0:00

This

0:00

is ninety nine percent invisible.

0:02

I'm Roman Mars.

0:06

If you had to guess, When do you

0:08

think the bicycle was invented?

0:11

The basic mechanics of a bike are pretty

0:13

simple. It's basically a triangle

0:15

with wheels. and a chain drive

0:17

to propel it forward. There are no batteries,

0:19

there's no engines, it seems obvious.

0:22

And that's why most people guess that the bike

0:24

was invented a long time ago.

0:26

So sort

0:27

of curious historical fact

0:29

about the bicycle is its belated arrival.

0:32

This is Jody Rosen. and

0:34

I'm the author of Two Wheels

0:37

Good, The History and Mystery of

0:39

the bicycle. The

0:40

early version of bicycle known as the

0:42

Running Machine debuted around eighteen seventeen,

0:45

which Jody says is weirdly

0:47

late. By

0:48

the time that running machine

0:50

or a loud machine comes along, were

0:52

fifteen years into the era

0:54

of the steam locomotive. When the bicycle

0:57

started to look like the machine that we know today,

0:59

It was eighteen eighty five. In

1:01

that same year, eighteen eighty five, Carl Ben's

1:04

invented his first motorwagen. So

1:06

the automotive age is stirring

1:09

at the same moment that we finally get

1:11

a perfect bicycle. It

1:14

took many centuries for kind of fate

1:16

and, you know, try on air to bring us the machine

1:18

itself. So in that sense, I think it's one of those

1:20

devices that both feels inevitable and

1:23

whose history kind of belies

1:25

that inevitability. It just feels like, why

1:27

wasn't there a bicycle that Ferro or,

1:29

like, a Roman was pedaling around on?

1:36

Dody says the reason the late arrival feels

1:38

wrong to lots people is because the bike

1:40

feels so natural, like something that's

1:42

always been with us. The thing

1:44

in my mind that makes the bicycle such a beautiful

1:47

and unique machine is this fact that the

1:49

rider is both the passenger of

1:51

the machine and the engine. And that's actually

1:53

kind of a strange idea to be both a rider

1:55

of a machine and a component of a machine.

1:58

But at those moments when you're kind of on

2:00

your best rides, you kind of become

2:02

one with the bike in in some sort of Zen

2:05

sense, you become inseparable from it.

2:07

And there there's this there's this kind of

2:10

incredible, you know, fusion or

2:12

communion that a human has with

2:14

a machine, which is actually a kind of an uncanny

2:16

phenomenon. It's sort of a little weird and eerie.

2:18

Today, we're gonna talk with Jody about

2:20

the evolution of the bicycle and how it became

2:23

a cultural phenomenon in the late eighteen

2:25

hundreds. Then a simple protest

2:27

and a lightning rod for political controversy.

2:30

And we'll find out what is next from the

2:32

bike in a world built for

2:34

cars.

2:38

So Jody, the bicycle is

2:41

a pretty simple machine, but it took

2:43

decades of experiments and tinkering

2:45

to get the bike that we know today. could

2:47

you take us through some of the

2:49

evolution of the bike? So the running

2:51

machine or the Lauf machine

2:53

as it was called in German in this period,

2:56

was invented around about eighteen

2:59

seventeen by a guy named Carl

3:01

von who is a minor

3:04

German nobleman in the city of Mannheim.

3:06

He came from some family wealth, but he really was

3:08

a a kind of a tinkerer and a dreamer

3:10

who was always experimenting with

3:12

inventing different types of devices. And

3:14

one of the things he was very interested in was

3:16

the problem of travel, that is the the

3:18

question of how you could how you could move across

3:21

land without a horse.

3:23

So he made many efforts

3:25

over a period of years to invent various

3:27

types of machines, things

3:29

he even called automobiles. But

3:32

his most successful was this thing

3:34

called the running machine, And the crucial

3:36

breakthrough he made was to take

3:38

two wheels and line them up in a kind of

3:40

row one after the other. That is not to

3:43

attach them to an axle. and

3:45

put them one across from the other separated

3:47

by an axle, but to actually line one

3:49

up in front of the other and and connect

3:51

them with a kind of a a bar,

3:53

which a sort of saddle as he called it.

3:56

And I I the rider straddled

3:58

his or her at this in this period, mostly

4:00

his weight across the device and propelled

4:03

it with a kind of scooting or skating

4:05

motion by literally running, that

4:07

is by pushing off the pavement.

