Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Single Speed #3 - 10 bicycles.

The average Davisite owns 2.1 bicycles. This average is pushed up because of bike ministers like myself who own too many bikes than appear logical. I own at all times at least ten bicycles, and have at times owned 35 or more. While I could pool my money in one or two bicycles, what’s the fun in that? Please let me proceed to defend my decadence and offer a primer on vehicle purpose: Each of my ten bicycles are necessary and are for specific activities in a low-automobile lifestyle.

Betraying my own eccentricity, each bike I own is named after ex-girlfriends of mine and while this is inescapably one of my most misogynistic behaviors, it provides me with invaluable function: limiting unnecessary further purchases and reminding me not to make the same mistake twice. Naming of a bicycle is a slow process for an informal bike-vendor. I had generally had between 15-25 bikes chain-locked around my former dome, of various sizes and values, available for the right price. However, certain ones grew on me and I began to refuse reasonable offers; I was smitten. Unlike girlfriends, you can have as many bikes as you want, and they never get jealous, vindictive, or stale.

Most of my bicycles and former girlfriends are international and are from the mid 1980s. My two Miyata bicycles are named after my two most serious former partners, both multi-year relationships from my days in Riverside. There is Xing (1-XX), my Miyata 912 bicycle, a racing bicycle that refuses to compromise, and Shelly (2-SV), my Miyata 610, a touring bicycle built for carrying the world’s weight. These two women were both Triple Ms - medically-inclined model minority, but could not be more different in practice, i.e. Amy Tan meets Jhumpa Lahiri and viral eradication verses holistic medicine. These red and silver bikes capture this same duality, appearing identical to the untrained eye. The difference is their approach: my 912 is about fleeing commitment, while the 610 carries a ton of baggage. I currently use the 912 to bike to work in Sacramento, and the 610 for shopping and beer runs in Davis.

Cynthia, my night bicycle, was sold and I’m looking for a replacement. This bike was a silver Peugeot Triathlon, and operated only by the light of the moon and SUVs. Anne-Marie (3-AMS), another Peugeot Triathlon is a bright-red untarnished racer, which spent 20 years dust-collecting inside. Anne-Marie and I never really were partners, (nor did I use this bike much, with exception of the 2009 Picnic Day parade) but are forever linked, as my own vanity prevented me from taking this beautiful and differently-abled woman to high school prom. I will live with knowing how selfish a decision this was. In the same way, this gorgeous bike hangs in my room and is a reminder about vanity and how it prevents you from living life and giving to the fullest.

Stephanie (4-SM) is my Bridgestone MB-1, a dented, unremarkable looking bike. This high-end mountain bike I use for Bike Polo. It’s hefty, quick and vicious, just like it’s namesake, captain of the junior-high volleyball team. Xiaoyan (5-XY), my purple Cannondale T700, is a prissy aluminum bike which I use for laundry and as a backup commuter, a bike that likes to follow rules and not get dirty. This is the only bike I own that came from the Bike Collective, and the frame was a deal at $40. Susana (6-SA), my Raleigh Technium fixed gear reminds me not to coast through life. I ride this red, gold, and yellow limo to special events. Catherine (7-CC), my Specialized Stumpjumper is a great mountain bike that has little affection for Davis flatland. There are also my tandem and folding bicycle pair (8,9,10) - these quirky bikes will get their own article. These bikes I use with the love (and non-cyclista) of my life, Amy.

Are you letting satisfaction with your current bike prevent you from buying another bike? Foolish! No quantity of bikes is too great! No quantity of bikes costs all that much either. My fleet of ten used bicycles does combine to cost half of what a new bike costs downtown, (or one month’s car payment) which gives me great pride. More than pride, the functionality of owning more than one bike is proven when you have a bike is flat or stolen. In terms of embodied energy, which is the amount of energy it took to make it, I’d need 45 new bicycles just to be equal a Toyota Prius, according to iBikeToronto, and that’s not factoring in gasoline. I’d much rather have 45 bikes.

Monday, April 11, 2011

Single Speed #2 Midnight Ride.

After nearly 7 plus years of being an engineering student, I was no stranger to long nights at a campus computer. Nights then and now still drag on, until I earn my sweet reward: a bicycle trip home. Midnight biking to me is a celebration of ritual, something that must be done everyday and somehow becomes sacred, a time to myself in a world full of conversation & communication. As I was writing my thesis, I remember nights of returning home at 3 am to 14 quiet frozen domes, my schedule creating almost a different world for me. For every change I make in my life, I’ll still have this night time commute: pure, dark, and a contest with only one entrant.

When I attended UC Riverside, where I rode a bicycle despite heavy counterculture, riding home alone at midnight or later was my meditation. I would enter this seance with motion, and travel through an emptied, litterblown campus to my apartment. There was a quiet beauty to Riverside during the night (This might be because the majority of the students commute and don’t live near Riverside). If you aren’t familiar, Riverside is one of those regions of California with 1 month of winter and 11 months of Arrakeen heat, which make those midnight rides through an urban heat island quite pleasant.

Davis is not so kind: Now it’s just me, the rain my cold handle bars, my soaking wet gloves, my wet bike seat, my water-blocking fenders, 15 mile winds, and a few drunk drivers leaving G street pub, determined to show me a thing or two. [Studies on night commuting in Washington state confirm my speculation: car-bike accidents double during the hours from 6-10pm.] During the winter quarter, when I teach Engineering Economics, hours of grading leave me with a terrible treat: 15 minutes through absolute ice. However, pain and endurance is the most important part of prayer, and every moment against the elements tests my faith as a cyclist. Unlike Riverside, I am never alone; This town is never asleep. If I wanted to linger and spy, I could. However, I’ve got my prayers, rhythms and rituals, and cars to outrun on Russell.

I never thought of myself as athletic. However, when ever you enter the world of car vs. bike, you become the athelete, every interaction is a contest, one where they hold your life in their hands. They can always kill you, they can make a mistake and run you over, and for some odd reason, that empowers me. It’s probably the only way to be a modern martyr in our apathetic world. When the roles are reversed and I am driving through Davis at night, I drive timidly and slowly. I see myself in every unprepared cyclist, moving without lights and reflectors. Every time I narrowly miss bumping a hidden commuter, I recall every night I spent moving between poorly insulated campus buildings and surburbia, dodging cars, moving between work and play.

I had only one longtime lover in Davis and I would visit her faithfully on my reflective silver Peugeot, a bike I only used to visit her. The bike required no additional lights, when a car’s light hit it, I shone like a streak of lightning (maybe because I was impatiently running through stop signs on Sycamore). Once we were no more, I could not stand to look at my midnight bike anymore and sold it. Whenever I looked at it, my mind would immediately wander to her long blond hair and that anticipation, biking in any condition, with her bed at the other end of the trip. Those days, midnight was my time. Midnight was when I was alive!

Nowadays, after college, it’s more about avoiding midnight. I’ll go see your Sickpits, or I’ll go visit your Birdstrike, to your coop’s dinner, but everything is built around avoiding midnight nowadays. There is no more midnight ride; Now it is a 10:30 ride. I have college town entertainment without college deadlines. No longer are there classes/homework, instead a bus that gets me to downtown Sacramento at 7 o’ clock. A buddy of mine was recently having a birthday at Sophia’s on a Thursday and I was in west Davis, and I looked at my phone’s time, my soaking wet bicycle, and gauged it all and decided to get him a future bottle of whisky, and bike directly to my bed. It was the first time, in what I’m sure will be many in a series of decisions I will make as a grown-up.