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Urban Cruise
Aug 9, 2023
In the middle of a Cuban jungle.
With my awareness expanded, all at once I am able to perceive a stalk of bananas falling on their path to ripeness, whose leaves shade a chicken, whose brother was sacrificed for dinner last night. I notice the horse's manure, smelling of grass and nitrogen, giving softness to the soil that clenches the passion fruit tree to my right. The same tree that offers habitat to the vulture, whose droppings nourish the dirt in the same way as the horse. A coffee-brown lizard rests within the leaves of a coffee plant that provides the inspiration for this page, which is dwarfed by the lime tree to my left that clings to the golf-ball-sized juicers that seasoned last night's chicken. This, and a thousand more things for which I am not aware, are all occurring as I write.
This is all here now, yet my mind can’t help but pontificate on the beauty of bicycles.
I haven’t rode my Doggler in nineteen days, surprisingly though I don’t miss it. The pace of life here is not yet accelerated by the shackling forces of stock markets that run rogue like a loose locomotive. Nothing here (aside from their hunger) is ever pressing. No deadlines and no time crunch, therefore walking is the most appropriate and enjoyable means of movement.
If walking is the pace of life then driving, on the contrary, is the pace of the economy.
Biking, to me, is the intermediary step between where we are and where we want to be, which is why I can’t contain my excitement about human-powered two-wheeled ponies. Once I get back home I know I’ll be back on the Huddie.
I believe that my home, Salt Lake City, has the potential to be an urban cruise hotbed. Its streets were engineered in the early 1900s by Mormon Pioneers with the prerogative to pivot their whips– real ponies towing carriage– at their leisure. The streets resemble thoroughfares that most cities could only find at their regional airstrip.
At least this is what Adam, my enthusiastic tactical urbanist friend– who possesses an encyclopedic knowledge of everything– told me last fall as we mentally masturbated to the idea of developing bike infrastructure in Salt Lake. I haven’t fact-checked Adam on the aforementioned history of Salt Lake’s roads and with him, I rarely do as he has earned my trust since I first met him in the lunchroom at Mount Jumbo Elementary. Adam possesses a dictionary brain that is complimented by a sense of humility and willingness to say I don’t know earned my trust and respect ever since watching him win the 1999 all-school Geography Bee. I prefer learning from Adam, over text, as it kills two birds with one stone.
Who’s got time to fact-check these days anyway? I notice my capitalistically indoctrinated, time-scarce, brain saying. But I digress.
Salt Lake has godly, wide streets and a public transit system that shuttles (for free if you know how) every fifteen minutes to the top of the University’s campus– a perfectly slanted, four-mile, twenty-three-degree downhill flow mecca. Skaters, long-boarders, commuters, rollerbladers, and mountain bikers alike have discovered this hidden gem.
Having devoted much of my past nine years to combing urban spaces for optimally flowy urban cruise lines, I must say, they just don’t make it like this in other cities. On a mission to fun-if the streets, my friends and I have embraced the tenets of tactical urbanism and have mapped flow lines all through town.
These arterial pathways zig and zag like the meanderings of the Jordan River, seemingly chaotic but always in the direction of the Great Salt Lake. A lake poised to dry within the next fifteen years, whose bed contains arsenic that in southeasterly winds is deposited upon the private, isolated, fenced-in backyards of Brigham Young’s disciples.
The cruise lines we have mapped utilize bike lanes, sidewalks, streets, alleys, parks, whoopees, parking lots, sneak-routes, parking garages, business foyers, and yards alike– despite what the law says. It sometimes feels a bit anarchist as we blow by no trespassing signs and parking garage attendees yelling how “this is the private property of [insert rich white man’s business], you can’t be here!” But what’s the alternative? This town could be abandoned in twenty years anyway, I justify to myself.
Plus, biking on parallel and perpendicular lines, stopping at every intersection for red lights like civilization has indoctrinated us to do? Ain’t nobody got time fo dat.
As Javier explained to me yesterday, “Esta es mi tierra pero no me pertenece. Este es nuestro mundo y nada es privado mi amigo, nada es privado.” This is my land but it doesn’t belong to me. This is our world and nothing is private my friend, nothing is private. This belief, which permeates Cuban culture, is manifest in the pathways stomped naturally through their streets, farms, towns, and environment.
Their walkways meander, contour, and skirt in a manner resembling a high-mountain game trail– even through “private property”. The people aren’t forced to move mechanically at right angles because the land is theirs, ours and nobody's all at once.
I am pleased to affirm that the urban cruise flow lines of Salt Lake City look a lot like the paths that Cuban locals have been tromping on for centuries.
If you also hold the belief that streets are for us, the people, we hope you’ll join us this Oct. 4th - 8th in Peacham, VT for the Unplugged Field Trip - Harvest edition.
