There was an odd moment of despair as I turned a corner to see a mounted bicyclist in an old army jacket and sock hat as he flicked a quick release and pulled the rear wheel out of the stays of a new Jamis touring bike. The thief coasted slowly down 14th Street past the Willard Hotel and towards Constitution Avenue, one hand on the bar and the other holding the kiped rim at an arms length. It was midday; few passersby even glanced as he eased away with no sense of urgency. His own rear wheel gyrating damaged under him like a potato chip on its edge as he rolled on slowly without looking back. The Jamis hung pathetically from its lock, framed by the big windows of the Borders bookstore, its empty stays and chain hanging in the breeze.

My scenario of heroism died hard; I could chase him down and retrieve the wheel, and then it would be me in possession of a stolen component, messing with some stranger’s bike in the midday bustle. I could see the owner of the bike coming out to catch me in the act and accusing me of being the thief, me trying to sell the implausible story to the police and getting stuck with the rap for a petty crime. More likely I’d get the wheel back on the bike and it would be gone again within the hour. With the owner of the Jamis clueless to the skirmish that happened on his behalf, I’m developing more of resentment for the Jamis guy than the thief.

I picture the owner of the Jamis as having scrimped and saved for a dream machine; state of the art, that feeling of solidity and firmness that comes with every taut spring and pivot of a freshly tuned ride, everything clicks and snaps back like a military drill. More likely it was given to a spoiled brat whose devoted dad lives vicariously through a kid who never did care. Had I been there when he’d stopped and locked it up wrong I would have set him straight; I see it often enough, a wheel or a frame locked leaving the rest fair game for the quick-fingered. Despite my resentments of the owner of the defiled bike, he’ll feel that sense of betrayal and insecurity that anyone feels at the discovery that he’s been robbed. I hope he’ll endure the humility of hauling the injured carcass to a bike shop to get the missing bits replaced. Maybe they’ll give him the instructional on how to lock up the bike that I wasn’t there to do. Maybe he’ll get disgusted and just leave it there to rot, surrendering himself to a pedestrian life, the bike to be picked clean by a succession of scavengers and hacked off the lock months later by a city worker.

There’s a subset of bicycle commuters who make their way in early. These are the practical types on a touring bike that got them through grad school or the latest hybrid from a local dealer. They’re well rigged up with lights, reflectors, the venerable Styrofoam helmet and pannier packs to carry home that extra workload and to stow a Tupperware lunch. They’re mid 30′s career types who ride in their office wear or ride casual in their street clothes to change in the on site locker rooms before starting the workday. These bikes spend their days safe in the fenced in bike rack of a federal building parking lot. Feds and law firms tend to set up bicyclists pretty well so that they don’t have to take their chances on a street lockup.

There are the guys who suit up to ride, some of them from far out in the suburbs. They have a house in Grosvenor or Arlington with three or four pricey bikes set on display racks like a gun collection. They take a trail in and then dive into traffic, often in pairs. “Bicycling is the new golf,” I was told by the guy at a high-end bike shop. These guys are the patrons of a pastime that promotes flashy skintight suits with matching helmets and shoes. The bikes are an amalgamation of space technology and watch making; aluminum has become passé, and steel is for fanatics. Carbon composite or titanium frames make for the lightest weight and the right balance of strength and flexibility, but you have to be able to pay if you want to play. Like a new set of titanium clubs or a well-coached swinging form, high-end bicycling appeals to fancy gadget and accessory collectors who have cash to burn. It’s a point-to-point ride with very little baggage. There’s an office, usually a law firm with showers and a locker room, where they suit up and talk about the latest technical marvel or their next big ride. Some of these guys actually race competitively, albeit there are few of them who can find the time to train for the events.

The couriers have staged themselves at a pivotal point at the park square off
14th and K. Steel frames come from a tradition: lug construction and chrome fittings that won street races in another era. Graceful lines highlighted by a process of stripping the bike down to brute minimal function; ten speeds are reduced to one. A fixed rear wheel discards the ability to coast; the force of rolling is transmitted back into the pedals, and the force of pedaling works for stopping and slowing as well as going, a completely regulatory act of pedaling. Shifters, derailleur, sometimes even brakes are shed for the extended use of pedal control of the bike. You don’t just sit on this bike and go. There has to be a good fit between bike and rider to get optimal leverage from shoulder to hip to foot. It’s the tool of trade for a freelancer, the money goes to the wheels, high tech, high visibility discs with aerodynamic profiles and a few fat spokes replacing many smaller ones. I see these bikes locked wheel to frame, disabled but not secured. It’s a tight community, and they all know who rides what. When the fancy suit guys meet up on competition day, it’s often a street-hardened courier that they’re up against.

