I’m obsessed with my bicycle.
I bought my old-school, Panasonic 10-speed bike (made in Japan at a time when that screamed quality) from a Craigslist seller and promptly spent a lot more money on new tires, brake pads and many other fixes. Now I ride Franklin (or Franklin-san, as my dad respectfully calls him) everywhere, slicing my commuting times to class and beyond by up to 75 percent. Bringing my own corner of cycling culture back from the bike lanes of Copenhagen after my semester abroad may seem like an act of nostalgia to some, but I think it’s more than that.
Producing bicycles and persuading entire populations of people to integrate them into their culture is a team effort, spanning many disciplines of study.
A team of engineers somewhere designed the bike’s frame, gears and brakes, and tied all of those together. They’re responsible for the bikes flawless function, with a little help from the chemists that perfected the non-corrosive chain-lubricants and grease that make Franklin-san ride smoothly and silently even thirty years after his construction.
At some point, the bike’s bare bones structure was handed over to a design team who thought a sleek, blue color would bring the whole bike together. Franklin’s previous owner complimented the yellow tones in the bike’s Panasonic faceplate by wrapping the handlebars in yellow tape.
An expert in global studies, or perhaps geography, might be interested in tracing the origin of the bike’s parts to where it was assembled in Japan, and then where and how the bike was used around the world for the next 30 years.
Sociologists might like to study what made groups of people choose cycling as a mode of transportation in the first place. Why did the Netherlands and Denmark become famous as the bike capitals of the world, while most American cyclists risk their necks every day by cycling to work in a country built for cars? What drives those brazen few to take that risk and choose bike pedals over gas pedals?
Maybe the political scientists, historians and economists could answer some of those questions. What laws are in place to protect cyclists? What investments, in terms of bike lanes and bicycle racks, has the local government made to make biking easier? Historically, what budget cuts have caused plans for bike-infrastructure improvement to fall by the wayside? Did construction or extension of the interstate system suffocate a struggling biking culture that existed before the car-craze?
As an environmental scientist and ecologist, I’m interested in the answers to all of these questions. A culture of cyclists is a healthier culture. Daily cycling clearly combats obesity, but it also benefits the cyclist’s respiratory health and may allow him or her to work out some of that mental anxiety with just a few cranks of the pedals across the pavement. Trading in my car for my bike reduces my carbon footprint. By shrinking my radius of travel, I choose to support local businesses by going to the small coffee shops, farmer’s markets and family-owned restaurants in the downtown area.
Franklin-san and I make all kinds of statements, you see. Our presence goes far beyond proving that Knoxville’s infamous hills are traversable. I also think the number of cyclists around UT is growing, as evidenced by the constantly full bike-racks around campus. What does that indicate about our culture?
Analyze the bike-craze from your own discipline, and get back to me with your findings. Cycling encompasses a multitude of ideas and ways of thinking, which is probably reason No. 724 why my two-wheeled friend and I are inseparable.
Kenna Rewcastle is a senior in college scholars. She can be reached at [email protected].
