The Seattle Times just did a story on some of the history of cycling in Seattle and a few of the diverse groups of cyclists. They did a good job and it is worth reading.
We’ve been thinking about cycling and infrastructure in terms of the different communities of cyclists. Each community has different needs, different things that prevent the community from growing. Often the thing that one group of cyclists pushes for, like road riders pushing for sharrows, is either not useful for some other cyclists like cyclocross racers, or scary for other groups like parents with small children. When we operate as bicycle advocates, we need to be careful that we don’t build ourselves into a corner where we block other communities of cyclists.
We aren’t all vehicular cyclists who are confident on the road. While we’d love for all cyclists to become vehicular, there will always be 6-year olds who aren’t visible enough for safety and very un-athletic cyclists who can’t pedal faster than walking speed who won’t be very safe in traffic.
Just a few of the diverse communities are:
- Commuters, carrying their laptops and clothes to work every morning and home every evening.
- Club event rider, knocking out a 100 mile, century, ride in an afternoon.
- Utility riders, carting groceries and other goods from
- Parents, ferrying children between home, daycare, school, and other events on xtracycles, trail-a-bikes, tandems, and/or trailers.
- the store to home.
- Randonneurs, going on multi-day self-supported bicycle vacations.
- Track racers, using a velodrome to go as a fast as possible around in a circle.
- Cyclocross racers, racing on dirt tracks through trees, mud, and tossing the bicycle on their shoulders for sections as they sprint around obstructions.
- Bicycle Polo participants, just needing a small flat surface either hard or grass where they can manuver.
- Bicycle Music Festival audience members and performers, needing a stage and a place for the pedal powered generators that provide the juice for the amps.
- Children bicycling to school, needing safe routes and slow streets.
Are you a member of a community that we didn’t list? What barriers are there for new members of your community? What would help your community grow?