Cycling in Detroit - Week One and a Half

(boon at the dump, not bike jousting)

We here at Freighty Cat don't own a vehicle. Kyle hasn't had one in over half a decade and I've never owned one at all. Biking not only suits our politics and ethics, but also our economic state (what with relocating across the country and starting a business, this is true now more than ever). So far our bicycles have served us just fine, but we knew that living in Detroit without a car could be a whole new experience. Then again, although we just came from a city renowned for its public transit system (NYC), we very seldom traveled on anything other than our bicycles. Moving to Detroit, in turn, hasn't been too much of a transportation culture shock at all. Even biking as far as the suburbs is a drop in the bucket compared to our usual routine of biking between boroughs and over the relative hills of Brooklyn. While the terrain may be entirely different here, we have been doing just fine without a car.

I'm going to be captain random here for a moment. In the past week and a half, on our ever-widening errands by bicycle, a thought has started forming in my mind. Although I have been a bike commuter, even if for just one day, in almost every major city in America (plus several in Europe and Canada), cycling in Detroit holds a special strangeness. In cities like New York, I've been one amongst a sea of bikers, while nearly a decade ago (when taking care of my grandpa) in South Bend, Indiana, I was a lone oddity in a world made for cars. Winter in Detroit, however, is the first time I have felt like such an anomaly despite a clearly blooming bicycle infrastructure. As a newcomer and a relative outsider, riding my bicycle is the transportation equivalent of running my errands naked. Within the hefty confines of a vehicle, a person can become anonymous and mostly free of rash judgement. When I get dressed to ride in the morning, besides the extra time spent constructing my layers and debating over gloves, I am well aware that I am about to go on my own tiny parade. Living most of my life inside of large cities, it was only in Indiana where I felt even a fraction of this. My first ride out, I'd made a "Bike to Live / Live to Bike" patch using some rags and a sharpie for my thrifted "messenger" bag. The common thread between these cities - mediocre public transit and thus a noticeable lack of pedestrian traffic. Needless to say, on a bike I am the only visible set of legs for miles. The cars begin to feel like burkas in relation to my nude presentation, although even a burka identifies the wearer's gender. Suddenly, I am the only complete human within sight for miles, presenting myself as a woman on a bicycle for all the world to see from inside their antisocial pods of seclusion, otherwise surrounded by a vast emptiness. It is as empowering as it is unsettling, but in the end still worth the ride.

Despite the general lack of foot traffic in Detroit, as a cyclist I have felt well treated by vehicles. In truth, the overly wide streets and dwindling population leave plenty of room for everyone. Even so, on our bike ride to Detroit from the metro airport, drivers in the suburbs greeted us with honking, shouting, cursing, and threats. We were told countless times, even by pedestrians, to get on the sidewalk. While it was nowhere near as empty of traffic as Detroit proper, there was still plenty of room for everyone on the street, at least from our perspective. Our return from the airport had been Kyle's introduction to cycling in Detroit, so I spent the suburban half of our ride gently assuring him that the city itself was nothing like this and that we hadn't just moved to some sort of cyclist purgatory. Sure enough, the moment we passed under a bridge, leaving Dearborn, we were greeted with a whole different world. It was as though every angry driver had hit an imaginary wall of entitlement behind us. Nobody honked and cars switched to the inside lane to give us space to take a full lane and ride side-by-side, instead of cowering in the shoulder like we had for the past hour. As we headed further into town, we were greeted with bike lanes stretching out in both directions, easily finding our way to our new home.

Since our first harrowing ride into town, commuting has been a joy. We've biked as much as possible, although occasionally taking rides with friends and roommates in the interest of arriving somewhere together. We're new to town, so we aren't pushing the fair weather riders too hard yet, although once summer comes it'll be a different story for sure. I've survived many a Chicago January commuting by bike, so I've found the weather wonderfully easy so far, although I know this isn't a common sentiment in most other cities. We've made a couple of bike trips to the Southwest, including one grocery haul where we foolishly didn't bring the Schooner but managed to somehow fit everything on our racks. The cargo bike was well used, however, in our trip to the recycling center and triumphant return with a salvaged coat tree. We've even made friends over a bike rack, meanwhile appreciating the abundance of places to lock up in general. The behavior of traffic is remarkably different in Detroit, but once I figured out that motorists here drive like New York cyclists, I was right at home. The streets still seem relatively empty of bicycles despite the new bike lanes, but surely this will change with the weather. In the meantime, I'll keep getting used to biking in this bizarre and bike-friendly motor ghost city.

Rubber side down,

Leslie
(and Kyle over my shoulder)