4:10

to propel the device. So this thing crucially did

4:12

not have pedals. It was a pedalist bike

4:14

and very quickly it began to

4:16

spread across the continent and

4:18

then over the English Channel into England and

4:20

there was a there was sort of various

4:23

short lived cazes for this bicycle

4:25

during this period. And

4:26

then that leads us to one of the the next sort

4:28

of, you know, punctuations in this

4:30

sort of evolution, the bone shaker, which came

4:32

on in the eighteen sixties. What

4:34

was the big change that happened with the bone shaker?

4:36

The

4:37

big change for the bone shaker is that we got

4:39

pedals. And these pedals, it was

4:41

a direct drive device, so the pedals

4:43

were attached directly to the

4:45

front wheel of the bike.

4:47

And this was on one

4:49

hand, it was a very important breakthrough

4:51

that the thing would work better if it was

4:53

a pedal driven device as opposed to one

4:55

that you you used your feet

4:57

to to scoot along the ground,

4:59

but it was kind of an inefficient setup.

5:01

And they called it the bone shaker because it

5:03

was extremely uncomfortable to

5:06

ride. Its wheels were

5:08

were shot in iron. It was

5:10

kinda ringed in metal. the machine

5:12

itself was made of wood and iron.

5:14

It was extremely heavy and

5:16

you kind of like juttered and shook as

5:19

you rode across the cobbles. So It

5:21

was a it was a machine that shook your

5:23

bones. Mark Twain

5:25

famously wrote about his attempts

5:27

to learn to ride a bone shaker and

5:29

and he said something along the lines of

5:32

riding the bicycle is a great thing. You you won't

5:34

regret it if you live. So

5:37

and I think that This

5:39

speaks the the fact that it was just

5:41

it was a pretty unpleasant way to travel because

5:43

of the engineering.

5:52

You read about how the next evolution of the

5:54

bike was the penny farthing bicycle,

5:56

which is the bicycle with the big giant

5:59

wheel, and it looks

5:59

completely ridiculous today. Why

6:02

was that important to the bike's evolution?

6:04

So

6:04

the penny farthing bicycle is this remarkable looking

6:07

machine. And if you see some

6:09

hipster with a tattoo of an old fashioned

6:11

bicycle on on his or

6:13

her arm. It's gonna be a penny far thing. Right?

6:15

Right. It wasn't some sort of moustachioed Victorian

6:17

driving it. So So, yeah,

6:19

the penny farthing was the bike with a huge

6:22

front wheel and the tiny rear wheel.

6:24

And again, it was a direct drive machine, so the

6:26

pedals were attached to the front wheel. The reason

6:28

that you have this quite remarkable looking.

6:30

I I think they're amazing looking machines.

6:33

But the reason you needed this setup was because

6:35

it it supplied a gearing effect with every

6:37

rotation of the pedal that turn the wheel

6:39

one time, the larger the wheel, the

6:41

greater the distance you would travel with each

6:43

pedal turn. So you kind of get

6:45

this absurd almost steroidal front

6:48

wheel in order to achieve a gearing effect.

6:50

But again, this was a quite un

6:52

safe machine. It was very difficult

6:54

to mount in the first place. The saddle sat

6:56

quite high. It was at the height

6:58

of a horse. This was the reasoning behind it. and

7:01

also because you had such a big wheel,

7:03

by definition, you were sitting high off the ground.

7:05

Yeah. And again, it was just an awkward

7:08

machine because you were using that

7:10

same front wheel to steer that you were pedaling

7:12

on. So people were prone to doing what

7:14

they called taking a header that is flying

7:16

over the handlebar is kinda

7:18

pitching over the handlebars and and

7:20

injuring themselves in all kinds of gruesome

7:22

ways. Yeah. So something I had to give because

7:24

as cool as that bike looked, it was it

7:26

wasn't particularly a safe machine, and it sort of

7:28

made the bicycle a device for

7:31

for sportsman or

7:33

or daredevil -- Yeah. -- as opposed to, you

7:35

know, a demo cratic machine that

7:37

was a true form of, you know, mass transit.

7:39

It wasn't exactly a commuter vehicle in

7:41

the same way as you would have

7:43

liked. Right. depending

7:44

for anything looks ridiculous now. But it

7:47

wasn't just a novelty that big wheel

7:49

was actually trying to solve a problem.

7:51

But then A new technology came along

7:53

in the form of the chain drive,

7:55

which changed everything about what

7:57

makes a bicycle a bicycle. So

7:59

the breakthrough came around eighteen

8:02

seventy nine with the notion that you

8:04

create a chain drive that is you you move the pedals

8:06

away from the front wheel to something like the middle

8:08

of the bicycle. and you

8:10

hit a chain to a sprocket

8:12

which is threaded back to

8:14

the rear wheel with each turn of the

8:16

pedals, you pull that rear wheel forward

8:18

and then that front wheel

8:20

simply becomes a a wheel that you steer with.