Deets here, tell your friends.
In the middle of a Cuban jungle.
With my awareness expanded, all at once I am able to perceive a stalk of bananas falling on their path to ripeness, whose leaves shade a chicken, whose brother was sacrificed for dinner last night. I notice the horse's manure, smelling of grass and nitrogen, giving softness to the soil that clenches the passion fruit tree to my right. The same tree that offers habitat to the vulture, whose droppings nourish the dirt in the same way as the horse. A coffee-brown lizard rests within the leaves of a coffee plant that provides the inspiration for this page, which is dwarfed by the lime tree to my left that clings to the golf-ball-sized juicers that seasoned last night's chicken. This, and a thousand more things for which I am not aware, are all occurring as I write.
This is all here now, yet my mind can’t help but pontificate on the beauty of bicycles.
I haven’t rode my Doggler in nineteen days, surprisingly though I don’t miss it. The pace of life here is not yet accelerated by the shackling forces of stock markets that run rogue like a loose locomotive. Nothing here (aside from their hunger) is ever pressing. No deadlines and no time crunch, therefore walking is the most appropriate and enjoyable means of movement.
If walking is the pace of life then driving, on the contrary, is the pace of the economy.
Biking, to me, is the intermediary step between where we are and where we want to be, which is why I can’t contain my excitement about human-powered two-wheeled ponies. Once I get back home I know I’ll be back on the Huddie.
I believe that my home, Salt Lake City, has the potential to be an urban cruise hotbed. Its streets were engineered in the early 1900s by Mormon Pioneers with the prerogative to pivot their whips– real ponies towing carriage– at their leisure. The streets resemble thoroughfares that most cities could only find at their regional airstrip.
At least this is what Adam, my enthusiastic tactical urbanist friend– who possesses an encyclopedic knowledge of everything– told me last fall as we mentally masturbated to the idea of developing bike infrastructure in Salt Lake. I haven’t fact-checked Adam on the aforementioned history of Salt Lake’s roads and with him, I rarely do as he has earned my trust since I first met him in the lunchroom at Mount Jumbo Elementary. Adam possesses a dictionary brain that is complimented by a sense of humility and willingness to say I don’t know earned my trust and respect ever since watching him win the 1999 all-school Geography Bee. I prefer learning from Adam, over text, as it kills two birds with one stone.
Who’s got time to fact-check these days anyway? I notice my capitalistically indoctrinated, time-scarce, brain saying. But I digress.
Salt Lake has godly, wide streets and a public transit system that shuttles (for free if you know how) every fifteen minutes to the top of the University’s campus– a perfectly slanted, four-mile, twenty-three-degree downhill flow mecca. Skaters, long-boarders, commuters, rollerbladers, and mountain bikers alike have discovered this hidden gem.
Having devoted much of my past nine years to combing urban spaces for optimally flowy urban cruise lines, I must say, they just don’t make it like this in other cities. On a mission to fun-if the streets, my friends and I have embraced the tenets of tactical urbanism and have mapped flow lines all through town.
These arterial pathways zig and zag like the meanderings of the Jordan River, seemingly chaotic but always in the direction of the Great Salt Lake. A lake poised to dry within the next fifteen years, whose bed contains arsenic that in southeasterly winds is deposited upon the private, isolated, fenced-in backyards of Brigham Young’s disciples.
The cruise lines we have mapped utilize bike lanes, sidewalks, streets, alleys, parks, whoopees, parking lots, sneak-routes, parking garages, business foyers, and yards alike– despite what the law says. It sometimes feels a bit anarchist as we blow by no trespassing signs and parking garage attendees yelling how “this is the private property of [insert rich white man’s business], you can’t be here!” But what’s the alternative? This town could be abandoned in twenty years anyway, I justify to myself.
Plus, biking on parallel and perpendicular lines, stopping at every intersection for red lights like civilization has indoctrinated us to do? Ain’t nobody got time fo dat.
As Javier explained to me yesterday, “Esta es mi tierra pero no me pertenece. Este es nuestro mundo y nada es privado mi amigo, nada es privado.” This is my land but it doesn’t belong to me. This is our world and nothing is private my friend, nothing is private. This belief, which permeates Cuban culture, is manifest in the pathways stomped naturally through their streets, farms, towns, and environment.
Their walkways meander, contour, and skirt in a manner resembling a high-mountain game trail– even through “private property”. The people aren’t forced to move mechanically at right angles because the land is theirs, ours and nobody's all at once.
I am pleased to affirm that the urban cruise flow lines of Salt Lake City look a lot like the paths that Cuban locals have been tromping on for centuries.
If you also hold the belief that streets are for us, the people, we hope you’ll join us this Oct. 4th - 8th in Peacham, VT for the Unplugged Field Trip - Harvest edition.
