J. Harry Wray - Pedal Power: The Quiet Rise of the Bicycle in American Public Life

First published 2008 by Paradigm Publishers

Published 2016 by Routledge
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Copyright 2008, Taylor & Francis.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Wray, J. Harry.
Pedal power : the quiet rise of the bicycle in American public life / J. Harry Wray.
p. cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-59451-462-3 (hardcover: alk. paper)ISBN 978-1-59451-463-0 (pbk.:
alk. paper) 1. CyclingPolitical aspectsUnited States. 2. Urban transportation
policyUnited States. 3. Bicycle commutingUnited States. 4. United States
Social life and customs. I. Title.
HE308.W73 2008
388.34720973dc22

ISBN 13: 978-1-594-51462-3 (hbk)
ISBN 13: 978-1-594-51463-0 (pbk)

Designed and Typeset by Straight Creek Bookmakers.

My early experience with the bicycle was pretty typical of those in my generation. For us, the bike was first experienced as a toy. But it was not just any toy. Although bikes were ridden mostly for fun in those preadolescent days, they also foreshadowed the possibility of autonomy. Bicycles carried us beyond the orbit of parental control into a world where we were more clearly on our own. Such rides conjured images of adulthood, making us feel older and wiser than we were.

But in midcentury Southern California, bicycles were automatically eliminated as transportation options when one entered high school. They were too uncool, playthings for children. It was far better to walk than to be seen riding a bicycle. And so walk we didat least until the day when we received our drivers licenses, which was a rite of passage difficult to exaggerate in 1950s LA culture.

For the great majority in my generation, this is the extent of their bicycle stories: interesting toys that opened up new possibilities but that in adolescence were left rusting in garages and basements across the land. This was true for me until I was thirty, when for some reason I was attracted by the possibilities the bike offered for recreation and exercise. At that time there were limited recreational options in Washington, D.C., where I lived, but I did enjoy rides along the C&O Canal tow path. And I would occasionally haul my bike out to the surrounding countryside for rides. Then I moved to Chapel Hill to complete a Ph.D. in political science at the University of North Carolina (UNC), where the opportunity for recreational rides was much greater. The country roads and undulating hills provided ideal biking terrain. Additionally, the tight housing market in Chapel Hill caused my wife Judy and me to rent a place five miles outside town. This turned out to be fortuitous, because for the first time I began to use my bike regularly for transportation.

Living out on Manns Chapel Road was fortunate for another reason. Winston and Marilyn Harrington lived next door to us, and Winston, a fellow graduate student, also biked into Chapel Hill. Often we rode together, and eventually we began to talk about the possibility of a cross-country bike ride. At first this conversation was merely playful, but the idea lingered, grew, and eventually captured us. In 1975, we took a 3,500-mile ride that began in Chapel Hill and terminated in Los Angeles. That ride sealed the deal. Biking became a fixed part of my consciousness, and for most of my adult life I have regularly sought opportunities to ride. After finishing my degree at UNC, for example, I accepted a one-year position at Duke University. From my home, the Duke campus lay about fifteen miles down a lightly traveled road, so I regularly took the opportunity to ride there.

I left the comfortable, bucolic setting of North Carolina behind, however, when I moved to Chicago to accept a position at DePaul University. DePaul is an urban university, located in the heart of a major metropolis. The idea of living in a great city like Chicago was very appealing, and we found a place about two miles from campus. Chicagos biking environment was dramatically different from North Carolinas. Dense urban riding was difficult to escape, and it scared me. For a few years, therefore, I reverted to using the bike for recreation, mostly confining my riding to the few bike trails that existed in the area. Usually I would transport my bike to these trails by car. Over time my attitude changed, but just as important, the riding environment changed as well. I continue to use the bike for recreation, but I am increasingly aware of its utilitarian possibilities. As this has happened, distinguishing these two categories grows more difficult. A ride to the store or to campus is utilitarian, but it is also recreationaland certainly therapeutic. I also find recreational rides increasingly useful in a number of ways.

For quite a while biking and politics resided in discrete spheres of my consciousness. My professional interests centered on U.S. politics, the subject about which I wrote and taught. Meanwhile, my growing interest in the bike was something that I regarded as private and unrelated to my professional life. Then, a few years ago, DePaul revamped its liberal studies curriculum, including a spate of classes for first-year students under the general category titled Discover Chicago. The point of these classes was to bring new students to campus prior to the beginning of the academic year for an immersion week. These Discover classes are designed to take advantage of the fact that our campus is located in the middle of a vibrant city. During immersion week, students and instructors make various forays into the metropolitan area, the nature of which is determined by the subject matter of the classes. Then as the regular quarter begins, the classes meet in the traditional setting to consider some of the academic dimensions of the subject matter. A class on religions of Chicago, for example, spends immersion week visiting various kinds of religious centers in the city and then studies them more formally during the quarter.

It occurred to me that the Discover Chicago rubric provided an opportunity to fuse my previously separate interests, so I proposed a Biking and Politics class to the Discover Chicago committee. I designed an immersion week that contained daily rides of up to sixty miles, through various parts of the metropolitan area. During the quarter we connect these rides to some larger questions of politics. The course has drawn a fair amount of attention. It was featured in a story in the