towards the fetish: other riders telling me what my bike “needs” are more annoying than bad drivers.
It’s not that the bicycle-as-fetish is inherently bad all by itself.
But nothing exists in a vacuum.
It’s that the bicycle-as-fetish simply helps to reinforce the classism that a purely capitalistic economy depends upon for, frankly, its relevance — and therefore its survival.
By deemphasizing love of specific objects, we take away some of the time required to work for MORE than one’s living. Look at how many hours a week the average Dane works, for example; and how many hours a week the average (fully-employed) American works. Denmark has some clear socialist values in its economy and social structure, and I think that this helps to democratize bicyclists AND deemphasize the fetishistic aspects of bike ownership.
If all of us only had to work as many hours as we needed to take care of our basic needs, almost no one would have to work 40 hours a week anymore; and we’d all have more time to care for our children and elders, make love, sing, grow our own vegetables, cook food at home — and ride our bikes more.