8:22

You're not you're not driving that wheel with

8:25

the pedals attached directly to it. So

8:27

this is brilliant and innovative solution, which

8:29

among other things really takes advantage

8:31

of the power of the human legs. That's

8:33

the largest muscles in the human body or located in

8:35

the legs. you know, the the genius of the

8:37

bicycle is that the rider is both the

8:39

passenger and the engine of

8:41

the machine and a chain

8:44

drive really optimizes that

8:46

engine. But also, there were a number of

8:48

other engineering breakthroughs in this period, so you

8:50

had the arrival of a

8:52

diamond shaped frame, which is

8:54

a sturdy setup and you

8:56

had two wheels of at first

8:58

more or less equal size than very quickly.

9:00

after that, you know, identical size -- Mhmm. -- which

9:02

solves the problem that we had with the penny farthing of, you

9:04

know, people taking a header all of a sudden, it's a much

9:06

safer and more stable bike,

9:09

and it moves much quicker and more

9:11

efficiently. And and here we come to, you know,

9:13

the last great breakthrough, which

9:15

is the development of not

9:17

just tires that are that are rubber tires but that

9:19

have an inner tube filled with air,

9:21

which provides a a smoother

9:23

and and much faster ride.

9:25

So suddenly, You have a machine

9:27

which is truly a machine that

9:29

anybody can ride, old people,

9:31

young people, people have

9:33

large frames. people who are small,

9:35

you know, the so called safety bicycle

9:37

could bear the weight of a ride

9:39

or, you know, ten times the weight of

9:41

the bicycle without any problem

9:43

at all. So it's at that moment that we get

9:45

the bicycle proper and and then we

9:47

get a kind of explosion of riding

9:49

across the world. I'd love that

9:50

the accumulation of all these

9:52

inventions led to a thing called the

9:54

safety bicycle, just the

9:57

name. The safety bike kind of

9:59

cracks me up.

9:59

Yeah. No. It is the name

10:02

safety bike is funny. It's

10:04

not it's not the it's not the sexiest name,

10:06

you know. It's sort of sound so it sounds

10:08

like you're underselling. thing.

10:10

It's like it's safe. Yeah. Yeah. Wow.

10:12

It's it's safe. But but it it does

10:14

bespoke the the enormity of the

10:16

problem beforehand because it really was

10:18

the case that know, through the nineteenth

10:20

century up until the mid eighteen

10:22

eighties. Bicycles really were a

10:24

kind of fringe phenomenon because

10:27

they were viewed as unsafe. I mean, there were

10:29

various other kind of reasons in the culture,

10:32

social prejudices against the

10:34

idea of women riding. children riding,

10:36

which limited the the numbers of riders.

10:38

But prior to this period, you know,

10:40

bicycles were due to something for daredevils.

10:46

In in the period of the the bone shaker

10:48

and the penny farthing, Bicycles were

10:50

something more like, you know, a pet

10:52

rock or a

10:55

like a hula hoop. It was trend

10:58

on on that level. Mhmm. With the arrival of

11:00

the safety bicycle, you have like an Internet

11:02

sized cultural phenomenon,

11:04

social phenomenon where, you know, a

11:06

mass movement. By the time you get to the eighteen

11:08

nineties, there are millions of riders,

11:10

millions of bicycle commuters in the

11:12

United States

11:12

and in Western Europe

11:15

in in the UK, elsewhere.

11:17

Yeah.

11:25

So

11:29

the bike took off in the eighteen nineties and it

11:31

became this cultural phenomenon, but it

11:33

faced a lot of push back. And you have this whole

11:35

section of your book with, you know,

11:37

some negative responses to the bike.

11:39

And I wanted to read one. And this is

11:41

from the Wichita Daily Eagle

11:43

in eighteen ninety six. The

11:46

bicycle

11:46

has appeared in a new role that

11:48

of destroyer of a once happy

11:50

home The woman in the case is

11:52

missus Elma j Dennison, formerly of

11:54

five thirteenth fifth Street Brooklyn, twenty

11:56

three years old, a bicycle girl

11:59

who rides a man's wheel and wears

12:01

bloomers. Mister Dennison says that his wife

12:03

developed the bicycle fever to such a

12:05

degree that she neglected everything,

12:07

her home, her children, and

12:09

her husband. she lived only for

12:11

her wheel and on it.

12:13

I mean, that just sounds like so

12:15

over the top, but you found so

12:17

many examples of this from newspapers at

12:19

the time. Why did the bicycle

12:22

face

12:22

so much pushback? Yeah.

