Things You See
Things you See When Riding A Bike:
The sunrise, flowers, seagulls flying alongside you, clouds, lambs in the fields, snowflakes, snowdrops, many different road surfaces, people, cars, frustrated drivers, buildings, great architecture, failed town planning from the 60s, 70s and 80s, familiar faces, that man feeding the birds on his usual bench, newspapers in the street, smiling children, dogs wagging their tails, other bikes, every single other bike, puddles, trees coming into bud, blossom, leaves falling in the autumn, corn ripening in the fields, “fertiliser” being applied (*holds nose*), frosted spider webs, cats luxuriating in the sun, my breath when it’s cold, drivers’ faces, traffic lights, that new shop, people outside the pub on warm evenings, the moon, stars - thousands of stars once you get out of town, the waves on the beach, early morning dog walkers, milk floats, coffee shops, cafés, every single cake seller on your regular routes, maps, way-points, hills, swooping bends in the road that make you giggle, oh - new mudguards, someone fixing a puncture, a new friend whose puncture you helped to fix, people to chat to at the lights, broken glass, cyclists coming the other way that you warn about the broken glass, bright blinking tail lights, some stunning supernova headlights on that bike over there, bike parking spaces (everywhere!), new short-cuts, look - a recumbent, the last proper record shop in town, a new bakery, a place to stop and look in wonder.
Things You See When Driving a Car:
Traffic. Nose-to-tail traffic. No parking spaces. The price of fuel. A parking ticket. Traffic.
Big hat-tip to bikeyface.com for the inspiration for this post - go and see her drawings of similar things!
Very nice. Imagine how much more lively and pleasant to be in any town can become when its citizens make as many journeys as they can by bike. This is the big picture when we talk about “more cycling”.
Transportation modes are in a way almost fractal.
Walking in my experience is too slow to get anywhere distant in a reasonable amount of time, but if one pays attention one can see a lot. Stopping for a second-look is easy.
Cycling is fast enough to go most places, but slow-enough still to see a great deal. Stopping for a second-look is fairly easy, but depends upon traffic.
Cars are too fast, everything is a blur, much like most trains. Stopping for a second-look is near impossible.
Aeroplanes fly too fast and high to see anything but an overview of the landscape that is often far below and obscured by clouds. Stopping for a second-look is impossible.