Getting Around

During the height of the lock down in Key West the people one might come across were few and far between certainly, but they also belonged to one of two categories, occasionally both at once.

One group, the dog walkers, are easily identified when one is walking Rusty, who stops stares and points with his nose when another dog is anywhere in the vicinity. The other group of people wandering apparently at random are cyclists. Some are going somewhere and others are meandering through a life not terribly compromised by the coronavirus.

The stationary nature of life I have documented with piles of leaves but for some bicycles life was frozen by the lock down and they find themselves deflating at a bike rack, frozen in time.

 Key West; the city where garden ornaments must be padlocked in place or be lost:

Mornings on a skateboard on Duval Street. I wondered, after the second time I saw him planted in the same spot if he were waiting for Juliette. Perhaps she was texting him such was his close attention to the screen.

In my misbegotten youth I recall driving a number of balky vehicles that had trouble starting and often found it difficult to keep going. Thus when I saw the coconut Jeep's electrical clips  ready for use I felt a stab of sympathy and nostalgia. 

I never drove vehicles as decrepit and picturesque as this but an elderly VW van can be just as difficult to keep functioning on the road. Looking back I have no idea where I found the nerve to tour among Mexico 's undisciplined traffic with that fragile machine or to lose myself in the deserts of Southern California with no cell phone or outside contact to send help should I break down terminally. That I am still alive is a tribute to luck more than good sense.

I wonder if I shall look back ever on this coronavirus period with anything other than irritation and revulsion.

Riding Key West

From time to time I post pictures of people cycling around my home town and the reason I do is because I like seeing bicycles in an urban setting being used as daily riders, as useful vehicles rather than status symbols or public exercise machines.

It's not that there's anything inherently wrong with those other uses for bikes but Key West is a rare community, not unique but in a decided minority where people use bicycles to get around, and they don't seem to much care what kind of bike.

There are those who ride internal combustion but I see a future of electrical propulsion replacing scooters.  The human species never fails to confuse me and I'll use motor scooters as an example of why that is. I have read endless complaints by city residents in the newspaper's anonymous gripe column haranguing scooter riders for being loud and noisy and smelly and wrecking the peace and quiet of Old Town.

And they are all over the place. Yet now we have a revolution of silent efficient clean non polluting electric bikes replacing scooters and cars and still the complaints keep flooding in! Now it turns out electric vehicles are too silent and stealth and confusing and dangerous and on and on and on.

And to overlay all those complaints parking issues are still a hot button issue and I can't tell you how many parking complaints we get in police dispatch. twenty four hours a day people are calling in vehicles parked for more than 72 hours which by city code are abandoned and liable to being towed. Then the other perennial complaint is that of  vehicles parking in residential spots, very clearly marked these days, by vehicles not equipped with stickers.

I really like the new residential program where you have to show proof of actual residence (part time if fine) and pay for a sticker. people like me who work in the city but live in the county are excluded though scooters and golf carts can park in residential spots. Why a scooter rider wouldn't use free scooter parking everywhere I don't know. One of those mysteries we shall never have an answer for...One thing about this program is that residents are now on the prowl at all hours looking for out of town vehicles cluttering the residential program. An electric bike bypasses all these issues yet they struggle to gain favor with a majority of the population.

And then we have bicycles as art.  I miss Captain Outrageous, a former stock broker if I recall correctly who lived the dream and came to Key West to become of all things an artist. He did very nicely too painting anything mobile in bright primary tropical colors and covering his under coat with dots and whirls and whimsy. He died a good few years ago, I took the call to send him an ambulance and I felt bereft when I realized who it was because he created the best of that quirky good natured spirit of  Key West that we want this town to remain. You can still see a few scooters and bicycles around town with his peculiar and particular polka dots and I enjoy the reminder of his being here.

When winter closes in Up North the other kind of cyclist shows up in the Keys, hunched over curved handlebars, brightly colored spandex covered in advertising looking like they have lost the rest of their peloton in the Tour de France. I wish them joy of their public display of athleticism and cycling verve but I prefer the dude in the first photo managing an ill managed life or the second guy lumbering to work on two wheels.

I take myself off to spinning classes dressed in my usual cerements as I prefer to sweat copiously in private as my mother taught me. I was never one of those who cheered on the Giro d'Italia from the sidewalks and then attempted to emulate my heroes on a bicycle. I know my limitations.

