As a cultural geographer my goal is to discover the inner workings of places; I have found the bicycle and the map indispensable in my explorations.
The role of the geographer is to contextualize, or give meaning to the goings on in any particular locale. A major tool in getting at this is the map, a graphic representation of the earth’s surface. But in order to get behind the superficialities presented on a map and present a true geography, one must actively, personally explore the place being represented. The bicycle is the ideal tool for getting behind the façades any place might present to the casual traveler. This human-powered vehicle allows the traveler to engage the landscape rather than merely pass through it.
The bicycle induces interaction. Socially, the modest speed and openness of this vehicle invites personal contact. A cyclist is readily approachable at all times; a friendly greeting will not be missed as it might be when enclosed in steel and glass at 50 m.p.h.
There is something about a bicycle, and perhaps just the sight of an adult on a bicycle that is immediately disarming. A cyclist declares a certain modesty, humility and a respect for the place traveled in. For someone trying to delve into the secrets of an area this is important. Once people let their guard down, the inquisitive traveler will be showered with information. Indeed, my thesis, though focused on preservation of peasant architecture and landscapes, went behind the stone and mortar. The stories of the people who inhabited my place of study provided the socially meaningful whys and wherefores of historic preservation.
In a physical sense, pedaling up steep mountains ingrains in the psyche (and the muscles!) the character of the landscape. When I traveled the mountainous backroads of Northern Italy in landscapes formed by peasant agriculture, I came to appreciate the difficulties encountered by the inhabitants in pre-automotive times. The villages farthest from the market town tended to be the poorest. The tough pedaling up to these remote locales made readily apparent the high energy and time expenditures that the peasants had to endure to get their produce to market. I would not pretend to have had it as tough as they (I had asphalt surfaces and granny-gears to smooth my way) but gravity still works as well now as it ever did.
On a bicycle, the traveler easily observes the tiniest of details and feels the emotional impacts of the grandest scenery in ways unknowable by the high-speed tourist. Ancient, dilapidated monuments long since blended into the scenery reveal themselves to the moderately paced traveler. Panoramas unfold gently before the cyclist and can be enjoyed without the obstructions of "safety cages" or tinted glass. Lightly traveled backroads are a joy to the unmotorized 2-wheeled traveler, rather than the bane in the minds of the motoring tourist ever in search of the speediest way to get "there."
At the end of the day, the explorer on a bicycle has experienced place, not merely traveled through it.
Michael Barrett is Executive Editor of the Bicycle Federation of Wisconsin’s Wisconsin Bicyclist.