Venice Beach- Here Come The Bikes
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Venice Beach · Santa Monica · Self-Powered Traffic
Answer the CallEpicenter of Narcissism
A bike and a prayer: burning carbohydrates instead of hydrocarbons, trading Los Angry Cars for momentum, randomness, and the simple pleasure of the ride.
A Bike and a Prayer
The Most Civilized Conveyance Around
The bicycle was the GR8est incident of the nineteenth century: one of the most influential pieces of product design ever built and the most civilized way to move through a city.
It is not brain surgery. It is rocket science.
The advantages of modern self-powered traffic are obvious and routinely ignored. This is my carbon offset.
I am my own engine, converting calories into gas. The bike gets the rhetorical equivalent of three thousand miles per gallon—and there are no parking problems.
The Self-Powered Equation
Calories + Curiosity - Parking = Freedom of MovementWhy waste your life in friction when it could be turned into momentum?
Burning carbohydrates instead of hydrocarbons today.
As long as I am riding a bike, I know I am the luckiest guy in the world.
Do not buy upgrades. Ride up grades.
Cars Inhibit Human Connection
Los Angry Cars
Santa Monica Pier
The Edge of the Car City
One seldom exchanges anything but the finger—or the names of insurance companies—with another driver.
Cars inhibit human connection.
There is an excuse to be made for the 4x4. It can be summed up in three words: This is America.
Make it big. Houses, breasts, meals, vehicles: the magic of thinking big is as American as apple pie.
SUVLUV is stone age. The bicycle is the counterargument.
The Metal Cowboys
Fooled by Randomness
Think of bicycles as rideable art that can just about save the world.
It is anarchy without malice. It gets you there—and more.
There is always a thin edge of danger to keep you alert and comfortably apprehensive.
A bike is not merely a way of getting somewhere. It is a backdrop for randomness. Every trip becomes an unorganized tour.
Metal Cowboys
The Unorganized Tour Begins Here
Life is too random to be left up to chance. Work to eat. Eat to live. Live to bike. Bike to work.
Bike Culture
Mentally Far from Civilization
When I ride a bike, I no longer despise the human race.
I still obey the rules of the road, the rules of biking, and Einstein's gravity. But mentally, I am far away from civilization.
The world is breaking someone else's heart: somebody stopped on the 405 Freeway in Los Angry Cars, or circling for twenty minutes in search of a parking space.
Nothing compares to the simple pleasure of a bike ride. — Attribution preserved from the source
Traffic, parking, insurance, and isolation consume the journey before the destination arrives.
Energy is not purchased at the pump. It is created through movement.
A bicycle makes room for interruption, conversation, danger, and discovery.
Northern Europe
Bike Friendly Beyond Venice Beach
Forget the severe winters and the reputation for the safest cars on Earth. Saab and Volvo can take a back seat.
Stockholm has bike paths everywhere. The islands that make up the city become accessible at human speed.
Copenhagen rides. Amsterdam rides. Estonia rides. Warnemünde rides.
The bicycle is not a Venice Beach eccentricity. It is a working urban system.
Stockholm
Ed Reif on Two Wheels
Stockholm
Shipwrecked
cOPENhagen
Everybody Rides
Amsterdam
Cyclists Everywhere
You are more likely to encounter a bicycle than a car because everybody appears to have one.
Estonia
What Am I On? My Bike.
Warnemünde, Germany
The Little Bike That Could
On This Day
A Little Nostalgia
The archive does what cycling does: it returns movement to the present.
A photograph dated December 27, 2015, becomes proof that the route continues long after the ride ends.
Archive Image
December 27, 2015
Connections
The Bicycle as Operating System
Stockholm, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Estonia, and Warnemünde extend the Venice Beach argument across five European settings.
The downside is capped: effort, weather, and gravity. The upside is open-ended: health, mobility, attention, and encounter.
The bicycle becomes product design, urban critique, social technology, and a method for making chance useful.