Arkansas is a beautiful place. When I lived in Memphis, we’d take long road trips out west: Brunch in Little Rock, followed by an afternoon exploring stony little river valleys in the Ozarks.

It’s probably a good thing we weren’t on bikes, given the hellish state of cycling depicted in this ad. Here’s a fit, healthy young woman who feels compelled not only to wear a helmet, but also elbow and knee pads. On a separated roadway, no less — the Two Rivers Trail. That’s a pedestrian-only bridge behind her. Must be some mighty rowdy power walkers on that path.

You’d think someone in the Bicycling editorial department might ask Arkansas’ PR wizards what hazard on a flat, paved multi-use trail would prompt a cyclist to dress for a roller derby. Then again, they were probably engrossed in choosing which $8,000 full-aero, full-carbon racing machine would grace the opposite cover. And we wonder why folks roll their eyes and chuckle “Lance Armstrong!” anytime cycling is mentioned.

I’m not sure when I first realized I was running a low-grade fever. Perhaps it was watching another of those insufferable TED talks (which all seem designed to make their audiences feel smart without the bother of thinking deeply for more than a quarter hour). There stood a strapping Dane with the best sense of black-as-fashion-statement since Johnny Cash.

He launched into a lucid explanation of the connection between urban quality of life and the number of people using bicycles for daily transportation. It’s no accident that most of the cities in Monocle magazine’s 2010 list of most livable urban areas have high numbers of transportation cyclists. In compact areas, the bike is king. It’s fast, cheap, and virtually pollution-free. You can move far more people over a piece pf pavement in a given period on bikes than automobiles. Bikes take about a tenth of the space required to park a car, and inflict an even smaller fraction of an auto’s wear and tear on pavement. Every bike on the road represents saved tax dollars.

The speaker didn’t actually get into this kind of detail. After about four minutes of sketching out the benefits of bicycles in the city, he launched into the bulk of his talk, which amounted to an epic rant against bicycle helmets.

Safe streets and soft heads

Don’t get me wrong: If I lived in Copenhagen (where this talk took place), I would never wear a bike helmet. There’s just no reason. Danish cyclists — like the Dutch — benefit from decades of investment in bike infrastructure, education, and law. Given the quality of road surfaces and the vast acceptance of bikes in everyday life, you’re as likely to be bitten by a shark in the streets of Copenhagen than sustain any kind of injury getting around on a bike.

Helmets just aren’t necessary under these conditions. So bully for the Europeans: They’ve worked hard to tool around bareheaded, sipping espresso while balancing a six-year-old on their handlebars. The problem is when our Continental cycling elders look at the state of North American cycling, informing us that if we really want to develop a bike culture, we should ditch our “irrational” helmet use. Which is condescending bullshit.

Bike culture is hard work

I don’t know where American bike culture will be a decade from now. But I’m certain that it won’t matter if we got there with or without helmets. Because it’s just not that easy.

It wasn’t easy for the Danes, either. They began their journey long before the era of cheap, lightweight helmets. If Nutcase, Lazer, and Giro had been around in 1980, you can bet today’s cycle chic would include arguments about how much more fashionable European helmets are over those we wear in the States. Until Apple makes a bike helmet — which will cost $400 and be somehow incompatible with Google bikes.

The Dutch didn’t build their bike culture by selling people on the statistical safety of cycling. They did it by pointing out how many children were being killed and injured while riding. Then they began laying down separated bike lanes, closing city centers to cars, changing their laws to provide real protection to cyclists, and ripping out blacktop lots in favor of modern bike parking. It took long-range planning, political will, and piles of cash.

First, you make riding safer

What the Europeans have done (or are in the process of doing) is to actually make it safer and more convenient to get around on a bike than on four wheels. This is what has created cycling culture. Not fashion. Not the soft propaganda of helmet-free riding.

Helmets have their place: On children, who lack adult judgement and bike handling skills. While traversing poorly maintained, poorly designed pavement with sparse bike lanes. On racers and offroad riders.

