City Cycling

摘要

I have been cycling for more than three decades. My relationship with cycles and cycling began during a childhood located within a Canadian post World War Two (WWII) suburban neighbourhood. This early experience was followed by utilitarian cycling to/from highschool and university, a great deal of time spent mountain biking in the 1990s, and more recently, utilitarian and road cycling in the Greater Toronto Area, Canada and its nearby exurban and rural spaces. My journey with cycles and cycling began just after the first OPEC oil crisis, and so much of my early formative experience with and on two wheels intersected nicely, and unknowingly at the time, with a pivotal moment in the production and sale of cycles, thinking in the West around energy security, and a nascent, yet geographically uneven introspection regarding transport that would ultimately produce, in certain spheres, some interest in managing rather than just producing and facilitating travel demand. On the whole, in North America in particular, I would say, that when I reflect on the history and geography of development and transport in my lifetime, we've made a real mess of it - yet we press on.