Sunday 7 December 2014

The day of rack-oning: is your city bike friendly?

Hey... hello! 

How have you  been? I've been looking for the breast rack. No, I am not drunk, though I am into my cups. Bike Snob has mentioned David Byrne's pretentious racks a couple of times, but anyone who appreciates the intimate link between function and form will likely find them irritating


Have you ever noticed how beautiful a round rack is? I'm quite partial to a nice full set, personally, and judging from the chatter you find all over the interwebs, I am most definitely not alone in that regard.


So I've been racking my brain for some time now, trying to think of a way to make bicycles more mainstream. If you lived in Vancouver, and you heard people talking about bike lanes


you could almost believe that cyclists are finally making some headway, but paint on the roads can be deceiving. Plenty of people are in a real fuhrer over the whole thing. 



You might fool yourself into thinking that society as a whole has come to accept us, but you'd be lulling yourself into a false sense of security. Car is still king, and cyclists are still an anomaly, still just one election away from a "Give the streets back to the cars" Robba the Fordian transportation policy. Even so. It is important to celebrate success as it happens, and in this town, those of us who choose to travel on two wheels are making a small inroads.

You can tell by the cute little lanes on the roads set aside for cyclists which drivers tend to ignore at will.


and by the stenciled bicycles (and unicycles!) in those lanes, telling the sometimes illiterate drivers just who the itty bitty lanes are actually meant for.


Just as a home reflects its inhabitants, so does a city reflect its citizens, and if you take a tour around Vancouver, you'll see a growing if oft resented reflection of a city with a commitment to a two-wheeled way of life. People who know me well know I totally buy the Hermetic Creed:  As above, so below, as within, so without. And so it is that any city with a determined population of cyclists will eventually show signs and symptoms of that way of life. These days, many of the office towers downtown have bike parking in the underground garages, and above ground you'll find a few creative places to leave your bicycle, too.


Not everywhere, of course. Most of the racks in town are standard fare, but every so often someone plays with a sense of humour or creativity,



or experiments with scale. And as with everything else, often the simplest solutions are the most effective, beautiful, and elegant.


And sometimes they play with simplicity itself, though as ever and always, without function, even an elegant form loses its appeal.



The arts are a litmus paper; taken together they indicate a society's state of mind.  And while music, sculpture, and painting are the most obvious outlets for the creative human spirit, artistic expression is all around us- it's in everything we do, from a sense of style in fashion and a gift for creating fine food food to an appreciation of a gorgeous garden path or even an exquisite turn of phrase.

Alex Colville - Cyclist and Crow
Remember what that clever cookie Keats taught us, that beauty is truth.  Just as form and function are married, so to are art and architecture. In my simple mind, the pinnacle of human achievement is when function, form, art and architecture converge, and that's what makes the bicycle so incredibly beautiful. And so any city which openly embraces bike culture expresses the epitome of civilization.


And that's the naked truth

14 comments:

  1. You certainly have a way with words :)
    Now I look back, we have a lot more cycle "stuff" here than when I first started riding around about 30 years ago... crikey !! It's hard when you type that sort of stuff.. 30 years and I'm still measuring my awesomeness by how far I can wheelie up hills without falling on my arse.
    We also have more cars.. heaps more cars.
    And moving into summer, we also have a lot of nice racks to admire.
    I always keep my lock handy, just in case.

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    1. Lol! You've gotta love a nice rack, right?
      Thank you, Harry. Very kind of you... :) XX
      And don't I know it. Funny how multiple decades can fly by, and though the body makes obvious the passage of time, inside feels just like it did when you were a kid. I probably stopped maturing sometime in my teen years, cause I still feel nineteen!

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  2. il Pirata est Mort8 December 2014 at 06:47

    Was it Marting Luther King who said to the effect "The measure of a society is taken by the character of its women"?

    If taken by the treatment of its cyclists; my hope for the NYC Metro area is dim at best.

    Regardless, ride under the radar and br nourished from the pedals up.

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    1. It's always the way, isn't it? We have had a system of heavy rain and strong winds all week long, and even so, when I get into work I feel better for having pedaled my way there.

      Re: the treatment of cyclists ... it's funny, cause even though we have all of the acoutrements, there are an awful lot of drivers here who take real offence at my presence on the roads. Vancouver police are a LOT cooler than their bretheren in blue in NCY, however. Blessed be. :)

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  3. I thought I clicked on Spokane Scene...I wanted everybody to know my band is playing at Ernie's saturday

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    1. Now that's an event I would have dearly loved to see. How was it? Got pictures? Do you live in Washington State? We used to go to Spokane regularly when I was a little kid growing up in Bow Island, down south in Alberta. To my young, hick self, it was the great big city from whence the best cable tv came!

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  4. Babs, I have mixed feeling about "bike racks". Yes, it's nice to be able to temporarily secure the bike while relaxing in a coffee cafe for a hot chocolate. (Even then, using the "eye-lock" is highly recommended!) But what about seeing a movie? Or disappearing into a large store for a time? Leave a "decent" bike locked to a "rack" for a time? I think not! When, oh when, will there be long-term, secure accommodations for bicycles in commercial venues? Making transportation by bike practical?

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    1. +1! Bike snob reckons the solution is to ride a bike you're prepared to lose, but I always come to love my bikes. I'll really grieve if/when someone finally pinches the 1980s MTB I bought from a garage sale and did up (My "SUV"). And riding a genuinely crappy bike is definitely not as much fun, however much the same guy might claim it's about the ride, not the bike. It's a dilemma!

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    2. Me, too! I get attached to any bike I've owned a while, cause they all bring me such joy.

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    3. Old-Timer - I hear you loud and clear. I only leave the Electra outside, and it has remained unmolested, largely due to the fact that it's not the best accessorie for your typical crack-head.

      I never leave my road bike locked up if I need to disappear inside for a while. In fact, I am always stunned and amazed at the guys I ride with who easily just deposit their ten and fifteen thousand dollar race bikes outside a coffee shop, whilst they all go inside to have a drink! It makes me so nervous leaving my happy place unattended like that, eye-lock or not... :S

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  5. Did anyone find the breast rack?

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    1. Certainly not here!! If they did, they were prolly enjoying the sunshine down there in Australia, or Hawaii or something. If you do find it, please take photos and share share, sugar bear!

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  6. I love that shot of you in your red coat next to the yellow rack. Great composition.

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    1. Thanks, David. I am exceptionally lucky to have such a great photographer at hand. :)

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