Finding The Holy Grail - The Second Coming of Jesus On A Bike Lane

Henry Dodd was not just a bike enthusiast, he was a bike believer - a man who believed that bicycles would save the planet.  He spent hours lobbying for dedicated bike lanes, online rental bikes, rails-to-trails, and laws to protect the cyclist from careless drivers.  If it were up to him the city would be car-free. 

Few people agreed with him and most thought that cyclists were a nuisance at best - an arrogant, protected species whose idea of rules of the road were 'pedestrian when it suits, vehicle when it doesn't'.  Cyclists routinely ignore stop signs, red lights, No Turn on Red, all to keep up momentum and take advantage of their privileged place on the road.  

‘I'm walkin' here!', the famous line yelled to cars by Ratso Rizzo, a main character in John Schlesinger's Midnight Cowboy as he's crossing a busy Manhattan street, has an avatar - the cyclist, entitled, righteous, and angry. 

Millions of dollars have been spent on dedicated bike lanes that no cyclist ever uses, roads to nowhere, boondoggles and municipal scams all fueled by cant, presumption, and fading notions of climate change and inclusivity.  

There is either no logic to the dedication - lanes dead-ending in busy highways or far from park bike paths - or simply flying the green flag.  Bikes have every right to K Street (one of Washington DC's major thoroughfares) as cars, advocates say, but the willy-nilly turn lanes, merges, and crossings have only added to congestion and traffic accidents. 

The laws passed are punitive at best.  The driver is always at fault, ipso facto, a priori whenever in an accident with a bike. 

Henry of course took no notice.  Bikes for him were the Holy Grail, the existential answer, his raison d'etre.  Every waking hour was either riding his bike, fixing it, lobbying, volunteering, marching, or protesting for more visibility, protection, and space. 

Of course he used his car for errands, shopping, visiting the grandchildren, Sunday drives, restaurants and coffee shops. If appointments were at peak parking times, he took Uber. Although he lobbied for equal access for bikes leading to an eventual replacement of cars, his bike stayed up on the rack in the garage until the weekend and only if the weather was fine. 

Now, Henry was no wind-in-your-hair rider, no fancy Lycra-and-Velcro tight-fitting professional racing outfit, no head of the peloton, cranking out 50-milers; nor was he a romantic, pedaling slowly up and down the winding roads of the Shenandoah, taking in the beauty of the hills and the vistas of the valleys below.  For him it was all gear ratios and brake linings. 

Yet when he got into the saddle, mounted up and ready to go, he felt one with his bike.  He and it were joined in a mystical union.  They were the perfect pair.  The wheels, pedals, and spokes were extensions of him, parts of him, indistinguishable from flesh and blood. It was no surprise that bikes and bike-riding were epiphanic, holy, and spiritual. 

Where did this sanctity come from?  Was it just a holdover from the usual American boyhood, riding balloon-tired Schwinns to the baseball diamond and to Avery's afterwards for a soda? A distaste for walking when speed and accessibility were right in the garage? 

It was more than that, for bike reverence was part of his dedication to the progressive canon - a litany of changes that would save the planet, revive the nation's communal spirit, open the doors to a new age of sexuality, race, and ethnicity, and move everyone towards a better, more peaceful, verdant world. 

Despite the holes in Henry's world view - driving gas-powered cars everywhere, even down and back to the corner CVS - he was a true believer in the progressive vision.  It mattered to him to do the right thing, to protest racism, misogyny and Wall Street greed; to be always on the front lines of compassion, consideration, and good will.  

If he could do his part by promoting two-wheel, human-powered transportation, as desultory and inconsistent as he was, then he would be welcomed into the community of good. 

Henry was consistent, a good soldier, an unerring partisan, a steady holder of the flame.  He believed in high taxes for the wealthy, even as he watched them flow down the drain to entitled, privileged, dysfunctional inner city communities.  

He was all for defunding the police although he was the first to call 911 when suspicious black men were seen on his street.  He was all for affirmative action and DEI long after it was dismantled despite the obvious and growing evidence that it was one of the most divisive, corrosive, social action programs ever devised.  And more, much more.  Name a progressive cause, and Henry’s name was on the list. 

So to be fair, he came by the bike thing honestly. 

Yet one still had to ask, how did he come by such true belief? The tossing over the side of reason, objectivity, exegesis, and thought?  He came from a small working class family in a Massachusetts mill town, a family without pretentions, airs, or unfounded expectations.  They were hardworking, patriotic, and religious. 

Somewhere along the line, Henry took a detour.  Perhaps it was the Sixties or the Seventies, or campus agitation, but it took, and his road to doing good began.  Civil rights, the plight of the black man, Jim Crow, racial oppression followed by all the rest.  Henry went up and down the major rivers, tributaries, creeks and streams of the movement, more convinced of its rightness with each stroke of the oar. 

He was simply credulous, easily swayed by the nostrums preached from every secular pulpit. He came to accept and believe with all his heart and soul what he was told, and before long he was a soldier marching in the armies of progress. 

 

Although he was a supporter of the black man, the transgender, the gay, and the lesbian; and although he fought tooth and nail for the distribution of wealth and a more equal society, it was cycling that was closest to his heart.  

The black man would come and go, the transgender would fold back into the mainstream, but the climate? That was the be-all and end-all of existence, the one unifying, absorbing, encompassing feature of the universe.  The climate was with us forever, but it was now warming beyond control, and something must be done to stop it. 

Yes, bike lanes were a drop in the bucket, but many drops make an ocean; and if everyone did their part…  Not only that, he and his bike were friends, intimate companions, joined at the hip.  No human relationship could give such satisfaction, such joy, such pleasure.  It was to bikes that he would always return. 

So he told his handlers that it was time to focus on his little piece of turf, and that he would be at their beck and call when it came to promoting the cause of bikes, cycling, and the two-wheeled millennium.

Henry was not an animated man, and was never comfortable before crowds; so when standing before an enthusiastic group of bicycle enthusiasts - say at 'Spokes and Wheels', the Montgomery County bike club for older Marylanders - he mumbled and swallowed his words; but his sound and light show did the trick.  Images of dedicated bike lanes, dutifully respectful vehicular traffic, and a diverse set of riders said all there was to say, and he always left to a round of applause. 

As he got older, he affixed a set of adult training wheels to his bike.  Specially designed for stability and the least drag possible, they were a godsend to older bikers.  Pride goeth before a fall, both literally and figuratively, so Henry had no second thoughts when pedaling around the neighborhood with an extra set of rubber. 

Henry bore the flag of cycling and dedicated lanes to the very end when he turned over - or rather tried to turn over - his wings to the younger generation; but they had moved beyond bikes, climate change, and social reform.  Enough furrows, plows, and plodding along behind the ass of a mule. 

Henry wondered what the world was coming to, and befuddled but somehow sedated by the sound of the turning tide, he woke every morning not quite sure where he was, but happier than he had ever been.