Cycle Killer

Travel Stories: In his new book, "Bicycle Diaries," David Byrne reflects on his travels on two wheels. Herewith, an excerpt.

09.21.09 | 10:27 AM ET

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I’ve been riding a bicycle as my principal means of transportation in New York since the early 1980s. I tentatively first gave it a try, and it felt good even here in New York. I felt energized and liberated. I had an old three-speed leftover from my childhood in the Baltimore suburbs, and for New York City that’s pretty much all you need. My life at that time was more or less restricted to downtown Manhattan—the East Village and SoHo—and it soon became apparent to me that biking was an easy way to run errands in the daytime or efficiently hit a few clubs, art openings, or nightspots in the evening without searching for a cab or the nearest subway. I know, one doesn’t usually think of nightclubbing and bike riding as being soul mates, but there is so much to see and hear in New York, and I discovered that zipping from one place to another by bike was amazingly fast and efficient. So I stuck with it, despite the aura of uncoolness and the danger, as there weren’t many people riding in the city back then. Car drivers at that time weren’t expecting to share the road with cyclists, so they would cut you off or squeeze you into parked cars even more than they do now. As I got a little older I also may have felt that cycling was a convenient way of getting some exercise, but at first I wasn’t thinking of that. It just felt good to cruise down the dirty potholed streets. It was exhilarating.

By the late ’80s I’d discovered folding bikes, and as my work and curiosity took me to various parts of the world, I usually took one along. That same sense of liberation I experienced in New York recurred as I pedaled around many of the world’s principal cities. I felt more connected to the life on the streets than I would have inside a car or in some form of public transport: I could stop whenever I wanted to; it was often (very often) faster than a car or taxi for getting from point A to point B; and I didn’t have to follow any set route. The same exhilaration, as the air and street life whizzed by, happened again in each town. It was, for me, addictive.

This point of view—faster than a walk, slower than a train, often slightly higher than a person—became my panoramic window on much of the world over the last 30 years—and it still is. It’s a big window and it looks out on a mainly urban landscape. (I’m not a racer or sports cyclist.) Through this window I catch glimpses of the mind of my fellow man, as expressed in the cities he lives in. Cities, it occurred to me, are physical manifestations of our deepest beliefs and our often unconscious thoughts, not so much as individuals, but as the social animals we are. A cognitive scientist need only look at what we have made—the hives we have created—to know what we think and what we believe to be important, as well as how we structure those thoughts and beliefs. It’s all there, in plain view, right out in the open; you don’t need CAT scans and cultural anthropologists to show you what’s going on inside the human mind; its inner workings are manifested in three dimensions, all around us. Our values and hopes are sometimes awfully embarrassingly easy to read. They’re right there—in the storefronts, museums, temples, shops, and office buildings and in how these structures interrelate, or sometimes don’t. They say, in their unique visual language, “This is what we think matters, this is how we live and how we play.” Riding a bike through all this is like navigating the collective neural pathways of some vast global mind. It really is a trip inside the collective psyche of a compacted group of people. A Fantastic Voyage, but without the cheesy special effects. One can sense the collective brain—happy, cruel, deceitful, and generous—at work and at play. Endless variations on familiar themes repeat and recur: triumphant or melancholic, hopeful or resigned, the permutations keep unfolding and multiplying.

Yes, in most of these cities I was usually just passing through. And one might say that what I could see would therefore by definition be shallow, limited, and particular. That’s true, and many of the things I’ve written about cities might be viewed as a kind of self-examination, with the city functioning as a mirror. But I also believe that a visitor staying briefly can read the details, the specifics made visible, and then the larger picture and the city’s hidden agendas emerge almost by themselves. Economics is revealed in shop fronts and history in door frames. Oddly, as the microscope moves in for a closer look, the perspective widens at the same time.

Each chapter in this book focuses on a particular city, though there are many more I could have included. Not surprisingly, different cites have their own unique faces and ways of expressing what they feel is important. Sometimes one’s questions and trains of thought almost seem predetermined by each urban landscape. So, for example, some chapters ended up focusing more on history in the urban landscape while others look at music or art—each depending on the particular city.

Naturally, some cities are more accommodating to a cyclist than others. Not just geographically or because of the climate, though that makes a difference, but because of the kinds of behavior that are encouraged and the way some cities are organized, or not organized. Surprisingly, the least accommodating are sometimes the most interesting. Rome, for example, is amazing on a bike. The car traffic in central Italian cities is notoriously snarled, so one can make good time on a bike, and, if the famous hills in that town are avoided, one can glide from one amazing vista to the next. It’s not a bike-friendly city by any means—the every-man-for-himself vibe hasn’t encouraged the creation of secure bike lanes in these big towns—but if one accepts that reality, at least temporarily, and is careful, the experience is something to be recommended.

Reprinted by arrangement with Viking, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., from BICYCLE DIARIES by David Byrne. Copyright (c) David Byrne, 2009.


Musician, artist and writer David Byrne is best known as a founding member of the acclaimed new wave band Talking Heads. He is the author of the book, Bicycle Diaries.


9 Comments for Cycle Killer

Doug Lyming 09.21.09 | 2:10 PM ET

I guess this is what happens when you quit making decent music.  David’s best years were with the Talking Heads.  He should go back to doing what he does best - making pop music.

Julia Ross 09.21.09 | 5:06 PM ET

love the headline, guys

sheffield 09.21.09 | 6:51 PM ET

Doug you really need to get a life!

TambourineMan 09.22.09 | 11:18 PM ET

Yes, great headline.

Robert S. 09.24.09 | 1:31 AM ET

Methinks David Byrne should do whatever he jolly well likes, Doug.

Interesting read. Reminds me, I should get my bike out more often.

Lee H 09.26.09 | 1:45 AM ET

As an avid cycle enthusiast, traveler and reader. I’d say this sounds like it would be worth a look.
Why be so hard on the writer just because he used to wrie pop music?

Roger 09.29.09 | 1:57 PM ET

I am reading this book on my Kindle and I’m enjoying it. Byrne has an interesting point of view about viewing cities that I am envious of. I am an avid bicycler myself, but I haven’t had the opportunity to visit many urban places outside of my home state with my bicycle. I’d love to do some of that if I had the time and opportunity. I like his example.

pam 09.30.09 | 10:53 PM ET

I really want to know what kind of luggage David Byrne has. I have this picture in my head, probably inaccurate, of him arriving all tall and David Byrne like at some airport, unfolding his bike on the airport drive, putting on a little day pack, and pedaling off in to the evening.

As a recovering bicycle commuter, I can’t wait to read the book. I’ve added it to my library queue.

Carlo 10.01.09 | 6:45 AM ET

Loved this: “Riding a bike through all this is like navigating the collective neural pathways of some vast global mind.”

I couldn’t agree more with all this. I commute to work by bike, and have also traveled with a bike…riding it around Paris is one of my favourite travel memories, you just see things in a very different way.

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