12:24

In the eighteen nineties, the bicycle had

12:26

so many enemies. There

12:28

were guardians of morality

12:31

and Victorian values. There were

12:34

preachers and clergymen who invade

12:36

against the bicycle from the pulpit. were

12:38

newspaper editorials who thought that the bicycles

12:40

were ruining the American economy,

12:42

were driving children out of

12:44

schools, were empty in church

12:46

pews, There were people in the

12:48

horse trade. There were tailors,

12:51

manufacturers of cigars, even

12:53

barbers, said that their business

12:55

was being ruined by the

12:57

arrival of the bicycle because nobody wanted to shave

12:59

anymore. You know, an

13:01

interesting thing though to to note about this is

13:03

this idea of a bicycle craze or

13:05

bicycle mania. There was a lot of kind

13:07

of pseudo medical ideas

13:10

circulating about the bicycle in this

13:12

period and about, you know, various types

13:14

of diseases, you

13:16

know, psychological and otherwise that had

13:18

beset society or

13:20

beset individuals who were riding

13:22

around too much. So so, yeah, there was

13:24

this idea that there were bicycle fiends

13:26

or bicycle maniacs who, because of

13:28

excessive biking, had essentially been driven

13:30

crazy, and were doing all sorts

13:32

of terrible anti social

13:34

things. And there were a number of

13:37

physical malleties and ailments that

13:39

were attributed to the bicycle, everything

13:41

from bicycle face, the idea that

13:43

as if you rode along too

13:44

fast for too long that your your

13:46

face literally, like, contorted and changed

13:49

shape or you became, you know,

13:51

knock kneed or hunchbacked. And

13:53

this literature, by the way, isn't just like in the popular press, but

13:55

it's literally in medical journals from this

13:57

period. The bike

13:59

had

13:59

this

13:59

period where It was

14:02

the domain of in dandies and

14:04

hobbyists. But as soon as you

14:06

get the safety bike era,

14:08

it becomes political. It becomes

14:10

a symbol of progressivism in

14:12

a million different ways, and it

14:14

was used in protests and social movements

14:16

Could you talk specifically about the role of

14:18

the bike in women's suffrage? I

14:20

think, pointedly, the

14:22

bicycle was embraced by

14:24

women as a a means of both

14:26

with personal and collective emancipation

14:28

in this period. Prior to the arrival,

14:30

the safety bicycle, you know,

14:32

the early bicycles it was very gendered

14:35

machine. There were a

14:37

few women who wrote them,

14:39

but generally it was thought to be a

14:41

machine for men for sportsman

14:43

in particular. Well, the safety

14:45

bicycle was very clearly a device that could

14:47

be it could be ridden safely

14:50

by anyone

14:52

including women and women took to

14:54

the machine on mass.

14:59

if

15:00

you think about women in the

15:02

United States and Western Europe and UK in

15:04

this period, you know, the kind

15:06

of oat bourgeois middle class, upper

15:08

middle class women, in

15:10

Victorian society, the clothing they

15:12

wore at this time. If you think about what big

15:14

whalebone, of course, you know, of

15:16

course, it's or, you know, giant hoop

15:18

skirts It was hard to move around

15:20

on those things in on foot, let

15:22

alone mount a bicycle and ride one. So

15:24

very quickly, women who wanted to ride

15:26

bicycles said, okay, we've gotta we've gotta get

15:28

some clothing going here so that the

15:30

the dress reform movement

15:32

was really catalyzed by

15:34

bicycles, what was what was known as the rational

15:37

dress movement. So women embrace

15:39

new types of clothing, including

15:41

famously bloomers, these

15:43

kind of, like, MC Hammer style

15:45

pantalooons. Right? So the bicycle

15:47

very much became a symbol of so

15:49

called new womanhood in this period and was

15:51

associated with these reforms. And

15:53

with activists, with agitators for for women's

15:56

rights, for women's suffrage, for the the

15:58

right to vote, women didn't just take

16:00

two bicycles on mass as commuter

16:02

vehicles. They used them as kind of tools of

16:04

protests, you know, there were bicycle

16:06

protests where where women kind

16:08

of rode together to the barricades,

16:11

to agitate for the vote. etcetera. There was this

16:13

idea that women, you know, needed to travel

16:15

around with chaperones. Well, suddenly the bicycle

16:17

freed them up to move quickly around on

16:19

chaperoneed and and god knows

16:21

what they could get up to

16:23

when they're when they're on a

16:25

bicycle going who knows where doing

16:27

God knows what. Again, everything sort

16:29

of circles back to women

16:31

and sexual purity in this

16:33

period. I mean, it really likes the, you know,

16:35

the neuroseism society

16:37

at large or are very clear

16:39

if you look at the bicycle history.

