When the virus of restlessness begins to take hold of a wayward man, and the road away from Here seems broad and straight and sweet, the victim must first find in himself a good and sufficient reason for going. This to the practical bum is not difficult. He has a built-in garden of reasons to choose from. Next he must plan his trip in time and space, choose a direction and a destination. And last he must implement the journey. How to go, what to take, how long to stay. This part of the process is invariable and immortal. I set it down only so that newcomers to bumdom, like teen-agers in new-hatched sin, will not think they invented it.
Once a journey is designed, equipped, and put in process; a new factor enters and takes over. A trip, a safari, an exploration, is an entity, different from all other journeys. It has personality, temperament, individuality, uniqueness. A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coersion are fruitless. We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us. Tour masters, schedules, reservations, brass-bound and inevitable, dash themselves to wreckage on the personality of the trip. Only when this is recognised can the blown-in-the-glass bum relax and go along with it. Only then do the frustrations fall away. In this a journey is like a marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.
Today, 43 year old Austrian base-jumper Felix Baumgartner broke the records for the highest and fastest free-fall sky dive by jumping out of a specially-designed helium balloon from 29 miles above the surface of the earth, falling at speeds of upto 833mph.
Watching the event, broadcast live by Redbull, there was a genuine sense of history being made – and for those of us not around at the time, gave a small idea of what it must have been like to watch the moonlanding.
As ever, feats like Baumgartner’s demonstrate what can be achieved by people with sufficient ambition and determination – not least because the financial and technological challenges inherent in the project meant it was almost 7 years in the making – and expand our perception of what it means to be human.
What’s interesting is that even before the jump Baumgartner had stated the feat would be the end of his sky-diving career. It’s difficult to imagine anything that could top what he achieved today, but for people who have dedicated their lives to pushing themselves to the limits of human achievement, simply stopping seems like it could prove a harder comedown than the jump itself.
On a very slightly smaller scale, I wonder whether I will see the completion of my own trip as ‘sufficient’ once it is finished – or if crossing the Americas will only spur me on to new and different cycling challenges?
As word of my project slowly starts to filter out amongst friends and family, I have started getting bits of films, articles, news stories or websites sent my way by a variety of wonderful people offering suggestions or inspiration.
‘Scrapertown’ was sent to me by a friend (thanks Georgia!) and is part of a series of short films called ‘California is a place’. The series (and associated blog) aim to sum up the magic – and madness – that is California, and this particular short focuses on a bike project based in East Oakland called ‘Scraper Bikes’.
The project – set up in 2006 by Baybe F. Champ – seeks to “capture the creativity of youth living within dangerous communities” by giving them an escape from the day-to-day realities of the neighbourhoods they are living in.
Closer to home, a similar project is run in Brixton by Lamonte Johnson. Bling Ya Bike is based at St Vincent’s Community Centre in Talma Road, and equips young people with basic bike maintenance skills as well as “art techniques that they can use to explore positive themes relating to their lives”.
The interesting thing about both films is that they each specifically mention the role ‘community’ has played in the respective projects: In terms of shaping the outlook of those who set them up, providing a motivation for those who subsequently get involved, and defining the impact that each project has made.
“That’s what a lot of these kids out here want”, says Champ. “They want to feel like they’re a part of something. Scraperbikes is definitely saving a lot of these kids’ lives”.
One of the great things about the internet is how one discovery – of a pertinent film, article, picture, or recording – can quickly and easily lead you onto several others, which then lead onto several more, which in turn lead to… etc etc.
Why Do You Ride is managed by 32 year old sustainability campaigner and Melbournian cyclist Carrie, and does simply and stylishly what it’s title suggests: Profiling cyclists from all over the world, and asking them why they ride a bike.
Some of the common themes that emerge from people’s responses are: the carbon footprint; the cost; fitness; convenience; and – that word again – the indescribable sense of f.r.e.e.d.o.m!
It’s a great site, and as with all the best blogs, takes a simple idea and makes the most of it by enabling people to share their experiences. Just for the record, here’s my contribution. Let’s see if I make it up there!