Or perhaps on the way to one of those fancy TED gatherings. If there’s bike parking.

The ball flew over a fence about a block ahead of me: Bounce, bounce, bounce, before settling into the gutter.

I scanned up and down the street. Good — no cars. I was pedaling home on one of the rat runs I use as much to keep things interesting as to avoid arterial roads. There would be no reason to panic if a kid ran out to fetch the ball.

But nobody came. I rolled up on the ball, looking for its owner.

The Bicycle Man

“Hey mister, could you throw that to us, please?” The tiny voice came from a young girl standing just inside her fenced yard. She couldn’t have been more than six or seven.

“Sure,” I said, dismounting. I fished the ball from the curb and walked it over. “Here you go — good idea not running into the street after it. Cars can’t always see you.”

“Thanks!” she smiled. I wasn’t finished dispensing advice.

“But be careful about talking to strangers. You don’t know me. OK?”

“My Auntie says you’re not a stranger,” the girl laughed. “You’re the Bicycle Man!” That’s when I noticed a figure watching from just inside the doorway. I recognized her — a woman with a funky, artsy, ramshackle front yard a few doors down. I usually waved as I passed. Now she was waving at me, casting a watchful eye over her niece and nephew.

The sun was going down, and I still had a few miles to go. I nodded to the Aunt, mounted up, and headed for home.

Street level

The Bicycle Man: I had a name around here. I’d become a part of the neighborhood without even knowing it.

That’s the second way a bike will change your life. It will connect you deeply with your community. You notice a lot more from the saddle than sealed inside an automobile. You catch bits of conversation and see the warm glow from people’s windows in the evening. You’ll catch the scent of fresh laundry or tonight’s dinner; hear the sound of hidden fountains and windchimes; watch the progress of flowerbeds and vegetable gardens. You’ll learn which dogs belong which which yard, and wonder why every neighborhood seems to have the same pair of shoes dangling from an overhead power line.

And people will see you — not a car speeding past, but a person on a bike. Now and then, they’ll say hello. Or perhaps ask you to pitch a ball over a fence. You won’t mind.

The world lies to us every day. It lies so casually and persistently, we hardly notice.

Of course, not all lies are malevolent. We like being lied to, especially the silken deceptions of flattery. But it doesn’t really help us to be told we’ve lost some weight, when we haven’t. It’s like that second piece of pie — delicious, perhaps, but something which looks more appetizing on the plate than around our waist.

The bicycle as truth-teller

Bikes are incapable of lying. Rubber and steel lack the artifice of flesh and blood.

A bike will never fib about your physical condition. If you’re tired, it will tell you. If you’re strong, it will tell you that, too.

No bicycle will ever mislead about your surroundings. If there is a grade or rough section of road, you’ll know it. There’s no climate control system to turn a July afternoon into a spin through the Swiss alps. A bike won’t hide the consequence of the distances which separate us from people and places we love, nor will it conjure the shimmering petroillusion of movement without the expenditure of energy.

Your bike never lies. You may not like how muscle sometimes tires of its conversation with the highway, but you will clearly follow the discussion.

The road begins here

You learn a lot about yourself when you ride. The interesting thing about this objectivity is that it invites more of the same. One journey leads to another, both on and off the bike.

But clattering along the wooden boardwalk of a nearby creek this weekend, I realized it has finally happened: There’s color overhead. Soggy little islands of yellow and red leaves creep downstream, turning gently in the pale columns of November light. Autumn has found us, at last.

Following nature’s example

Fall is my favorite season. We trample summer underfoot, where it will rest until returning as the blossoms of spring. Bounty and letting go, all with beautiful result.

That’s the same result I hope for in my own tiny affairs. For the past few weeks, I’ve been engaging in a round of creative destruction. In some cases, it’s just been a matter of releasing things which have served their purpose — letting them spiral to earth, hardly noticed by anyone. In others, I’ve had to lean hard against the plow before tilling things under.

None of these, taken individually, amount to much. But together, they’re the first steps in a realignment I hope will recover the time and focus I need to write. In sentences longer that 140 characters.

