Even though I got behind and am posting this in April, there is a March Bull City Biker. And his name is Michael Bérubé.
Now, some of you may already know him for one of at least two reasons… first, he’s a professor of Literature and Cultural studies at Penn State University. A leader in academia, he’s well published in his field and engaged in a perpetual debate with conservative “academic” pundit David Horowitz over whether there can be an articulate and sound anti-war movement in this country. Second, he’s a reknown blogger who occasionally even blogs about cycling. Example.
For the month of March, Bérubé endured a short-term fellowship at the National Humanities Center. After an incident where he backed his car into the NHC Director’s car, he decided to stick to his original plan and bike to work. He lived downtown and rode a borrowed bike along the American Tobacco Trail and the Cornwallis Rd bike lanes to get to Research Triangle Park.
Since he’s a cyclist and famous blogger, I thought it would be fun to make him the March Bull City Biker and see what he has to say about cycling and Durham.
I asked him first what bike(s) he owns and rides regularly…
The dang bike claims to be a Trek Clyde with a Bontrager frame, but the Clydes online don’t look anything like mine. Maybe I have a decidedly ungangsterlike Clyde Commuter. But it’s black and silver, and that looks cool.
What’s your primary flavor of riding?
Commuting, Clyde-style.
What’s the length and frequency of your average ride?
3-4 miles, two to four times a week once the central-Pennsylvania tundra recedes.
Why did you start riding and why do you still ride?
Because I live about a 20-minute walk from my campus office at Penn State, and I don’t have the 40 minutes/day to spare. Driving in takes 3 minutes, parking takes another 5, and the walk from the parking garage is 10. The bus schedule is pegged to the sunspot cycle, I believe. Biking, by contrast, takes six minutes one way, ten the other. (It’s all downhill to campus, and, strangely, all uphill home.)
What’s the most unusual thing you’ve seen while out for a ride?
Well, I’d have to go back to my days biking around midtown Manhattan in the early 1980s, when on one occasion I saw a man walking a llama up Sixth Avenue.
How would your world be different if you wake up tomorrow and there are no more cars?
First I’d pocket a couple thousand dollars in auto insurance costs (I have a 19-year-old son), and then I’d buy me a bike that has more than four speeds. These central-Pennsylvania hills demand some serious shifting.
What’s one thing Durham could do to become more bike friendly?
Through a short-term visitor’s eyes? It would help if downtown didn’t look and ride like an archaeological dig. But that Tobacco Trail rocks.