Closer to noon, the department store bikes start to emerge. They sell them at Wal-Mart, Kmart, Target and Costco, next to the three-month supply of Ramen noodles; finest Chinese craftsmanship. It used to be that they were just heavy and simple to keep them cheap, but then came full suspensions, cantilever brakes and complicated shifters, and the look had to keep up with the market. No longer simple but heavier, to carry the montage of ill functioning knock-off components. A burly, dark fellow trolls his way down the sidewalks between the pedestrians. His knees stick out from having the seat adjusted too low for him to have much pedaling leverage, but it keeps his baggy clothes out of the chain. The oil-needy chain sounds like an armored halftrack, but it’s just a beast of burden. He doesn’t speak a full sentence in English, and he may never need to. The lunch rush is coming, and every eatery will need at least one like him working the kitchen to make it through dinner. At the apartments on 11th Street north of Massachusetts Avenue and south of Logan Circle every railing, signpost and parking meter has a department store bike or remains of a bike locked down to it.

I’ve met an odd character profile of a female bicyclist several times over the years, a car-less city dweller, a devoted bicycle commuter who is reluctant to invest much in a bike because she’s lost several. I saw her last at City Bikes dragging in her wounded pride on its remaining wheel. She wears a heavy length of chain and padlock around her slight shoulders like a ribbon of ammunition; it cuts into her skin as if a penance to all the stolen bikes before this one. It’s the heaviest chain that the hardware store had in stock. Her rationale is that mass, not methodology, will act as a deterrent. The bicycle mechanic offers her the traditional sympathetic salutation and suggests, “So you’d be looking for a wheel for that then”. He sees it almost every day, some of them coming in wild eyed wanting an all points bulletin put out through an imaginary network. They put up postings like lost pet announcements and check the police property offices. Some of the lucky and determined ones buy their own bike back at auction.

A cadre of homeless men hangs out among the marble facades and steam grates near the mall with their bikes. Bicycles have become a trademark of the homeless who develop a network of resources around town. From dining opportunities to optimal sleeping spots to health care resources the bicycle acts as a critical conveyance, transporter and creative expression. Among the dumpstered finds and salvaged wreckage one of the men proudly flaunts his new ride, a thirty-year-old frame with a new state-of-the-art pair of wheels shining out from the tired scarred paint. Bicycle wheels have become nearly an inch smaller over the course of evolution, the brakes don’t quite line up where they’re supposed to, gripping the tires instead of the metal wheel, thereby dooming the tires to a short life. Somewhere there’s an old set of wheels locked up and no frame; somewhere there’s a nice new frame well secured but no wheels, the owners chafing at their loss. Luck has its moment, but using a lock right is priceless.

First Friday of the month I must choose between art and activist bicycling. Leaving the Dupont Circle neighborhood art gallery walk, The Critical Mass ride collects by the fountain at around 6:30 and sets out by 7pm. About thirty bicyclists move as a body into the trailers of rush hour traffic. Under a premise of activism to promote bicycling and make bicyclists more visible, there are slogans and cheers, the occasional banner or flag; someone’s got a radio strapped to a luggage rack playing a tune that’s too far away to make out. It’s partly blatant hooliganism, forming a ten-mile-per-hour blockade, which stops for nobody. The mass develops into fifty or more bikes as the night falls. Cars, taxis and buses stop to let the impromptu parade pass.

There are a few commuters hooking up with the event en route, still loaded with the day’s work, well lit with handlebar and seat-post lights as darkness descends. A little impatient for the pace of the group, some of the better-equipped riders shoot on ahead leaving a lackadaisical run of more social riders. At this speed it’s easy enough to talk to people, and their bikes are the best intros. “So what’s the story behind that old Schwinn?” A fair number of borrowed bikes, from a friend or a housemate; sometimes it’s an old machine that came with a group house. Some have three out of ten working gears and one of two working brakes. The get-it-now gratification of low-income urban bicyclists puts mobility and inclusiveness far before safety. There are a few non-courier fixed gear riders. One has the frame modified so that it separates in the middle so she can take it on business trips; another is just here between grad school and the Peace Corps, typical Washingtonian. There were a few moments when the local mpd patrol car slowed and paced us. There were grumblings that they might impose the law on our act of peaceful anarchy, or worse, demand that a moving protest disburse. There was a moment when the group began to slow and stop at a traffic light when one of the riders from the rear shouted; “What are you stopping for? We’re trying to start a revolution here!” I ran with the mob around downtown and across the mall, past the capitol and back towards downtown, leaving a trail of frustrated and helpless drivers in our wake. I’d gotten my fix of this experience and turned off somewhere near 21st and M, heading north, leaving the dwindling mass to head on into the night.