Letting go

Some nights ago — with this unburdening process stirring the dark silt of dreams — I found myself on a hill overlooking a ruined section of Hardian’s Wall.

“You know the surest sign of an empire in decline?” intoned the specter of a grey and lonely Centurion. “Neglected outposts.”

I have a lot of those, particularly in the digital realm: Gates hanging on rusty hinges; abandoned watchtowers; rotting timbers. Time to pull a few of them down. So farewell Twitter and Facebook. Goodbye, also, to LinkedIn and Flickr. I’ve opted out of Klout, dumped at least a dozen domains, and shuttered a number of online and in-real-life projects. I am clear cutting whatever obscures my view of the horizon.

Gathering up

I haven’t sustained a publishing project since Lighter Footstep and its short-lived successor, More Minimal. After a number of false starts, I’ve decided to return my attention here. As I approach my third year living in suburbia without a car, I’ll be writing about my first love — bikes. More importantly, I’ll be writing about how a bike can change our lives: How we feel; how we look at out community and surroundings; and what happens when we take a considered look at our real needs and desires.

I will also be participating in Google+. If you haven’t tried Google+, please allow me to invite you to give it a whirl. For me, it’s everything under one roof: Great conversations, terrific video support, and built-in Google Reader. Sign-up is open to anyone with a Google account (now including Google Apps). I’d be pleased of you’d add me to your Google+ circles.

As an experiment, I’m going to move comments from this site to public threads on Google+. Once I’ve published an article here, I’ll link it to an entry on Google+. For such a young community, Google+ is amazingly engaged and diverse. I’d like to see how conversations reverberate in open spaces.

This site will be substantially re-aligned. To be honest, I’m not sure what form it will take. But whatever happens, it begins now.

Bontrager is Trek’s house brand for bicycle components, clothing, and and accessories. If you buy a Trek, you’ll probably see Bontrager-branded parts where some other bike company might use a generic or minor name component. And my experience with Bontrager has been pretty good. To me, one alloy seatpost is generally as good as another. If it keeps my ass off the top tube, I’m a happy camper.

Bontrager also markets tires. My Trek SOHO, which I’ve paired with an Xtracycle Free Radical hitchless trailer, was delivered with a set of Bontrager street slicks. They wore a bit quickly, but my local bike shop had a similar set of Bontrager Hard Case tires on hand when my original equipment came to sudden grief one afternoon. They offered them at a generous discount, so I bought a pair and headed down the road.

Puncture-resistant, but …

I’ll say one thing for these tires: They’re clearly puncture-resistant. I can’t remember the last time I changed a roadside flat on the cargo bike, despite Pensacola’s poorly maintained streets. But the casings aren’t much more durable than the kind which hold together your average breakfast sausage.

I began noticing cuts in the casing almost immediately. One was sufficiently distressing that I bought a spare tire, just in case (I rely on the cargo bike for primary transportation).

Of more concern was unusual wear and scalloping on both the front and rear tread. The Hard Case has a raised center ridge, but this took on a dappled appearance, and was uneven to the touch. It wasn’t long before the tires were noisy (imagine a scaled-down knobby), and I could feel vibration at speed.

Hard luck

On Friday, my front tire began to disintegrate on a downhill. I was lucky — the tire held pressure, and I managed to limp home. But you can see the tread separation in the photo above. It was time to mount the spare.

Which seemed to go fine. I worked in a shop way-back-when, and have changed hundreds of tubes in my time. So I’m careful about getting a tire properly seated before applying full pressure. I usually wear eye protection when inflating a tire, and keep my face well away in case something gives.

That’s what happened with the brand-new spare. At about 90 pounds of pressure, a section of tire bead separated from the sidewall. The resulting pop rendered tire and tube into garbage, and ensured that Stella the Housecat has regular bowel movements for at least the next week.

