The view is great

By Dave Kannas

There are few people given the opportunity to write a newspaper column in which to hold forth on a subject held near and dear. I'm one of those few, and for that I thank a person with whom I've had significant disagreement on the subject at hand over the years. To his credit, the editor of this newspaper has expressed an interest in becoming better informed on the subject of bicycling in Seattle, and has asked me to attempt to do that. He would also like the general reader to be exposed to a "serious" (what constitutes a serious bicyclist is open for discussion) bicyclist's view of the world as it relates to bicycling in Seattle and bicycles in general. That said, the editor and I will probably continue to agree to disagree on certain points, as is inevitable when the issue of bicycles is involved.

I'd like to give you a little more personal view of who I am and what brings me to this column. As someone who owns five bicycles and who decorates his lawn with bicycles long past their prime, I confess to a certain love affair with the bicycle. (By the way, my wife also owns two bicycles although she has a distinct skepticism about the bicycle as transportation and views the clip-on pedal as diabolical scheme to rid the world of nonbelievers in all things bicycle.) So, when I was offered an opportunity to write this column, it took about two seconds of thought before agreeing to it. When one is as enamored with bicycles as am I, an opportunity to attempt to infect others with the same opinion is not to be passed by.

Why five bicycles? I don't ride all of them regularly. Only two come off the rack on a regular basis. One comes down for weekly trips downtown because it has fenders, lights, rack, and resilient tires and will not send me into depression if am run over by a truck. It's also more traffic friendly.

The other is a carbon fiber model that performs like the bicycling world's Corvette that it is. It's the same bicycle (almost) as that which Lance Armstrong rode on his 7th victory of the Tour de France.

But, truth be known, my favorite bicycle is a classic steel frame Bianchi painted the traditional celeste (sort of lime green) and equipped with Campagnolo Record components (also known as "gruppo"). It's a beautiful bicycle that will have a place in a bicycle museum some day. It's taken notice of by the bicycle aficionado community every time I take it out on cloudless summer days. It was raced in a former life and has the proud scrapes to show for it. It's not as rider-friendly as my other two daily riders, it has dated technology and a double chain ring instead of the triple that's my one concession to age, however it has everything that makes a road bicycle beautiful: Two triangles that form the frame, double butted construction, front and rear derailleurs, road handlebars, and celeste paint that only Eduardo Bianchi had the vision to formulate. You have to see it through my eyes to understand, or to be a Bianchi owner who is "celeste to the bone."

Over the top, you could say in my praise of the bicycle. H.G. Wells would disagree. He said that he would never despair for the human race as long as he saw adults on bicycles. I'll amend this to say that I don't despair for the human race when I see anyone on a bicycle. Each time I ride, I'm reminded of why I've been a bicyclist for about 40 years. The way in which I am propelled today has remained the same for over a century.

The basic design of the bicycle has changed little during this time. There are attempts from time-to-time to introduce designs that aren't true to this age-old and accepted design. They don't last. There have been refinements in materials, and equipment has improved and will continue to do so, but the design remains the same. Look at early photographs of the first years of the Tour de France. You'll see the same basic bicycle design that you saw in last year's Tour. You'll see more gears on last year's model, but that's only because the Tour wouldn't allow Campagnolo's derailleur invention into the Tour until 1937. Until that time the derailleur was thought of as a novelty.

What's no longer a novelty is the acceptance in a growing bicycling community of the bicycle as a serious mode of transportation, a serious vehicle for recreation, a serious vehicle for competition and a very serious object for debate about its proper place in the grand scheme of transportation planning. All we have to do is open the Cascade Bicycle Club Web site or that of any number of bicycle clubs in the region to see that bicycles now play an important part in the region's transportation plan.

We can also open the Yellow Pages under bicycles and note the number of businesses that sell bicycles and service the needs of the bicycling community. Then there's Seattle's Bicycle Master Plan that was a long time in development, and, one can only hope, is a short time in implementation. Each of these may have been influenced partially by a Texas boy who "done good" on his bike during one month in France over the span of seven years. It also came about because of what people such as I knew for many years before that Texas boy was born, that bicycling is the most elegant way of getting from point A to point B whether those points are separated by two or by 200 miles. No, bicycling is no longer a novelty nor is the proper place for the bicyclist any longer on the sidewalk

During the life of this column (Who knows how long that'll be?) I'll talk about bicycles, bicyclists, bicycle "stuff," rides I have taken and more. My primary goal is simply to write about the bicycle in the modern world, or in the Seattle world, and attempt to answer frequently heard questions and comments (some are even printable) about the proper place for the bicycle in a car-centered city and region from one bicyclist's perspective. If along the way I influence someone to climb onto a bicycle, so much the better. The view from the saddle, you will find, is great.

I wish all a happy and safe riding new year.

Dave Kannas may be reached via wseditor@robinsonnews.com