30 year old Primary School Teacher. Adopted Londoner. Founder of the dot com unity project.
Why do you ride?
I bought my first new bike in over a decade after losing my job last year. I was never particularly ‘into’ cycling, but thought I’d kill some time before starting a teacher training course by seeing if I could pedal my way to Rome (I could. Just.)
Along the way I became slightly enamoured with the simplicity and freedom that comes from riding a bike – they’re such rudimentary things, but they can get you so far! Plus, people always seem happier on two wheels somehow… Maybe it’s the fresh air.
Best thing about cycling?
See above. Freedom, simplicity and that slightly smug camaraderie you feel with other cyclists. We’re basically better than other people aren’t we?
What improvements would you like to see for cyclists?
I think things in London are actually getting better. When our blue bike lanes were introduced a couple of years ago I was pretty skeptical about how much difference they’d make, but you’d be surprised at the impact a little bit of paint can have on people’s sense of security on the roads. Along with the Boris Bikes and a relatively active cycling lobby, it’s really not a bad place to ride.
Fondest cycling memory?
Tough choice… Either crossing the Alps during a solo bike ride to Rome last year or attending my first Critical Mass just a couple of months ago. The atmosphere at the latter was incredible, it was like Glastonbury festival on wheels!
Cycling tip?
If you’re locking your bike up, always lock it to something. I worked as a courier for a while last year, and would often just lock the front wheel to the frame to save time while dropping packages off. One day I got out of the offices I was calling at to find a guy wandering off down the street with my bike slung over his shoulder!
3 things you’d love the world to know about you?
Everything you might want to know can be found at thedotcomunityproject.wordpress.com
While searching out films about ‘Community’ on Vimeo recently, I stumbled across this:
The film is actually a marketing short for a North Carolina-based clothing and apparel brand Holstee, but amongst a variety of lifestyle cliches about ‘mindfulness’ and ‘living every day as if it’s your last’, it’s interesting that bikes feature heavily without ever actually being mentioned.
It got me thinking about what the correlation is between positive living, community-mindedness and cycling – since they don’t necessarily go hand-in-hand, yet it’s far from the first time I’ve seen them connected.
As Holstee say themselves, “as we seek to live mindful lifestyles that leave a positive impact on the people and the world around us, biking has become a passion that is much more than a transportation alternative”. But what is it about bikes and this kind of vaguely middle-class, liberal tree-huggery?
Ken Kifer’s website suggests that there are a number of characteristics that cyclists tend to share, which may provide some clues:
a love of adventure, a strong whiff of self-sufficiency (self-reliance), a strong desire for good healthy exercise, a love of Nature and the outdoors, and tendencies to 1) waste less, 2) pay less attention to money, 3) not worry about impressing others, and 4) seek the humble pleasures of life
But why do they share these things…? Certainly some of the suggestions make pretty clear sense: For the environmentally conscious, bikes are the obvious choice of low-impact transportation. For those concerned with simple living, there aren’t many simpler contraptions than the fixed-gear bicycle (a connection made explicitly in the Holstee film).
More interesting though is the idea of ‘self-reliance’. Bikes are a form of transport that very literally require people to carry themselves under their own steam, and it is possible that this tendency towards self-sufficiency extends to other aspects of their life (although, as with all these suggestions, it would be a mistake to classify ‘cyclists’ as a completely homogeneous group).
In fact, it seems that this is a metaphor that Holstee exploits in the film: There are references made to being ‘united by our differences’, ‘sharing our dreams’ and ‘creating things with the people we meet’, but most of the messages are about individual choices we make to improve our own lives – less about ‘community’ then, and more about the ‘self’.
This isn’t to suggest that the message is one of self-service – just that the connection appears to be between individuals and their environments. Numerous studies over recent years have shown the corelation between a person’s happiness and their connectedness to the environment – and anyone who has ridden a bumpy road with no suspension knows that cyclists are connected, very intimately, to their environments!
I recently visited Barcelona to have some work done on a tattoo by the incredible Miguel Escrich.
