"Bike Culture" and Brooklyn Industries
I know I'm a bit late with this post, but I wanted to share it anyway.
A few weeks ago, The windows of all 4 Brooklyn Industries stores were vandalized using acid etch with graffiti slogans saying "Bike culture not for sale."
A week earlier, B.I. had started a new window display, featuring some colorful "frankenbikes" (home-made, welded together choppers). The company was donating $2 from the sale of every messenger bag to the Recycle-a-Bicycle charity, and though it would be cool to advertise this by putting these bikes in their shops.
Regardless of the intention of B.I. or the vandal(s), here's how it felt to me:
When I walked my 6 year-old daughter to school one morning, I noticed the displays and pointed them out to her. We admired the cool looking, crazy bikes, and I told her the story of the important place of bicycles in our car-saturated, polluted society, and I told her that when I grew up (in Belgium) it was a favorite pass time to fool around with bikes, making new ones out of old ones, racing in cyclo-cross races etc. She was really into it, and I felt happy to be part of teaching a new generation about bicycles and their place in a greener world.
Imagine our surprise when we saw what had happened a few days later. First, I felt bad for having to explain to a 6 year-old what vandalism is. Then I felt worse for having to explain why someone "didn't like the bike display." The more I thought about it, the more pissed-off I got. I personally couldn't care less about Brooklyn Industries and their GAP-like fake indie stores that are (in my opinion) defacing our neighborhoods, but I did think they were doing a good thing: promoting bicycles to children. Who were these people who were so offended by it, and why were they so offended? [Some answers might be found on this blog Also see: Brooklyn Industries Press Release on the event.]
In recent years, we've all witnessed an incline in hipster "bike culture" around Brooklyn. Young people on single gear or fixed gear track bikes are everywhere. It's a fad. It's a really cool fad, I've been thinking about getting one of those bikes, for old time's sake. And the more bikes, the better. Now I'm the first to complain against commercialization, but I do oppose the slogan "bike culture not for sale." What bike culture are they talking about? Whose bike culture? I'm sorry, but a bunch of hipster youth on track bikes is not a bike culture, not by a long shot. It's a hipster sub-culture, that will probably sadly disappear over time to make way for the next big hipster fad. The United States, no matter how many Tour de Frances Lance Armstrong wins, does not have a bike culture. I wish it did. INstead, it has a car culture. Holland, Belgium, France, Italy, heck, China, have bike cultures. And bike cultures don't happen overnight, they happen by teaching generation after generation about the importance of bicycles. And putting a bike in a shop window helps.
Anyway, I'm not mad anymore, and I think the hipsters color the 'hood. As a last laugh, here's a picture of myself and 3 friends, after our stunning victory in a local cyclo-cross, featuring our home-built single speed, tied-together-with-string orange mean machine in 1981 (Shorts in December, baby, yeah!!)
A few weeks ago, The windows of all 4 Brooklyn Industries stores were vandalized using acid etch with graffiti slogans saying "Bike culture not for sale."
A week earlier, B.I. had started a new window display, featuring some colorful "frankenbikes" (home-made, welded together choppers). The company was donating $2 from the sale of every messenger bag to the Recycle-a-Bicycle charity, and though it would be cool to advertise this by putting these bikes in their shops.
Regardless of the intention of B.I. or the vandal(s), here's how it felt to me:
When I walked my 6 year-old daughter to school one morning, I noticed the displays and pointed them out to her. We admired the cool looking, crazy bikes, and I told her the story of the important place of bicycles in our car-saturated, polluted society, and I told her that when I grew up (in Belgium) it was a favorite pass time to fool around with bikes, making new ones out of old ones, racing in cyclo-cross races etc. She was really into it, and I felt happy to be part of teaching a new generation about bicycles and their place in a greener world.
Imagine our surprise when we saw what had happened a few days later. First, I felt bad for having to explain to a 6 year-old what vandalism is. Then I felt worse for having to explain why someone "didn't like the bike display." The more I thought about it, the more pissed-off I got. I personally couldn't care less about Brooklyn Industries and their GAP-like fake indie stores that are (in my opinion) defacing our neighborhoods, but I did think they were doing a good thing: promoting bicycles to children. Who were these people who were so offended by it, and why were they so offended? [Some answers might be found on this blog Also see: Brooklyn Industries Press Release on the event.]
In recent years, we've all witnessed an incline in hipster "bike culture" around Brooklyn. Young people on single gear or fixed gear track bikes are everywhere. It's a fad. It's a really cool fad, I've been thinking about getting one of those bikes, for old time's sake. And the more bikes, the better. Now I'm the first to complain against commercialization, but I do oppose the slogan "bike culture not for sale." What bike culture are they talking about? Whose bike culture? I'm sorry, but a bunch of hipster youth on track bikes is not a bike culture, not by a long shot. It's a hipster sub-culture, that will probably sadly disappear over time to make way for the next big hipster fad. The United States, no matter how many Tour de Frances Lance Armstrong wins, does not have a bike culture. I wish it did. INstead, it has a car culture. Holland, Belgium, France, Italy, heck, China, have bike cultures. And bike cultures don't happen overnight, they happen by teaching generation after generation about the importance of bicycles. And putting a bike in a shop window helps.
Anyway, I'm not mad anymore, and I think the hipsters color the 'hood. As a last laugh, here's a picture of myself and 3 friends, after our stunning victory in a local cyclo-cross, featuring our home-built single speed, tied-together-with-string orange mean machine in 1981 (Shorts in December, baby, yeah!!)
posted by BvP at 5/21/2006 06:54:00 PM
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