oh gosh, the only thing missing from this girl's article in The Peak (SFU student newspaper) is further criticism of the lack-of-helmet issue when it comes to hipsters. news flash: your hair isn't actually that good!
personally, i would have been more obnoxious if i had written this article - so it's best that she beat me to the punch.
- choke hold
Editor's Voice: Bikes and berets
Stephanie Orford, Arts Editor
With Bike Month in June just around the corner, and Bike to Work Week starting May 28, it’s officially bicycling season again. I suppose some brave souls bicycle all year round, so allow me to qualify that: for those of us who hate traveling outside in the cold rain, it is officially bicycling season again. With the sudden warmth that’s bloomed over the city in the last couple of weeks, myself and others like me have been coaxed out of our layers of scarves, and into our biking gear for another half-a-year of glorious riding.
Unfortunately, in the past few years I’ve observed an irritating trend on the rise, which has me embarrassed to call myself a bicyclist: bikes as a symbol of cool. These aren’t just any bikes, they’re vintage (real or fake), they’re often impractical, and their riders never seem to wear helmets.
Seeing hipsters tool these hip bikes around town pains me. I feel as if I were watching an old friend hanging with the cool kids who only like her because her look is so now. These vintage European-style bikes are so over-ripe in their coolness that even real estate and bank ads have picked them up. They’re now as common as the Vespa in ads for new condos in downtown Vancouver — of course, always with a baguette and a bouquet of flowers in the front basket.
This cool bike trend annoys me not only because hipsters have picked it up, but more because some people actively put more ‘utilitarian’ bicycles down. Some time ago, I read a review in the Globe and Mail [June 17, 2006] of the Dutch bicycle store in Vancouver, Jorg and Olif. I was irked to read a quote from a new Vancouverite and Jorg and Olif customer who said, “When I first came here, I felt shocked. Those trashy mountain bikes were all over the place. This bike has a sense of elegance, and I feel graceful on this bike.” Do you still feel graceful when you’re grunting and sweating up our steep hills with your bike’s heavy frame, awkward upright seating, and ineffectual eight gears?
Yes, the bicycle is a design marvel, but not just because of its looks. It is ludicrous to hear hypocrites like him praise one aspect of a bicycle’s design, for example the elegant European styling, while they ignore or insult other integral design aspects of more utilitarian bikes, such as the light but strong frame, all-terrain-gripping tires, and many useful gears on so-called “trashy” mountain bikes. So what if my bike has a lime green lightning bolt on the frame? I can take it anywhere, from cruising on the Sea Wall to heading up Burnaby Mountain.
All grumbling aside, I do think many of these vintage or faux-vintage cruisers are attractive. They are perfect in form and function for a particular type of riding: cruising slowly on flat ground, leaning back on the wide, springy seat, and watching the world go by, going no place in particular. Alternatively, the skinny ‘70s-looking road bikes with the curved drop handle bars are a good compromise between the cruisers and mountain bikes. They’ve got the cool cachet, but can still handle the commute.
Although I had been a staunch mountain bike advocate, a bikeless friend of mine recently opened my eyes to these benefits of cruisers. Over the weekend he went for his first bike ride in several years. He cruised around downtown, Stanley Park, and out to Kits Beach, and said it felt great. He saw the city from a new perspective, felt the wind against his face, and even found more people talked to him than normal. These are the true joys of bicycling, and you can enjoy them no matter what your bike looks like.
