We experience a different world when we see it by the seat of a bicycle.
When I first moved to Utah, I lived in the city of Kaysville, in Davis County, where my mother still lives. Though I had been very into riding bikes since a young age, I was in the awkward stage in my life that, due to a lack of a driver’s license and a lack of a bicycle as well, my mobility was severely limited. This feeling, as one who has experienced it or experiences it can attest, is not one of life, liberty, happiness, and other innate freedoms that we expect and enjoy on a daily basis. This is not the sappy introduction to “how I converted to bicyclism”. This isn’t even an expose about how crappy immobility is. I set the stage this way for a reason, I promise.
Here’s where we get down to the nitty gritty. A city looks much different from an automobile than from a human perspective, on foot or on bicycle. The smells; the wind; the noises; the need for constant attentiveness to the weather, temperature, and otherwise. This reliance on Mother Nature and a subserveance to her and her elements makes us feel more human, and less intrusive – in a cold, wet, and sweaty sort of way. What I am trying to explain is something unexplainable, I guess.
I began with an anecdote about my adolescence in Kaysville. Why? Because while I lived there, I had the strangest perception of Salt Lake City, not having grown up in or around it. I had the weirdest mental map of the city that I now look on with disbelief. I had no idea where anything was, and how buildings, districts, and neighborhoods connected with one another.
What advantage, then, does a more human-scaled view of the city give us in terms of “knowing” our place, and having a sense of direction, pride, and joy in the city or areas we live in. Please leave a comment about how you feel when you see the city by bicycle or by foot, instead of by car or other means of transportation. We’d love to hear about your joy in knowing your city, and new readers will be able to use your insights as motivation to ride more. Please don’t limit your comments to the idyllic 70 degree days that we’ve been having lately.
My love letter to 9th and 9th...
ReplyDeleteI live near 9th and 9th, and work at the University. It is pure joy to actually live in my neighborhood. Everything I need is within a five mile radius, and most within 2 miles (friends, grocery stores, my go-to coffee shop, work, bike collective, places I run errands). I have a beautiful commute (biking mostly, occasionally via bus). When I'm biking around my neighborhood I frequently feel happy and grateful to have bike-friendly drivers to share the road with (you know the kind-- the drivers that give you a ton of room, who signal turns for a long time, and drivers who check their door-zone).
I feel like interacting with my neighborhood on bike or on foot has given me an understanding of the character of my neighborhood. When I'm riding my bike home late at night there is a distinct threshold I cross when I'm finally in my neighborhood. It feels magical to me. There are twinkling street lights, delicious smelling restaurants, pedestrians, and occasionally musicians playing French-style accordion music in front of Tower Theater. I would miss all of that in my car, or it would be a 2 second blur, rather than something that engages all my senses.