Talking Heads talking cities
Really interesting stuff about cycling and what makes a city livable. I’m buying David Byrne’s book when it comes out.
As someone who has used a bicycle to get around New York for about 30 years I’ve watched the city—mainly Manhattan, where I live—change for better and for worse. During this time I started to take a full-size folding bike with me when I traveled so I got to experience other cities as a cyclist as well. Seeing cities from on top of a bike is both pleasurable and instructive. On a bike one sees a lot more than from a freeway, and often it’s just as fast as car traffic in many towns.
A new bike
I’m not sure whether two new bikes inside a year means that I’m out of control, or whether upgraditis had just been building up for so long that it had to come out somewhere.
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Sonix the Harohog
So I’ll now own five functioning bikes. Hmmm, maybe there is a slight problem there.
- Haro Sonix Werx dual-suspension mountain bike
- Enigma Echo titanium-framed road bike (with most of a Campag Record groupset)
- Custom-made Frezoni steel-framed road bike
- Gary Fisher Tassajara hard-tail aluminium-framed mountain bike (now looks to be in very used condition, it must be said)
- A blue steel-framed bike which was once a Shogun Alpine GT touring bike, but is currently a single speed flat-bar road bike for riding from BQ office into the City and back.
The first two are the first choice machines for their particular purposes. The Frezoni is there for when the Enigma has to go into the shop for servicing … you can’t be without a road bike for days at a time.
I’m not sure yet what the future holds for the Gary Fisher. Sensible suggestions or offers considered.
Tomorrow, we ride
BrizTreadley is my new website about cycling in Brisbane.
This is NOT a training diary, or to record my events history. It’s a place to tell stories of why I ride, and why riding is good.
It is to practice writing-as-advocacy.
Writing about cycling is a bit like writing about music, or art. It’s very difficult to adequately translate a subjective physical experience via words into something accessible and meaningful.
And yet there are plenty of people trying to make a living writing about music. And even some trying to write about art.
I’m not trying to make a living writing about cycling. But I am going to start trying to write down why I ride and what I find to be good about cycling, as part of my contribution to cycling advocacy.