Pedal one, Pedal All

Although many people across the globe depend on a bicycle, and may even identify themselves by the style or type of bicycle they choose to ride, the bicycle is not a god, a deity, or some holy item.

It won’t deliver your baby, make stock picks for you, or hit a grand slam at the bottom of the ninth. At it’s most basic level, there’s only one thing a bicycle can do: transport you. You’d think that given this one fundamental quality there might be some similarity to bicycle cultures and lifestyles across the world. And although there is a kernel of connection between these cycling cultures, there is also a wide rift between them.

The bicycle in America is often seen as an accessory. It seems so many are occupied with what kind of bicycle they are riding: fixie, carbon, mountain, hybrid, track, etc, with what kind of clothing they wear: lycra, wool, short shorts, etc, that it all makes the bicycle out to be way more than what it is, and distracts from that simple point. The bicycle becomes something to spend thousands of dollars on, its something used to create separate groups (an us vs them mentality), it’s appropriated by other groups to discredit bicycling as a whole, as extremism, as a political statement and action every crank. The bicycle can be all these things, but at the expense often of what the bicycle really is at heart: a way to transport you.

In Europe, they too have bike cultures, clothing, expensive modifications to buy and tweak. However, they also have in the heart of many of their cities and communities respect for what the bicycle does. It’s easy to point to somewhere like The Netherlands and show what the pinnacle of bicycling can be. There, no matter what type of bike, no matter what kind of clothing, you are a bicyclist. The system is made for you, the signs are made for you, the traffic lights, the lanes. There is an understanding that regardless of the looks, those two wheels are simply trying to transport you. Other places across Europe, while often not as bicycle friendly as the Netherlands, work hard to recognize the bicycle as a bicycle, and not as a protest, as a fringe, as a Sunday afternoon recreation.

And then there are others who don’t even have the luxury of knowing the bicycle can be anything beyond what it is. Across Africa many use bicycles to travel to schools miles away, as makeshift ambulances to take villagers to hospitals miles away when no other type of transport is available. In China and Japan elderly zig zag across the sidewalks due to the denseness of these countries.

The bicycle is an amazing machine that can more efficiently transport you than anything else. It can also be dressed up, scaled down, welded, lifted in anger and protest, left under billowing snow falls, it can be your escape on a weekend, it can be your way of making a living, it can mean the difference between life and death. The bicycle can transport us not only to distant destinations, but beyond.