Wings
In the 1860s, a French blacksmith named Pierre Michaux attached pedals to a two-wheel carriage. He called the device the velocipede. Shortly afterward, he formed a partnership with two young students and they began the first mass production of the bicycle.
It’s a warm evening at the end of summer. The last of the kids at the Boys and Girls have been picked up, and all the games and equipment put away, but I don’t feel like going home. So I hop on my bike and ride through the city, to nowhere in particular.
Arm stretch a tee like I nailed it
Raf movin’ slow like a creep
Shirt in the breeze like I’m sailin’
- Frank Ocean
The first high-wheel bicycle, known as the penny-farthing, was invented in the 1870s. The large front wheel gave riders the ability to reach higher speeds (and made it easier to fall off). Using this model, Thomas Stevens became the first person to cycle around the globe. It took him two and a half years.
I pedal down the street, moving slow, feeling the road underneath me. Gliding almost. Then I spot a hill up ahead, so my legs start to move. I speed up. I’m up out of my seat, leaning forward, feeling it in my thighs.
Bicycle (English)
Vélo (French)
Baiskeli (Swahili)
Put your hands in fists as if you’re holding handlebars and rotate them in circles (Sign Language)
A New York Times article from 1896 stated that ‘the bicycle promises a splendid extension of personal power and freedom, scarcely inferior to what wings would give.’
By now, I’ve biked these same streets thousands of times. I know exactly where the cars merge and turn, where there are cracks in the road or potholes, when I can put my head down and fly.
“You get to know a city differently on a bike. The sound of it. The feel of it.”
When I think back, bikes have always filled scenes from my childhood. Like Elliot closing his eyes as he lifts up into the air, riding off in front of the full moon with E.T. in the basket in front of him.
Or Snoop Dogg, in a Pittsburgh Penguins jersey, sitting on his friend’s handlebars while rapping in the Gin & Juice music video.
“You ever take it off any sweet jumps?”
Pedro takes it off a jump
“You got like three feet of air that time! Can I try it really quick?”
Napolean breaks the ramp and hurts his genitals
- Napoleon Dynamite (2004)
It was exactly a year ago today when I had my accident, at the corner of Ontario and Dundas Street. I still get flashbacks when I pass through the intersection. I was speeding through a stop sign at night, rushing to get home. A car with its headlights off was doing the same thing. I only saw it at the last second. I jumped off right before my bike was crushed.
With the boom of the automobile, by the 1920s bike use dropped dramatically in North America. Production slowed and bicycles were considered mainly children’s toys.
After the crash, without my bike, I didn’t feel like myself. I felt trapped, immobile. Naked almost. How else did people get around?
Basic bike parts include: frame, seat post and saddle, handlebars, brakes, fork, wheels and tires, bottom bracket and crank, which connects to the chain.
“What’s that line on your head?” one of the kids asked. And I run my two fingers over the scar along my forehead. “What are you talking about?” I respond, playing dumb. “What’s wrong with my head?” But I wonder if it will ever fade. Or if the crash will be a part of me for the rest of my life.
It wasn’t until the 1970s that biking regained its popularity as a sport. BMX and mountain bikes were invented, and people began off-road racing.
The world’s largest annual bike race is held in France each July. It started as a way to increase sales for a newspaper. Cyclists compete on a course extending three-thousand, five-hundred kilometers over twenty-one days, with the winner being awarded a yellow jacket.
In the 1980s, companies began offering bike messenger services within metropolitan cities like Toronto. They realized it was faster, that bikers could weave through traffic and didn’t have to have to worry about parking.
In the spring, I discovered an organization down the street from my hours. The Great Bike Recycle. They have a program that lets people donate used bikes and bike parts to be refurbished and distributed to communities in Toronto.
Depending on the time of year, sometimes it’s so cold that I can’t feel my fingers. Or the wind almost blows me over. Or it seems to start raining just as soon as I leave my house. But I’d still rather ride.
In 1975, Toronto’s cycling committee was established at City Hall. Its goal was to help promote safe cycling in the city. Four years later, the first bike lane was constructed on Poplar Plains Road.
Types of bicycles include fixed-gear bikes, folding bikes, tandem bikes, unicycles. Bikes with baskets on the back, or bikes with baskets on the front. Drop-down handlebars, and bull-horn handlebars, and bikes who’s handlebars have been entirely stripped of tape.
In the early 2000s, the Toronto city government introduced the Toronto Bike Plan. It committed to build one thousand kilometers of bikeways through the city, and double the number of daily cycling trips.
And I can see the impact around the city. People commuting to work on bikes. Parking racks along the sidewalks. I arrive at a concert down at the waterfront and bicycles line the fence in both directions, as far as my eyes can see.
Bike trails in the city include the Humber River, the Don Trail, the Beltline, the Rail Path, the Martin Goodman Trail (down at the water). The city is filled with them if you know where to look.
In 2011, Toronto introduced a bike sharing program that made over one thousand bicycles available across the city.
“What is a bike for?” one of the kids asked me, one afternoon at K Club. “What’s it for?” I thought to myself. “Well… It’s a form of transportation. A way to get to and from work. It’s a form of exercise. It’s a seat to rest on if you’re tired. It’s a way to meet friends… It is a friend. A bike is a place to think. It’s art! It’s–” but I’d lost their attention.
Tonight, I make a left at Dundas Street and head west, the road flattening out in front of me. Along this stretch, I feel like I can see the whole city. The Regent Park Community Centre and the Fire Station. The strip club just past Sherbourne. Ryerson University, and the gay village, and Yonge and Dundas square where the blind man is yelling at the street corner. I’ll pass the row of hospitals and the Art Gallery of Ontario, then fly through Chinatown, the road twisting and turning as I weave in between traffic. There’s Kensington Market, and Patoi Jamaican, and Comrags Clothing, and Tampered Press. Across the street from the coffee shop is Trinity Bellwoods – the thirty-six acre park in the middle of downtown. Then I’ll pass Ossington and Dundas West, with it’s bars and restaurants and boutique clothing stores. Finally the street turns north, going up over the train tracks and intersecting with Bloor Street, and by that point I feel like I’ve traveled a lifetime along one street.
According to the 2016 Toronto census, in most neighbourhoods downtown, close to thirty percent of people now bike to work. That number was up twenty percent from a decade prior.
A Danish study across twenty thousand families found that children who biked to school performed measurably better in the classroom than those who traveled by car.
As of writing this, bicycles save over two-hundred and thirty-eight million gallons of fuel every year.
“In my experience, riding a bicycle is the closest thing you can get to flying.”
The clouds are beginning to clear in the sky overhead. A glow of red and pink hover above the horizon. I turn down a newly paved street with no cars in sight, tiny pot lights illuminating the road. Then Frank Ocean’s Blonde album comes on in my headphones.