16:41

It makes it it all everything

16:43

always seems to kind of circumnavigate back

16:45

to this issue. Moving forward,

16:48

the bicycle was a fixture of

16:50

protests around the world throughout the twentieth century.

16:52

And in your book, you cite many

16:54

examples of protests in England and North

16:56

America where bikes front center. But

16:58

one protest stands out above the rest, and

17:00

and that is China in nineteen

17:02

eighty nine. Could you tell me how

17:04

bicycles became a fixture in the

17:06

protests in Tiananmen Square.

17:08

One crucial fact to take on board about

17:10

bicycles is that they're kind of sneaky

17:12

and elusive machines. You

17:14

can weave through traffic on them. You

17:16

can get away quick on them.

17:18

You can mobilize

17:21

a protest rather quickly on bicycles and

17:23

disperse rather quickly. And they've

17:25

actually been useful tools

17:27

of protest for

17:29

something like a hundred and fifty years because of this.

17:31

And this is something that, you

17:33

know, we see in various places

17:36

and moments in history. But perhaps

17:38

the the place where the bicycle has the

17:40

most interesting kind of political trajectory is

17:43

in China because there was a good period of

17:45

time where it was it was essentially like

17:47

a state mandated mode of travel. We

17:49

had the Chinese revolution in nineteen forty

17:51

nine very soon thereafter.

17:53

chairman Mao pushes for

17:56

the manufacturing of bicycles

17:58

on a mass basis. He puts a lot of

18:00

money in muscle behind the development

18:02

of Chinese bicycle industry. And by

18:04

the time we get to Denjalpaine like

18:06

in the nineteen eighties, the bicycles

18:09

essentially as I say, a state mandated device. It's

18:11

it was thought to be one of three tools

18:13

that every Chinese person needed if they were

18:15

gonna settle down and have a family. you need to have

18:17

a a radio, a sewing machine, and a

18:20

bicycle. There are a couple of

18:22

extremely famous bicycle brands

18:24

chiefly the flying pigeon, which is kind of like the the

18:26

Ford of Chinese bicycles. Yeah. And

18:28

and then Xiaoping said, like, you know, there should

18:30

be a flying pigeon bicycle in every household

18:33

in China. there very nearly

18:35

was. By the time we get to nineteen ninety six,

18:37

which is the kind of very peak of the

18:39

bicycle era in China, there's

18:41

something like five hundred million. bicycles

18:43

on the roads in China. Mhmm. So

18:45

you asked about the the Tiananmen Square protests?

18:47

Well, in nineteen eighty nine, you know, there were

18:49

of course these student led protests. agitating for

18:51

greater democracy? Well, everybody

18:54

in in Beijing rode bicycles

18:56

and especially young people. So the the

18:58

protest in Tiananmen Square which brought, you

19:00

know, hundreds eventually more than a

19:02

million people into the square, there really

19:04

were bicycle protests because you had

19:06

tens of thousands of people kind of

19:08

sweeping through the streets traveling

19:10

to Tiananmen Square on bicycles. The

19:12

protest themselves used

19:14

bicycles in various ways. And then

19:16

famously when the when the when the when the

19:18

crackdown happened, in June nineteen eighty

19:20

nine, you had bicycles that

19:22

were whisking the wounded in and out of

19:24

Tiananmen Square, people, regular

19:26

Beijingers through their bicycles in the

19:28

path of the army tanks that were rolling into the squared in

19:30

an effort to stop them. So

19:32

symbolically, the bicycle it had

19:34

always been the the main means

19:36

of transfer taking for the Chinese people for

19:38

decades, but but suddenly you had this kind of

19:40

showdown between the might of the of the

19:42

state and the army and the form of these

19:44

giant tanks rolling in and you had this kind

19:46

of with people's resistance with these with

19:48

these poky little bicycles.

19:50

Yeah. Well, so

19:52

you you mentioned the fact that bicycles

19:54

are just part of Chinese culture, and they were encouraged to

19:56

to be that way and supposed

19:58

to be in every household.

19:59

In fact, there's like one point five bikes for

20:02

every household in the country. there

20:04

was a real concerted effort to turn it into

20:06

a car culture at a certain point.

20:08

Why and how did that happen?

20:10

Yeah.

20:11

So this is in the post Tiananmen era.

20:13

And with the turn of the twenty first century,

20:15

there was, you know, China embraced

20:17

what they call market socialism. This kind

20:19

of form of really hypercapitalism

20:21

that is that is there now. It was sort

20:23

of a trade off because, you know, you had the Chinese government

20:25

opening up various types of

20:27

material prosperity to Chinese citizens.

