Mess Media

Loving life on two wheels

Denver Post, June 23, 2009

By Jack Cox

Denver cycling guru Robert Hurst, a guidebook author who has ridden some 200,000 miles on city streets, argues that for most people, biking to work should be a no-brainer.

It saves gas, offers good exercise and is less stressful than driving. And contrary to popular belief, he says, you don't need special clothes, an expensive machine or a Lance Armstrong physique to take it up. Nor, Hurst adds, do you need to worry inordinately about getting hit by a car.

In a newly published "manifesto" making the case for traveling on two wheels instead of four, Hurst points out that about 85 percent of all cycling accidents involve only one person — the rider. "Much of bicycling safety can be summed up in four words: 'Watch where you're going,' " he says.

"Some people think it is literally insane to ride your bike in traffic. That is not rational, especially when that same person gets in a car and without a second thought goes 80 miles per hour on the freeway. On the other hand, bicycling is relatively likely to result in injury because you're traveling on two wheels and it's easy to upset the apple cart, so to speak."

Good balance, strong legs and decent brakes can help keep a rider out of trouble. But paying attention may be even more critical, says Hurst, who has worked as a bike messenger in Denver and Boulder for the past 17 years.

"The most important thing is to understand that as a bicyclist, it's extremely easy to be overlooked by a driver in a car," he says. "The question is, when that happens, are you going to be surprised, or are you going to be ready for it? Any motorcyclist will tell you the same thing."

Hurst, a native of Colorado Springs with a degree in philosophy from the University of Colorado at Boulder, is 41 but looks 10 years younger. He lives in northwest Denver's Sunnyside neighborhood with his wife, Christie, a former bike messenger who regularly commutes 15 miles each way by bike to her job as a special-education teacher. Perhaps surprisingly for such a hard-core rider, he owns just three bikes — a sleek, lightweight road bike, a mountain bike with no shock absorbers (the better to "feel" the ground), and a single-speed urban bike he built using a "really monstrous" chain wheel and the frame from an old Trek he bought when he was 16. He estimates he has logged 20,000 hours in the saddle.

Bike to Work Day, the annual effort to promote commuting on two wheels, is "generally positive, but a little silly," Hurst remarks. "I'm not quite sure what they're waiting for — all these potential commuters. Every day is bike-to-work day as far as I'm concerned."

Hurst's latest book, "The Cyclist's Manifesto: The Case for Riding on Two Wheels" (Falcon Guides, $16.95), is part history, part light-hearted polemic. In it, he challenges conventional wisdom on many bike-related issues, contending, for example, that one reason Americans have failed to embrace commuting by bike is that cycling has always been seen in this country as an expensive sport, rather than as a means of everyday transportation.

"If you look back to the beginning, I think people in the industry went out of their way to foster a kind of elitism. Their clientele was rich city folks. They did not intend to appeal to the masses," he says.

"There was always this special costume you had to wear, and bikes were so expensive you were priced out of the market if you were a farm boy or a factory worker. Henry Ford was selling brand new Model-Ts in the 1920s for the same price as bikes cost in the 1880s."

Even today, "There's a huge gulf between what you get at a bike shop and what you get in a department store," Hurst says. But while cheap, utilitarian bikes have often been poorly made and improperly assembled, they seem to be improving in quality, he reports. On a recent visit to Target, he saw "quite serviceable bikes for $100 to $300" — a price at which a bike would pay for itself in six months or less, assuming a 10-mile daily round-trip and gasoline at $3 a gallon.

As for cycling apparel, "I used to wear bike clothes, but I found out they wear out very fast, and they're really expensive," Hurst says. Today, his work uniform typically consists of a T-shirt, cut-off jeans and a pair of ordinary cycling shoes with recessed cleats, so he won't go skidding down the corridors of the office buildings where, from time to time, he has to stop pedaling.

Wednesday is Bike to Work Day

An annual effort to raise public awareness of the benefits of commuting by bicycle, Bike to Work Day attracted about 35,000 participants last year. Organized by the Denver Regional Council of Governments, this year's version, scheduled for Wednesday, features free breakfasts from 6:30 to 9 a.m. at dozens of locations throughout the metro area, commemorative T-shirts and prize drawings for registered riders. Details at drcog.org

The Hurst File

In addition to "The Cyclist's Manifesto," Robert Hurst's published works include "The Bicycle Commuter's Pocket Guide," "The Art of Cycling" (originally "The Art of Urban Cycling"), "Road Biking Colorado's Front Range" and "Mountain Biking Colorado's San Juan Mountains: Durango and Telluride."

He also has a website, industrializedcyclist.com, where he maintains a blog and an extensive list of links to research on bicycling accidents, helmet use, laws, riding patterns, bike facilities, technical issues and advocacy groups.