Bicycle

In blatant disregard for California mythology, my parents did not buy me a car the minute I turned 16. My best friends in high school both had cars, but I took the bus or rode a bicycle. I got my driver’s license rather late. It’s likely that the constant changing schools meant I missed any and all opportunities to take driver’s ed. Plus, I was out of sync with my cohort. At a year younger than nearly everyone in my class, I probably did not qualify for the course when it was offered; I was too young.

I had access to lots of loaners once I did learn to drive. A college boyfriend left me his 67 Mustang – silvery blue with a faulty alternator – when he went to do research at the nuclear accelerator in Germany. My mom and stepfather let me take their car from time to time, for concerts, to the beach. My brother and I shared a few cars, a tiny Honda hatchback where the rearview mirror dropped off when you slammed the door, and a Volvo that was totaled when I got t-boned by a Cadillac driver who ran a red light. I occasionally drove a three-on-the-tree Dart, a beast of a car that was my grandfather’s, then my Dad’s. My first husband liked weird cars and while we were together, I drove his maroon and cream Citroen 2CV and an Alpha Romeo with a wrap-around rear window. You had to stall that car to get the engine to stop and it had the distinctive smell of motor oil at all times.

I did not have my own car until I was in my 30s. I bought a 78 Toyota pickup truck from a guy I met in mountaineering class (perhaps the most Seattle sentence I will ever write). The pickup ran like a top though the gas gauge was broken. I kept a little counter thing on the dash, adding 200 miles to the number on the odometer every time I filled the tank. It was stolen twice, the second time it was as though it had visited the vacuum of space. It was devoid of every single thing, save a speeding ticket perhaps issued to the person who stole it.

I drove an 85 Tercel for many years after that, bought from a neighbor barely a block away. I took it to the nearest mechanic for a diagnostic. “Oh, that’s Martha’s car, isn’t it,” they said, “You got a great deal. We’ve maintained this thing since it was new.” I loved that car and drove it everywhere, to the bottom of dry canyons and to the top of mountain passes, selling it to a third owner only because I had the cash to buy a new car for the first time in my life. That was in 2007, I am still driving my Pontiac Vibe. I get the oil changed regularly, put new tires on when the mechanic tells me to. I would not be surprised if I get another five years out of it.

Last week while I was riding my bike to meet a friend for coffee, a terrible noise came from the rear hub and the bike just kind of… stopped working. It’s an electric bike, my third such bicycle and the one I liked best. The maker no longer does business in the US so replacement parts are very hard to come by. I muscled the dead bike into my car and took it to the shop; it was declared dead 72 hours later.

I have one other ebike in my garage; it is also completely dead. The bike is unrideable without the electric assist, it is too heavy. There were two other bikes in my stable but a few months back I accepted that I was not going to ride them again and donated them to a nonprofit that rebuilds and sells used bikes.

This is the first time since the mid-80s I have been without a bicycle.

Perhaps I should not be surprised about how much this has upset me. I have always been at home on a bicycle. I have, at times, been at athlete-level cycle fitness, knocking out a 75-mile day before going to the bars at night. I have lived for years with no car, throwing my bike on the bus racks for longer trips or just, fuck it, riding, year-round, rain or shine. I’m a lazier cyclist now, not nearly as fit, but riding an ebike means I don’t have to be a hardbody. When I last worked downtown, I rode more often than not, preferring the reliable timing, easy parking, and the joy of riding over sitting in traffic.

I had a bicycle stolen once, from a friend’s backyard while I was at lunch. I was devastated; I did not have a car, it was how I got everywhere. I have since weathered some roadside indignities — a derailer spun up into the rear spokes, a series of flats, a few nasty cases of road rash — but nothing wounded me as much as coming back from lunch to find my bike was gone. There is a special place in hell for bicycle thieves, they are immobilized and forced to grapple with the urgency to be somewhere, only a bicycle as transportation. The bike is snatched away from them at the moment they need to be underway and they are hit with overwhelming despair, one that can only be fixed by getting on a bike.

I don’t hate cars. I enjoy a leisurely road trip, the radio playing Lose Yourself by Eminem over and over, the windows open, an ice chest on the back seat, the dog snoozing in the warmth of the sun through the windshield. I am, however, resentful of the car’s necessity in our society. I have a city address, but I live at the point where public transit starts to unravel. The “good” bus is a mile away, at the bottom of a big hill. If the weather isn’t terrible or it’s not too late at night, I don’t mind walking that last mile but it’s not ideal. My bike fills that gap. I ride to the bus hub and lock my bike up; it’s waiting for me when I get back.

Ebikes are so common on the road now, they barely garner a mention, but when I first started riding mine, I got a lot of flack from fellow cyclists. I was accused of “cheating” (at what, exactly?) and lectured on the benefits of non-assisted cycling (as opposed to driving?). I got a shocking amount of stinkeye, as though my riding an electric bike was somehow cycling “wrong.” This doesn’t seem to be as true anymore; it thrills me that electric bikes have made cycling accessible to a whole population that once considered it an impossibility. Sometime back I chatted with a young woman on the bike trail and she crowed about her ebike. “I never thought this would be me,” she said, “I never thought I could be a bike commuter. But this makes it possible.” She was radiant.

That’s the stuff about a bicycle, the endorphins of possibility, the serotonin of mobility. The price tag on electric bikes is still too high to make them a truly democratic means of transportation — we need a Volkswagon mentality around ebikes — but they continue to eat away at other methods of getting around. You can get an electric tricycle (my plan for when age takes my balance) or an electric cargo bicycle or configure your extended frame so it holds two kids or pull a trailer with your dog in it or yeah, all the things. A lot of the things, anyway.

The last proper ride I did on my bike was to the beach for Pride. I had a house guest; he picked up a bike share ride and we did a big loop around the neighborhood. We went down to the water, stopping frequently to listen to the live brass bands and admire the scene. There was a bicycle parade and a bunch of kids on rollerblades and glorious queers being fully, joyfully out; it was a perfect day. We rode up the big hill to get home — not a problem because hey, electric bike. My friend parked his ride on the curb out front and I put mine in the garage, not knowing I’d been on its last ride.

“I am sold!” my friend said, “I am never renting a car again if I can do this instead.”

“My work here is done,” I replied.

I gotta get a new bike.