20:29

that had previously been unimaginable, but

20:32

the kind of Fauci and Bargain was, you

20:34

know, we're not gonna give you all the political rights

20:36

that you want, but we're gonna give you all kinds of

20:38

material effluence that you've you've never had before. And

20:40

part of that movement was an effort

20:42

in the same way that chairman Mao had led

20:44

an effort to develop a Chinese

20:46

Biscreen industry, well, they said, we've got to get into

20:49

the car manufacturing business. And and

20:51

boy did they succeed because,

20:53

you know, today, China is is

20:55

the world's largest men both

20:57

manufacturer and consumer of cars, and they

20:59

developed a car culture, which dwarfs

21:01

that even of the United States, the

21:03

network of of highways and expressways

21:05

that has been built in China over the last

21:07

three decades is almost

21:09

twice the size of the interstate

21:11

highway system here in the United States. you

21:13

had ancient urban cores, cities really redesigned,

21:16

you know, kind of raised

21:18

and redesigned four cars, big

21:20

eight lane highways going up.

21:23

where previously you'd had kind of twisty,

21:26

windy, medieval streets that were easy to

21:28

fly on bicycles. So

21:30

China went hard after

21:32

car culture and and suddenly the

21:34

bicycle which for which for years had just been a

21:36

fact of life and the way everyone got

21:38

around. not only was discouraged, but was kind of actively stigmatized.

21:40

It was marginalized both on

21:42

the roads, but also there was a lot of

21:44

social stigma attached to the idea of riding

21:46

bikes because it was it was

21:48

thought to be associated with the bad old days

21:50

with poor people. Now

21:52

that's there's a kind of movement back

21:54

in China, kind of AAA

21:57

turn back to bicycles, especially with the the the

21:59

rise of the e bike, which is sort of a

22:01

compromise maybe between automobiles

22:04

and cars and it's a kind of wonder device. Mhmm. But,

22:06

yeah, China is a is a super

22:08

interesting story because it's really, you know, during

22:10

that peak period of psychoculture

22:13

in China, you know, China was known as

22:15

the Kingdom of the bicycle. And you have

22:17

this kind of insane

22:19

bicycle boom there, which lasted for decades followed

22:21

by this intense turn against the

22:24

bicycle. And now throughout the world that

22:26

what we're seeing in places like

22:28

the US and elsewhere is

22:30

is a kind of attempt by policymakers and certainly

22:32

bicycle advocates and activists to

22:35

try and recreate the kind of

22:37

cycling culture the the China developed rather

22:39

organically in this period. So we're all sort of

22:41

lusting after what it is that China

22:43

cast off. So Yeah. Yeah.

22:45

you know, there's nothing inherently

22:48

political about a bike. And big parts of the world is a

22:50

very utilitarian machine. It's just this

22:52

way to get around. It's unrelated to

22:54

politics. but it's clear that the bike needs

22:56

a lot of different things and a lot of different cultures.

22:59

So one thing that I learned in in writing

23:01

this book is that a time and place

23:03

really matter. there's no there's no fixed

23:05

meaning to a bicycle, you know, even within a

23:07

city. Any given city, you know, a

23:09

bicycle can can signify kind

23:11

of like a status symbol or, you know, almost a

23:13

luxury good. And in another part of town,

23:15

it can be a purely utilitarian

23:18

in or even a device

23:20

of the proletariat. It can be

23:22

a tool of protest, and it

23:24

can be a tool of

23:27

counterpro guess. So if you you look at the Black Lives

23:29

Matter of twenty twenty here

23:31

in New York, you have these remarkable

23:34

protests where there were thousands taken to

23:36

the streets, many of them on bicycles, where

23:39

they were met by

23:41

these kind of armored up bicycle

23:44

comps. New York has an, like, an elite

23:46

division of bicycle riot police.

23:49

who, you know, were

23:51

kitted out in these sort of teenage

23:53

mutant ninja turtle, you know, hockey

23:55

goalie type

23:57

riot gear. and who not only were

23:59

riding bikes, but were using bikes

24:01

in various ways as weapons. They

24:03

weaponized the bicycle itself, so they were

24:05

using bicycles as as kind of shields and

24:07

in various cases as battering rams. And

24:09

so there's an there's an instance in which,

24:11

you know, the meaning of the bicycle

24:13

is literally being fought out right there on

24:15

the street block by block. You know, this

24:18

is another reason that I that I wanted to

24:20

investigate the bicycle and and write this

24:22

book because connotations of a

24:24

bicycle that really depend on where and who

24:26

you are in any given place. So it's wrong to

24:28

kind of pigeonhole what a

24:30

bicycle is or who a cyclist is.