Deets here, tell your friends.
In the middle of a Cuban jungle.
With my awareness expanded, all at once I am able to perceive a stalk of bananas falling on their path to ripeness, whose leaves shade a chicken, whose brother was sacrificed for dinner last night. I notice the horse's manure, smelling of grass and nitrogen, giving softness to the soil that clenches the passion fruit tree to my right. The same tree that offers habitat to the vulture, whose droppings nourish the dirt in the same way as the horse. A coffee-brown lizard rests within the leaves of a coffee plant that provides the inspiration for this page, which is dwarfed by the lime tree to my left that clings to the golf-ball-sized juicers that seasoned last night's chicken. This, and a thousand more things for which I am not aware, are all occurring as I write.
This is all here now, yet my mind can’t help but pontificate on the beauty of bicycles.
I haven’t rode my Doggler in nineteen days, surprisingly though I don’t miss it. The pace of life here is not yet accelerated by the shackling forces of stock markets that run rogue like a loose locomotive. Nothing here (aside from their hunger) is ever pressing. No deadlines and no time crunch, therefore walking is the most appropriate and enjoyable means of movement.
If walking is the pace of life then driving, on the contrary, is the pace of the economy.
Biking, to me, is the intermediary step between where we are and where we want to be, which is why I can’t contain my excitement about human-powered two-wheeled ponies. Once I get back home I know I’ll be back on the Huddie.
I believe that my home, Salt Lake City, has the potential to be an urban cruise hotbed. Its streets were engineered in the early 1900s by Mormon Pioneers with the prerogative to pivot their whips– real ponies towing carriage– at their leisure. The streets resemble thoroughfares that most cities could only find at their regional airstrip.
At least this is what Adam, my enthusiastic tactical urbanist friend– who possesses an encyclopedic knowledge of everything– told me last fall as we mentally masturbated to the idea of developing bike infrastructure in Salt Lake. I haven’t fact-checked Adam on the aforementioned history of Salt Lake’s roads and with him, I rarely do as he has earned my trust since I first met him in the lunchroom at Mount Jumbo Elementary. Adam possesses a dictionary brain that is complimented by a sense of humility and willingness to say I don’t know earned my trust and respect ever since watching him win the 1999 all-school Geography Bee. I prefer learning from Adam, over text, as it kills two birds with one stone.
Who’s got time to fact-check these days anyway? I notice my capitalistically indoctrinated, time-scarce, brain saying. But I digress.
Salt Lake has godly, wide streets and a public transit system that shuttles (for free if you know how) every fifteen minutes to the top of the University’s campus– a perfectly slanted, four-mile, twenty-three-degree downhill flow mecca. Skaters, long-boarders, commuters, rollerbladers, and mountain bikers alike have discovered this hidden gem.
Having devoted much of my past nine years to combing urban spaces for optimally flowy urban cruise lines, I must say, they just don’t make it like this in other cities. On a mission to fun-if the streets, my friends and I have embraced the tenets of tactical urbanism and have mapped flow lines all through town.
These arterial pathways zig and zag like the meanderings of the Jordan River, seemingly chaotic but always in the direction of the Great Salt Lake. A lake poised to dry within the next fifteen years, whose bed contains arsenic that in southeasterly winds is deposited upon the private, isolated, fenced-in backyards of Brigham Young’s disciples.
The cruise lines we have mapped utilize bike lanes, sidewalks, streets, alleys, parks, whoopees, parking lots, sneak-routes, parking garages, business foyers, and yards alike– despite what the law says. It sometimes feels a bit anarchist as we blow by no trespassing signs and parking garage attendees yelling how “this is the private property of [insert rich white man’s business], you can’t be here!” But what’s the alternative? This town could be abandoned in twenty years anyway, I justify to myself.
Plus, biking on parallel and perpendicular lines, stopping at every intersection for red lights like civilization has indoctrinated us to do? Ain’t nobody got time fo dat.
As Javier explained to me yesterday, “Esta es mi tierra pero no me pertenece. Este es nuestro mundo y nada es privado mi amigo, nada es privado.” This is my land but it doesn’t belong to me. This is our world and nothing is private my friend, nothing is private. This belief, which permeates Cuban culture, is manifest in the pathways stomped naturally through their streets, farms, towns, and environment.
Their walkways meander, contour, and skirt in a manner resembling a high-mountain game trail– even through “private property”. The people aren’t forced to move mechanically at right angles because the land is theirs, ours and nobody's all at once.
I am pleased to affirm that the urban cruise flow lines of Salt Lake City look a lot like the paths that Cuban locals have been tromping on for centuries.
If you also hold the belief that streets are for us, the people, we hope you’ll join us this Oct. 4th - 8th in Peacham, VT for the Unplugged Field Trip - Harvest edition.
Deets here, tell your friends.
