[email hidden] (elisa francesca roselli) wrote in message
news:<[email hidden]>...
**disclaimer: any cultural observations I make below are totally my own, and based on my own
conjectures and experience...If I'm wrong, tell me, and we'll see.**
Quoted message said:
It is another aspect of French arrogance (global or otherwise) that if you live in the suburbs and
refuse to own and drive a car, why, you are simply a non-person. The whole basis of my cycling
passion is that I _REFUSE_ to join the ranks of polluters in this autumn of my life. Did last
week's forty degree heat fail to convince anyone? What about the forest fires that have ravaged
half the continent? Portugal alone lost the total surface area of Luxembourg in forestation.
Perhaps, being French, they've all read Braudel, and have concluded that since human agency is just
surface froth over the deeper tides of history--the geographical and ecological constraints that
make themselves felt in the longue duree--they've all decided, que l'enfer, to carry on
regardless....
*grin*
[had to dig at the _Annales_ school somewhere! And anyway, the biggest bit of european deforestation
happened in the 16th-17th centuries, as I recall, before coal replaced charcoal as industrial fuel]
Quoted message said:But socially, I'm in a very isolated position. Cycling clubs are for sports enthusiasts, not for
middle-aged beginners with a religion of Conservation.
Your experience with cycling more or less parallels my own with baseball.
Let me explain.
I played baseball (badly) when I was a kid in the States. Being clumsy, nearsighted, and generally
helpless--and not having a father or who could play ball, either--I wasn't too good. I soldiered
through Little League, played a bit in Junior High, warmed the bench for a couple of years in High
School. But things got increasingly annoying...while I was just thrilled to be out there and have a
chance to play ball, the whole baseball scene after age 13 gets pretty ugly. Slides can happen
spikes-up. Patience grows extremely thin. and if you can't get with the program quickly--that's it,
goodbye. Life gets dominated by guys who think they're talented enough to hit, run, and pitch you
into the ground. Well, it wasn't my scene, and I gave up when I was sixteen, studied, and got decent
results in my exams.
I went away to Cambridge, and discovered I missed it, and joined the baseball club out there.
Miracle: here were people (and not just Americans--Englishmen, Canadians, a Palestinian, Mexicans,
Japanese, Venezuelans, Scotsmen...) who were just happy to be out playing ball on a sunny afternoon.
Amateurs of the purest sort. I ended up running the club for two years. I loved it.
I would suppose that it would be as difficult to find affable, nonjudgemental, and generally
tolerant cyclists in France for the same reason the same sorts of people are tough to find in
America: since the sport is such a national passion, with such a great deal of prestige afforded to
competition and success, mere mortals are turned off and turned away from the sport. Net effect: it
remains a national passion, but one that is worshipped, most often, from afar.
Quoted message said:Accessibilites all assume availability of a car. LBSs assume you're an athlete. And France, in
marked contrast to the UK (my favorite country, Luigi, how I envy you), is extremely intolerant of
eccentrics and script-breakers.
The vaunted English tolerance for eccentricity helps. But in terms of actual physical reality on the
ground, the the UK isn't much better, I'm afraid. Your bicycle access on the RER would be envied by
thousands of multi-modal cycle commuters into London. A quick look at uk.rec.cycling will probably
dredge up enough posts about bad road design, and stupid/intolerant/homicidal motorists to place it
squarely with any other gathering of cyclists...
The centre of Cambridge is an anomaly by any standards. Density, narrow, midieval streets, a notable
absence of hills, and the proctorial prohibition on student automobiles (still in effect!) combine
to shift the transportational balance in favour of the bicycle.
Cycling in London is an entirely different game altogether. The presence (and continuing expansion)
of Bus Lanes (closed to all traffic save bicycles, buses, and taxis), marked on-street cycle routes
gives the cyclist a great deal of space, actually. I am convinced that the presence of so many black
cabs--whose drivers are subjected to the most stringent licensing regulations for taxis of which I
am aware--also helps things along: these chaps are skilled and polite enough, in their own way, to
give a cyclist a degree of faith in the predictability of his motorized companions.
The downside, of course, is that London is still a hugely congested and polluted city. (I am
heartened that now (only now!?) emissions testing will become mandatory for motorists in London..)
The sheer volume and speed of traffic are intimidating to the beginner. One either grows a thick
skin, or abandons the struggle. Add to this the bewildering confusion that is the London street
system, and an unnerving tendency for bus lanes and cycle lanes to terminate suddenly and with
extreme prejudice in awkward spots, and the legions of pedestrians just dying to jaywalk in front of
you, and things can get pretty annoying, too.
My cycling experience in North America is restricted to the Virginia-side suburbs of Washington, DC.
Here, there are so few cyclists, sporting, utilitarian, or otherwise, that very little provision is
made in normal street planning for their presence. Road rage can be a serious problem, as motorists
with a dim understanding of the law attempt to run you off the road with cries of "get off the
road!" or "get on the bikepath!" or even less printable advice. In the North American context, bikes
are toys, and nobody short of a few hippies (so think the Majority) considers them as serious
transport, or a real sport, or whatever. Getting around is thus probably as hard for most cyclists
as your struggles in l'Ile de France...but it's possible. All you need is determination: and nothing
gives me determination like the knowledge that I've got to get from A to B on my bicycle--no
bailing-out allowed.
On the positive, the absolute paucity of cyclists, serious or otherwise, has created a very
tight-knit community among cyclists of all types. I find myself waving at other cyclists in the
US--they're so rare!--and they wave back. I can't do that in London or Cambridge--in the former
case, I'd get into traffic trouble very quickly, and in the latter, my waving-muscles would get
sore. Cyclists will generally see if your'e okay if they see you stopped. Cyclists who also are
motorists are also extremely helpful. Everybody seems pretty happy to lend a hand--your'e just
another comrade in the Movement, after all.
bon courage,
Luigi