24:32

there's just a lot of stereotypes and maybe

24:34

kind of shallow thinking around bicycles. And

24:36

I was hoping to kind of complicate some

24:39

of that.

24:39

When

24:44

we

24:44

come back, what is the future of the bike

24:46

in a world feels like it was

24:49

custom built for cars, more

24:51

with Jody Rosen

24:53

after this.

25:03

the

25:21

The pandemic

25:23

really

25:23

shook up a lot of people's notions about

25:25

what cities could be. And we

25:27

saw things like car free downtowns

25:30

and new uses for the road to make more

25:32

room for outside seating. And

25:34

lots of people got into cycling for the

25:36

first time since maybe childhood.

25:39

do you think that COVID has led to

25:41

a bigger rethink about cities? And

25:43

what do you think that means for

25:45

the future of bikes? Yeah, I think the

25:47

pandemic really was a crucial moment

25:49

for sure. So millions of people around

25:51

the world were seeking a socially distant

25:54

means of travel around town, and there was

25:56

the bicycle. you know, you know, the bicycle

25:58

has a way of coming back. So

25:59

suddenly, you had lots and lots of people kind of

26:02

rediscovering that three speed that they'd stuck in

26:04

the basement. or noticing that their

26:06

that their cities had bike share programs and

26:08

you could subscribe to a bike share program or go

26:10

rent one, you know, pull one out

26:12

of stocking station at the corner you know, get around town in

26:14

a quick and easy way. And I

26:16

think a lot of people discovered

26:19

something that maybe hadn't occurred to

26:21

them because of maybe they hadn't even

26:23

tried it, but just it's it's so pleasant to

26:26

travel by bicycle. it feels so good, you

26:28

know, just it's like, you know, a

26:30

physically and you might even

26:32

say spiritually uplifting

26:34

means of travel. And it's also

26:37

extremely quick and convenient and,

26:39

you know, a lot more fun

26:41

than sitting in, you know,

26:43

a box in traffic sweating

26:45

while horns are blurring all around you, at least you

26:47

can be you can be cruising past

26:49

the the boxes or is threading your

26:51

way through them. But, you know, I

26:53

think what's really important is in many

26:55

many places around the world. There was infrastructure

26:57

that was kind of thrown up on the fly. during the

26:59

pandemic. So these kind of temporary

27:01

bike lanes were thrown up in, which in

27:03

many places became permanent bike

27:05

lanes. lot of cities that did this better,

27:07

a lot of places that did this better than we

27:09

did in the United States. So for instance, I

27:11

think of Paris where they have their the

27:13

current mayor there. and Adalgo is

27:16

a Zealous proponent of cycling,

27:18

which makes her a controversial

27:20

figure over there for sure. Mhmm. But has,

27:22

you know, sort of by force of will

27:25

imposed cycling on

27:27

Paris. The rude rivoli, a major

27:29

thoroughfare kind of turned into a

27:31

default cycling highway. She

27:33

has plans. There are plans there

27:35

to kind of ban cars from a lot

27:37

of this around these months, the

27:39

central districts of Paris. So the

27:41

pandemic presented this, like, it was kind of

27:43

opportunity because suddenly a lot more

27:45

people were on bikes a

27:47

lot but people were discovering, hey, this is a

27:49

this is a real good way to get

27:51

around. And the

27:53

more visionary or maybe even

27:55

just aggressive policy makers and

27:57

and office holders said, you know, we

27:59

gotta move forward and seize the moment and

28:01

push some of this stuff through. So

28:03

as to what the future holds for

28:05

biking, it's very much up

28:07

for grabs. There's a lot of

28:09

pushback about the stuff, you know, here in New

28:11

York City. There's we have

28:14

a plan in place. Congestion

28:17

pricing has been approved,

28:19

but for various bureaucratic reasons that

28:21

it hasn't been implemented yet.

28:23

People are very resistant to this

28:25

because, you know, a lot of people are

28:27

very attached to their

28:29

cars and car culture itself is very powerful

28:32

powerful force politically and

28:34

otherwise. Yeah. So it's gonna take

28:36

a lot to make cities

28:38

in the US maybe look

28:40

like those great cities in Northern Europe, which

28:42

are places

28:43

like Copenhagen or in

28:45

in Amsterdam that are really cycling cities.

28:47

But I I think in in certain places,

28:49

we'll we'll get there. And I think

28:51

it hopefully will have a domino effect

28:53

because people who visit those places

28:56

realize just how much better it is to get

28:58

around on a a bicycle or a scooter or

29:00

what have you? Anyone who lives in the

29:02

city has probably seen an e bike,

29:04

of which is an electronic bike

29:06

that you has pedal assist.