It’s an amazing city, and one of the things that struck me while learning a bit about the culture there was the sheer number of festivals they celebrate – with everything from human towers, to dancing skeltons, to giants, devils, and midsummer bonfires.
Interestingly – as in England – the patron saint in Catalunya is St. George (Sant Jordi). But unlike England, St. George’s Day in Catalunya is widely celebrated as a nationalist holiday, as well as a kind of Valentine’s Day in which men give women single red roses and women give men a book.
It got me thinking about the role that these kind of festivals and celebrations have in creating a sense of national or regional community.
In England it seems as though our national cynicism means that almost any formally recognised festival is regarded as either an outdated relic, or as some sort of Government trick: Valentine’s Day is derided as a scam dreamt up by marketing firms to sell chocolates and greetings cards, while most people would rather forget St. George’s Day existed altogether lest they be branded as some sort of deranged Little Englander.
Certainly there are some benefits to this kind of public wariness: When children regard Easter as ‘that day when we get loads of chocolate to eat’, it’s not hard to feel as though the message might have been a little lost somewhere. And the vague sense of embarrassment that the English feel about their nationhood (itself an aspect of what makes us English?) guards against the more aggressive forms of flag-waving jingoism that might cause problems in other more nationalist countries.
Even in Spain, a friend who is living out there suggested that many of the more famous regional celebrations such as La Tomatina in Valencia, and the Sanfermines (running of the bulls) festival in Pamplona, nowadays largely exist for the sole purpose of tourism.
But I think there is some risk of throwing the baby out with the tomato juice if we let our suspicion prevent us from embracing these kinds of national celebrations altogether.
Many religions – from Christianity to Buddhism – highlight the value of rituals in creating a sense of stability, connectedness and belonging. And in this sense, such rituals – whether thowing tomatoes from a moving lorry, or chasing a giant cheese down a hill – can be as valuable in and of themselves as the ideas that they are meant to represent. If people are to feel part of a commuunity, rather than simply ‘knowing’ that this is the case intellectually, it helps if they are given the oppotunity to experience that feeling. And while organised, ritualistic practices are not the only was of achieving this, it seems as though – in Spain at least – they can be pretty effective.
Clearly, that’s not to suggest that Catalonians are Catalonian only because of a few festivals – that would certainly be getting the cart before the horse – but it’s not hard to imagine what the impact of Calatonian identity might be if such festivals stopped being held.
In Britain, what with the Royal Wedding, the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and now the Olympics, it seems like we’ve actually had a pretty good 18 months as far as opportunities for national celebration are concerned. For me, what was interesting about many of the ‘Royal’ events, was that a good number of people there probably couldn’t have cared less about the Windsor family one way or another – in fact, in some cases, they we’re pretty evidently ‘anti‘ – but they came out and celebrated with their communities anyway.
For the Government’s part, by relaxing regulations in order to make it easier for people to organise street parties, and then leaving it to local communities to make use of the opportunity in whichever way they saw fit, I think they probably struck a pretty good balance. No one like’s a ‘local celebration’ when they feel that none of the local community are really that involved – and keeping the decision-making at street level meant that people could make their parties as ‘Royal’ (or otherwise) as they wanted.
Of course it also helped that we were given an extra Bank Holiday to make use of too, but it certainly felt a far cry from the top-down PR of ‘Cool Britannia’!
With the Olympics finally wrapped up, a Guardian/ICM poll has revealed that the Games also seem to have had a positive impact of the public mood, as well as on the belief that “modern Britain is stronger as a country of many cultures” – yet it also suggests that such a feel-good factor may be short-lived if it is not capitalised on effectively. So with the three biggest excuses for a national party for many years now all but over, how can we ensure that this ‘coming together’ of people and communities is not just a flash in the pan?
Well… judging by Spain’s example, we need something with a bit of history behind it; something with a story that lends itself to costumes; and something that foreigners will find vaguely inexplicable…
Today, 43 year old Austrian base-jumper Felix Baumgartner broke the records for the highest and fastest free-fall sky dive by jumping out of a specially-designed helium balloon from 29 miles above the surface of the earth, falling at speeds of upto 833mph.
the dot com unity project 