In the middle of a Cuban jungle.
With my awareness expanded, all at once I am able to perceive a stalk of bananas falling on their path to ripeness, whose leaves shade a chicken, whose brother was sacrificed for dinner last night. I notice the horse's manure, smelling of grass and nitrogen, giving softness to the soil that clenches the passion fruit tree to my right. The same tree that offers habitat to the vulture, whose droppings nourish the dirt in the same way as the horse. A coffee-brown lizard rests within the leaves of a coffee plant that provides the inspiration for this page, which is dwarfed by the lime tree to my left that clings to the golf-ball-sized juicers that seasoned last night's chicken. This, and a thousand more things for which I am not aware, are all occurring as I write.
This is all here now, yet my mind can’t help but pontificate on the beauty of bicycles.
I haven’t rode my Doggler in nineteen days, surprisingly though I don’t miss it. The pace of life here is not yet accelerated by the shackling forces of stock markets that run rogue like a loose locomotive. Nothing here (aside from their hunger) is ever pressing. No deadlines and no time crunch, therefore walking is the most appropriate and enjoyable means of movement.
If walking is the pace of life then driving, on the contrary, is the pace of the economy.
Biking, to me, is the intermediary step between where we are and where we want to be, which is why I can’t contain my excitement about human-powered two-wheeled ponies. Once I get back home I know I’ll be back on the Huddie.
I believe that my home, Salt Lake City, has the potential to be an urban cruise hotbed. Its streets were engineered in the early 1900s by Mormon Pioneers with the prerogative to pivot their whips– real ponies towing carriage– at their leisure. The streets resemble thoroughfares that most cities could only find at their regional airstrip.
At least this is what Adam, my enthusiastic tactical urbanist friend– who possesses an encyclopedic knowledge of everything– told me last fall as we mentally masturbated to the idea of developing bike infrastructure in Salt Lake. I haven’t fact-checked Adam on the aforementioned history of Salt Lake’s roads and with him, I rarely do as he has earned my trust since I first met him in the lunchroom at Mount Jumbo Elementary. Adam possesses a dictionary brain that is complimented by a sense of humility and willingness to say I don’t know earned my trust and respect ever since watching him win the 1999 all-school Geography Bee. I prefer learning from Adam, over text, as it kills two birds with one stone.
Who’s got time to fact-check these days anyway? I notice my capitalistically indoctrinated, time-scarce, brain saying. But I digress.
Salt Lake has godly, wide streets and a public transit system that shuttles (for free if you know how) every fifteen minutes to the top of the University’s campus– a perfectly slanted, four-mile, twenty-three-degree downhill flow mecca. Skaters, long-boarders, commuters, rollerbladers, and mountain bikers alike have discovered this hidden gem.
Having devoted much of my past nine years to combing urban spaces for optimally flowy urban cruise lines, I must say, they just don’t make it like this in other cities. On a mission to fun-if the streets, my friends and I have embraced the tenets of tactical urbanism and have mapped flow lines all through town.
These arterial pathways zig and zag like the meanderings of the Jordan River, seemingly chaotic but always in the direction of the Great Salt Lake. A lake poised to dry within the next fifteen years, whose bed contains arsenic that in southeasterly winds is deposited upon the private, isolated, fenced-in backyards of Brigham Young’s disciples.
The cruise lines we have mapped utilize bike lanes, sidewalks, streets, alleys, parks, whoopees, parking lots, sneak-routes, parking garages, business foyers, and yards alike– despite what the law says. It sometimes feels a bit anarchist as we blow by no trespassing signs and parking garage attendees yelling how “this is the private property of [insert rich white man’s business], you can’t be here!” But what’s the alternative? This town could be abandoned in twenty years anyway, I justify to myself.
Plus, biking on parallel and perpendicular lines, stopping at every intersection for red lights like civilization has indoctrinated us to do? Ain’t nobody got time fo dat.
As Javier explained to me yesterday, “Esta es mi tierra pero no me pertenece. Este es nuestro mundo y nada es privado mi amigo, nada es privado.” This is my land but it doesn’t belong to me. This is our world and nothing is private my friend, nothing is private. This belief, which permeates Cuban culture, is manifest in the pathways stomped naturally through their streets, farms, towns, and environment.
Their walkways meander, contour, and skirt in a manner resembling a high-mountain game trail– even through “private property”. The people aren’t forced to move mechanically at right angles because the land is theirs, ours and nobody's all at once.
I am pleased to affirm that the urban cruise flow lines of Salt Lake City look a lot like the paths that Cuban locals have been tromping on for centuries.
If you also hold the belief that streets are for us, the people, we hope you’ll join us this Oct. 4th - 8th in Peacham, VT for the Unplugged Field Trip - Harvest edition.
Deets here, tell your friends.