Slow Riding
People at work always seem surprised when I roll up on my antique bike, especially considering its steel frame and various attachments designed to add carrying capacity rather than speed or ease.
Don't you live ten miles away? They ask. How long does that take?
About an hour, I reply. An hour and fifteen, really, but I don't want to scare them.
Why would you take that when the bullet lets off a block away? You could be here in five minutes. They shake their heads.
I can't be the only antique bike commuter they've heard of. I've seen several others, and each time we exchange elated grins at the stoplight or across the intersection, acknowledging what feels like a shared secret. The wisdom of the ancients in inventing the wheel reached a certain peak with the bicycle, despite its near obsolescence at this point. But history cycles, too, and I know the bike's appeal will continue to wax and wane through the ages. I only happen to be an off-peak diehard.
I enjoy it, I say, adding something about fresh air and endurance, the ability to forgo a gym membership.
The conversation usually ends after one or two more questions regarding my tolerance for arriving sweaty, waking early, etc., at which point they give up on me. Those who aren't skeptical look envious or wistful. I try to encourage them--what's stopping you?
The truth is, I do put up with a few inconveniences. Being banned from the driverless lanes, for one thing, means I add at least two miles to my trip. But I make the best of it by going through the prettiest park on the West side. Two swans live there now.
Then there's the problem of weather, especially the hard heat waves. It can be a hassle, but I try to leave before sunrise those days, and if I stay under the levitated bullet path, a wicked wind whips by every four minutes and evaporates my sweat enough to make it.
The rest are minor issues, and the benefits far outweigh them all.
Bikes are simple machines, with easy-to-find parts that haven't changed much in hundreds of years. Even the latest iterations are just about materials and computers, not wheels and gears. The solitude of a ride is mentally cleansing while the physical benefits are obvious. Most importantly, each day I get to check in with a slice of the city intimately, unmediated by a device recording, pinging information, or otherwise distracting from the tasks at hand: pedal, observe. It's just me and the moment, dawn on the ripples of puddles and a single morning glory opening at the top of a trellis, the yeasty smell of the bakery chasing me over the bridge and the spectacular tangerine reflections off the array of blades on the wind farm that appear like a flash of the divine every half hour with the rocket launch.
In the bullet or a car, even on a modern bike with all its performance-enhancing accoutrements, I miss all of this. But I don't begrudge those who take them, or their choice to do so without noticing as much as possible. It's better to delve into the oblivion of distraction while commuting. Once the outside world has become known to you in the way of slow riding, its reduction to a blur, a homogeneous smudge of exterior, extraneous data, is no longer acceptable. Worse, it's abhorrent. Intolerable.
And so I bike, my wistfulness coming at the dismount, my envy for the creatures that stay outside.
Don't you live ten miles away? They ask. How long does that take?
About an hour, I reply. An hour and fifteen, really, but I don't want to scare them.
Why would you take that when the bullet lets off a block away? You could be here in five minutes. They shake their heads.
I can't be the only antique bike commuter they've heard of. I've seen several others, and each time we exchange elated grins at the stoplight or across the intersection, acknowledging what feels like a shared secret. The wisdom of the ancients in inventing the wheel reached a certain peak with the bicycle, despite its near obsolescence at this point. But history cycles, too, and I know the bike's appeal will continue to wax and wane through the ages. I only happen to be an off-peak diehard.
I enjoy it, I say, adding something about fresh air and endurance, the ability to forgo a gym membership.
The conversation usually ends after one or two more questions regarding my tolerance for arriving sweaty, waking early, etc., at which point they give up on me. Those who aren't skeptical look envious or wistful. I try to encourage them--what's stopping you?
The truth is, I do put up with a few inconveniences. Being banned from the driverless lanes, for one thing, means I add at least two miles to my trip. But I make the best of it by going through the prettiest park on the West side. Two swans live there now.
Then there's the problem of weather, especially the hard heat waves. It can be a hassle, but I try to leave before sunrise those days, and if I stay under the levitated bullet path, a wicked wind whips by every four minutes and evaporates my sweat enough to make it.
The rest are minor issues, and the benefits far outweigh them all.
Bikes are simple machines, with easy-to-find parts that haven't changed much in hundreds of years. Even the latest iterations are just about materials and computers, not wheels and gears. The solitude of a ride is mentally cleansing while the physical benefits are obvious. Most importantly, each day I get to check in with a slice of the city intimately, unmediated by a device recording, pinging information, or otherwise distracting from the tasks at hand: pedal, observe. It's just me and the moment, dawn on the ripples of puddles and a single morning glory opening at the top of a trellis, the yeasty smell of the bakery chasing me over the bridge and the spectacular tangerine reflections off the array of blades on the wind farm that appear like a flash of the divine every half hour with the rocket launch.
In the bullet or a car, even on a modern bike with all its performance-enhancing accoutrements, I miss all of this. But I don't begrudge those who take them, or their choice to do so without noticing as much as possible. It's better to delve into the oblivion of distraction while commuting. Once the outside world has become known to you in the way of slow riding, its reduction to a blur, a homogeneous smudge of exterior, extraneous data, is no longer acceptable. Worse, it's abhorrent. Intolerable.
And so I bike, my wistfulness coming at the dismount, my envy for the creatures that stay outside.
Amy Dusto writes many things, both real and imagined. Her creative work has appeared or is forthcoming in 365 Tomorrows, Silver Blade Magazine, The Last Word On Nothing, Dream Pop, and the Fabula Press Aestas 2021 Anthology.