29:08

Like, it means, I guess, you can use it without

29:10

pedaling at all, but it basically makes

29:12

it so that you can go up steeper

29:14

hills in longer distances. than you

29:16

probably could on a regular

29:18

bike. Are those here to say? Like, will they

29:20

be a big part of cycling's

29:22

future? I think the the advent of the

29:24

e is a really crucial development in all this

29:26

because it's a lot less physically

29:28

taxing to ride a bike. You

29:30

know, they're really amazing.

29:32

And I think people who might be resistant to,

29:34

like, you know, sweating as they, you know, grunting

29:36

along as they try and mount a hill

29:38

on a on a regular old bike. when

29:40

they whiz uphill on a on a pedal assist e bike, they

29:42

suddenly suddenly the a whole

29:45

world opens opens up to them and

29:47

and moreover, there's it's utilitarian

29:49

value is definitely. It's

29:51

like a it's a cut above in certain ways. If you're

29:53

running late for a meeting, you don't wanna show up, you

29:55

know, dripping with sweat, you can get on an e

29:57

bike and and and get there, you know,

29:59

in your in your

29:59

suit looking looking the

30:02

part. So so so

30:04

maybe the rise of the e bike will be a

30:06

crucial a crucial development, which will will

30:08

help bring about. the the

30:10

cycling culture that I think I think we need

30:12

at least in cities. You obviously

30:13

love cycling in bikes, but you write about

30:15

this phenomenon in the book called The Adaptive

30:18

Golf. and and it's kind of like how for some people

30:20

the dream of riding a bike is

30:22

so far from what

30:24

it's like

30:24

riding a bike as a beginner. that

30:27

it can be kind of hard to get into. What do you

30:29

think about that issue for people who who

30:31

aren't cyclists, especially in

30:34

cities? I've

30:34

I've seen up close and personal

30:36

in my own household recently

30:39

because I have a nine year old and, you know, we

30:41

are in the extreme recycling

30:44

household. you know, my wife and I get around by

30:46

bike. My older son who's

30:48

eighteen tears around New York City on his

30:50

bike. But for whatever reason, my nine

30:52

year old has not been able to bring himself

30:54

to learn to ride a bike. You know, I like,

30:56

daddy wrote a book about bicycles, you know.

30:58

It's like and yet he's not

31:00

into it. So he's the passenger on my

31:02

bike. You know, I I actually have a special

31:04

seat that I had to get from

31:06

Holland, which is sufficiently sturdy

31:08

to bear the weight of a nine year

31:10

old because in most cases, you know, nine

31:12

year olds have graduated to their own bicycles. But

31:14

for him, it's that it's that very thing, you know,

31:16

learning to ride a bike. It's actually, you know,

31:18

extremely easy. once you get the knack of it, but you do

31:20

have to get the knack of it. And until you do,

31:22

it's hard to imagine that you're going to be

31:24

able to. I recently actually had

31:26

lunch with a a colleague. Actually

31:28

rather well known journalist who writes for, let's

31:30

say, a paper of record in New York

31:32

City. I'm not gonna name names, but

31:34

he's an adult. who's never learned to ride a bike.

31:36

And I tried to tell him, dude, you gotta get on a bike.

31:39

It's very easy to do. And he intellectually, he knows

31:41

that he could learn to ride a bike, but it as you

31:43

say, some sort of conceptual gulf

31:45

that he can't cross -- Yeah. -- and bring

31:47

himself to do it. Yeah.

31:50

Jody

31:51

Rosen, thank you so much for talking with me. And

31:53

thanks for the book. I really enjoyed it.

31:55

It's just delightful. Thanks, Roman. It's

31:56

so great to be here.

32:00

Ninety

32:08

nine percent

32:09

in Visible was produced this week by

32:11

Jacob Moltenado Modena edited by

32:13

Chris Baru mixed by Amida

32:16

Kanatra, music by Swan Rial. Our

32:18

senior editor is Delaney Hall, Kurt

32:20

Colstad, is our digital director. The

32:22

resident includes Vivian Lai, Jason

32:24

Dleyone, Martin Gonzalez,

32:26

Christopher Johnson, Emmett

32:28

Fitzgerald, Lachman Don, Kelly

32:30

Prime, Joe Rosenberg, Sophia

32:33

Klotzger. intern, Olivia Green, and me

32:35

Roman Moores. We are

32:37

part of the Stitcher and SiriusXM podcast

32:40

family. now headquartered six

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and beautiful, Uptown,

32:47

Oakland, California. You can

32:49

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32:53

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well as every past episode of ninety

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