Time to go shopping

So that’s probably it for Bontrager tires around here. I’ll ask my shop about a warranty replacement, since the spare was obviously defective. Barring this, I’m in the market for a pair of 700C touring/commuter tires in the 32 to 35mm range. I’ve had good luck with the Vittoria Randonneur, like the Continental Contacts on my Surly LHT, and would obviously be happy with Schwalbe. In the meantime, my Trek SOHO sits sadly in the corner.

Uh — yeah. I’m an irregular blogger these days, so I didn’t bother writing up Moving Planet here. Pop over to the site, flip through the pictures, and see why I’d like to keep casual downtown bike rides a regular deal.

Normal people on normal bikes. Wearing normal clothes, even. Lycra will be begrudgingly tolerated, if that’s how you feel comfortable on a bike. But it’s rather like turning up at a public pool in a Speedo: If you need race kit for an easy little spin around town, you must want people to point and stare. And if they don’t, we will.

No douchebaggery allowed

Weather-appropriate street clothes will do just fine. This is an amble. Call it slow biking, if you wish (I do). The ride starts at 8am from Ever’man’s Natural Foods on West Garden. We’ll follow parts of the Moving Planet Pensacola route, rolling north through Belmont-DeVilliers neighborhood, east on shady (and partially brick-paved) La Rua Street, and south on 17th Avenue (under Graffiti Bridge).

Then it’s breakfast at Bagelheads on Gregory, so bring some pocket money. This is the reason you don’t wanna dress like a sausage — we’ll be in contact with the non-cycling public. Save the Leopard-Trek jersey and bib shorts for a club ride.

Which this isn’t. If you ride Slowbike Saturday, you’re riding as an individual. This means you are responsible for your own safety, conduct, and breakfast. That ought to make the cops and my lawyer happy.

After Bagelheads, we’ll probably loop through DeLuna park at the end of the pier, then back up to Palafox Market to see what’s fresh. You’ll enjoy this a lot more of you’re riding a bike that has a basket or something.

A grand experiment

Total ride should a couple hours, including bagel and coffee time. If it’s not, we’ll adjust next time. This is an experiment.

I’m posting this late on a Friday evening, so I may be the only one who shows. That’s more coffee and cream cheese for me. But feel free to roll along — slowly.

Still sitting in the build rack at Bikes Plus: My shiny new Surly Long Haul Trucker.

Nope, I didn’t take any risks picking the tried-and-true LHT. Bombproof, overbuilt, and ready for whatever riders throw at them, LHTs have been toting commuters and fully loaded tourists for years. I’m looking forward to dressing this one out. Delivery should be Monday.

And then there shall be no excuses for not putting blacktop beneath tires.

I assure you that the passage of two years since the snapshot of me on Southern California Public Radio’s website was taken has left me with a suitably weird cyclist tan. The kind which guarantees beach visits are solitary affairs, and the prospect of a summer pool party invitation is enough to set me into a full-scale panic.

But I’ve never been one for photographic self-promotion, and I was told there must be a suitably bikey picture of me to illustrate an interview green blogger extraordinaire Katherine Butler did with me about urban cycling. So you gets what you gets.

Suitably warned, feel free to step right up and check out the full text of Katherine’s piece, Want to start city biking? Here is your how-to. In which I try to sound like I know something about bicycles, while clearly looking awkward around my own.

Thanks to Katherine and Southern California Public Radio for their attention to urban cycling. Let’s ride!

This is right after applying a second coat. I use common amber shellac, each application giving the cork  a darker and more durable luster. Three coats are about right. By that time, the cork will have taken on a richness similar to leather.

Cork is probably my favorite kind of bicycle grip. They’re inexpensive — this set was less than nine dollars — and feel good in your hand. The cork tends to dampen road buzz, and the shellac is easy to clean. It’s nothing to add an extra coat if they start to look worn.

Once the last coat is dry, I’ll slide the Velo Orange city brake levers back into place, reconnect the cables, and tighten everything back down. The Sprite is my favorite bike. I’ll feature her conversion with a more general photo layout soon. Her name is Carmen, and she has her very own Google+ photo set.