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No free lunch
But breakfast, that's a totally different story. May is "Bike Month" and that means bicycle commuter breakfasts, like the one held in Northampton this Wednesday morning. Being a person who likes bikes, people on bikes, and burning calories, I volunteered to help out. Mostly, that meant set-up and break-down, which left a lot of time in the middle to mingle and chat with people who arrived on bikes, sometimes talking about bikes, and often about everything else. Years ago, during a Warmshowers.org stay, my hosts and I agreed, people who ride bikes often have interesting things to say, which led me to hypothesize that, with the hours spent alone pedaling places, cyclist have more time than average for reflection. That thinking time can bloom into some truly interesting minds.
In addition to reconnecting with a variety of utilitarian wheel-people I've met during my time in this valley, I also met Tisha after Jes from Mass Bike pointed her my way with questions about the pros and cons of bike trailers versus panniers (hmm, come to think of it, that might be a good topic for a blog post). In the course of our conversation, I may have been the one to learn more, as Tisha currently heads the medicine garden in Florence and has extensive knowledge of wild foraging. Yeah, bicycles seem to draw from an interesting pool of the population.
Maybe that's because to ride a bike is inherently to step outside the box of the automobile and the norm. It takes effort and thought to break out of the default of driving, and those that do, maybe they become the better humans for it. But even then, the default is strong. During set-up, I noticed that except for Cate, all the other volunteers arrived by car. Granted, I don't in any way want to knock their efforts to support people riding bikes, and yes, they had folding tables and tents to move, so maybe driving was the right choice for them, but I wonder, did they even consider other options, or the fact the driving was a choice and not "the only way." As a perfect example of "another way", trash, recycling, and compost collection for the event was handled by Brett of Pedal People, the local bike-based sanitation service!
Later in the morning, Northampton's mayor arrived and read a proclamation declaring Bicycle Commuter Day in the city. It was nice to hear her call out how bicycles and their riders contribute to the community, pausing with a wink and nod to let a car with particularly loud exhaust pass, but I also recognize with a degree of sadness that it's necessary at all to call attention to bikes as transport. I see it as one more testament that automobiles are the default, and we have a long way to go before most people even reach the point of realizing driving is, in fact, a choice.
But all is well that ends well, and in the end, a bunch of people rode their bikes to get somewhere, and received a little recognition, and bagels in their bellies, for the effort. They also were part of a community, a community of like minded people who look out for each other and appreciate that it isn't always easy to get around by bike. One of that community was Maggie, who came down to the breakfast with a adult trike and a free sign for it. She was no longer using it and wanted it to find a new home with someone who would allow it to serve its utilitarian purpose, and the woman who accepted was so excited that she now had the right tool to confidently collect milk and other heavy groceries by pedaling.
And then, as the crowd started to wane, and we volunteers began to think of clean-up up, I saw it: another one of Maggie's bikes and another free sign clipped to the handlebars, but this one, in lovely olive paint, was a folder, one of those bikes that had always been on my "someday" list, especially with "bendy bikes" being the only type allowed on Amtrak operated trains of the Valley Flyer commuter rail service. So yes, while the saying says, there is no free lunch, I felt totally full-filled by the Bicycle Breakfast!
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