Bikes Point the Way to a Sustainable Future

By Chris Carlsson, AKPress. Posted December 18, 2008.

The underground bike subculture represents self-sufficiency, self-sustainability, and responsibility … [qualities that] could definitely be attributed to other kinds of ecological activism, e.g. community gardening. I also think that the bike or the garden culture (really healthy cultures) allow for a kind of giving and receiving that you can't get in the broader society … It breaks down the anonymity of the city.

The mental space opened up is one of bicycling's best kept secrets. For many, choosing to bicycle is a public act of individuation, reinforcing a self-reliant and critical mentality. Often it is the most individualistic cycling "rebels" who invest the most time and effort in new communities and institutions. On this note, Jessie Basbaum of San Francisco's Bike Kitchen says,   "Riding a bike is a very independent act. Just riding your bike around fosters a lot of self-reliance and comfortableness being alone. Riding by yourself gives you a lot of time to think, to look at things around you, so in that sense it's going against the grain a little bit."  

Bicycling communities are interesting amalgamations of strongly in dividualistic people who collaborate on self-sufficiency. Ted White, long time bike activist and "bikeumentarist" says,   "People who are into bikes tend almost always to be in some way independent thinking and self-sufficient … I think bikes are a positive response to almost everything that is wrong with American mainstream society today. Bikes are cheap, simple, and democratic and sexy in a very different way than riding around in a car. Bike transportation is about individuality but not about excess. Bikes are congenial and social. Bikes force us to be in our bodies and help us to know and love our bodies as they are.

In contrast, there are glossy magazines and plenty of upscale marketers selling bicycles and frou-frou lycra clothing, helmets, bike accessories and all the things you would expect a prolific consumer society to promote. But mainstream bicycling culture is largely separated from the grassroots upsurge, even if there are crossovers aplenty in the form of messenger bags, headlights, and other mass-produced accoutrements that trickle through the permeable membrane between the two worlds.   Chicago's "Rat Patrol," a self-described "anarchist group," articulates the subcultural rejection of commodification and marketing, and with it, underlines the outlaw assault on the marketing efforts to co-opt the bike culture: 

The pathetic sports junkie on a bicycle is no more free than a motorist trapped in an SUV in a traffic jam … There is a void of self-doubt which athletes attempt to cover with spandex outfits and titanium objects of veneration. The sporting goods ‘user' is compelled by nervous guilt to look down upon those who do not ride as fast, or as far, or as often. Persons exhibiting the following behaviors are best regarded as covert operators of the capitalistic conspiracy to further co-opt and defuse non-fossil-fueled transportation movements:  

• Abnormal concern with perfect finish and perfect operation of the bicycle • Keeps glossy bicycling magazines under the mattress • Suggests you should buy new equipment instead of repairing old bicycle • Always rides in superhero tights • When riding, is more concerned with speed and distance covered than scenery or places visited • Unable to hold a conversation unrelated to bicycles or biking • Paranoid delusion that he/she is being persecuted for his/her hobby • Speech is sprinkled with component brand names • Constant desire to witness bicycle's transforming power in his/her own life • Believes that biking is a morally superior choice, therefore befitting a morally superior attitude • Attempts to bring bicycle-related issues into every conversation • Awkward duck walk caused by wearing cleated bike shoes into roadside businesses • Easily impressed with expensive equipment and celebrity endorsements • Wears helmet even when not on bike

As you can see, these easily-identifiable symptoms of sporting goods addiction are identical to the symptoms of capitalist-driven automobile addiction. They are caused by the fetishization and worship of lifeless objects. What was once viewed as a useful tool, a means to an end, becomes the end in itself. Should your comrades seek to impose these dangerous ideas on you, or should you find yourself believing them, stay on your guard, and remember that these innocent- sounding ideas are in actuality part of a sinister plot to coopt the velorution. Do not let the greedy multinationals once again derail progressive attempts to save our Earth from global warming and environmental disaster!

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