Watching, Walking, Painting, Dressing Up

By the time Duval Street gets busy and by the time the private parties are in full swing as it were I am safely tucked up at home resting between one day at work and the next. But with a few minutes to spare during my lunch hour I can get to wander Lower Duval this week of Fantasy Fest.

The Grand Parade is Saturday night and the Locals' Parade now known as the Masquerade March is on Friday but the campy dressing up is underway all week in the "Fantasy Zone" which is basically Duval Street and the side streets off it. The rules while clear do not necessarily mandate good taste or common sense. 

Mild nudity is permitted as displayed here with perfect Fantasy Zone propriety: 

And if body painting is what you want all you have to do is pay someone to paint you, but the painting must go on out of sight of the general public.

There are plenty of spectators at the bars and considering it is still quite hot, near 90 degrees and humid, being half undressed has its own logic.

Like I said taste and lawfulness do not go hand in hand but in the early afternoon Duval Street is mostly given over to costumes though covered nipples are occasionally on display.

I'm not sure what cultural reference is intended with giraffe heads but frequently I am baffled by costumes that refer to trends that have completely passed me by. Giraffe heads? No idea.

Kerb seating is not entirely sanitary in my opinion but the heat gets to people who aren't used to it. I was surprised by the number of people walking the sunny side of the street.

He was looking at Sloppy Joe's somewhat in the manner of a pilgrim and when I noticed his attire I figured he might do well as a sample of some of the public costumery this week brings out in visitors. 

I did see a t-shirt advertising Key West as the home of the bizarre and the non conformist but somehow this drive to be "non conformist"  for a week by  conforming to peculiar notions seems a bit forced. 

  But there is a lot of interest:

Originally Fantasy Fest was dreamed up as a way to bring life to a moribund  winter tourist economy. By the time September came around three decades ago Key West had run out of business and therefore money for the employees of the seasonal tourist trade. Nowadays tourism seems to be a ten month a year proposition with the hiatus all too short in the summer after schools open with a  few quiet weeks before this mayhem starts the winter. Happily some few people make an effort to dress up for the event:

 Some others ignore the whole mess and go fishing instead.

This picture below, struck me as a bizarre juxtaposition between the plastic monstrosity hanging off the front of the hot dog cart and the actual live woman the cart operator was talking to in the back. Perhaps I think too much.

 Sloppy Joe's, a refuge from the sun but not the naked flesh:

I accidentally over exposed this picture but I ended up liking the image of speed, speeding through Duval Street in the way to someplace more serene...?

And then as you stroll casually down Duval Street not only will you pass painted people in person and on the walls but in amongst your ranks you will find people in peculiar and apparently random stages of undress. Act as though it's absolutely normal because it is right now. 

I saw two cheerful people on the steps of Fat Tuesday and they posed happily when I asked. South Pacific anyone?

And among the crowd we  find the usual flow of humanity more or less dressed checking out the scene. 

She did a lot better than I did when I was in a wheelchair. She bopped along without getting stuck or nearly tipping over. I was impressed as I found Duval impossible when I wasn't able to walk.

 I'm not sure whether this electric bike guy was dressed up or was he dressed for business as usual:

This was the speed demon from before shown travelling at his actual, relaxed rate of speed cruising the other way:

 The obsevation deck at the Whistle overlooking Duval Street:

 And so back to the scooter and the end of my lunch break. Time to give my eyes a rest.

Locomotion

The  City of Key West is planning on restricting electric bicycles and banning electric scooters from sidewalks and I wonder  about all this emphasis on keeping people in cars. 

There is a moral element to the act of riding a bicycle that crops up in conversations all the time. I am pretty much alone in my belief that anything that can help reduce the number of cars on the streets eases traffic congestion. It would seem to be a simple enough proposition and the addition of modern electric motors and relatively effective batteries would encourage someone like me to think things will be even better.

But they are not. There is an upwelling of disapproval, dare I say puritanical rejection of electric motors because they make riding a  bicycle too easy. I know people to whom the concept of exercise is alien as the concept of cooking their own pets, yet when you bring up the subject of electric bikes they get a glint in their eyes and reject them with a severe sniff and a filthy look at you pointing out they want the bicycle for the exercise. 

I suppose one has to blame those professionals who keep telling us a little exercise is better than none and riding a bike or walking a dog is good enough to do some good. Personally I've been walking dogs for years and as much as I enjoy it and as little as I enjoy the gym by comparison, the results only come with the hard work of sweating in a  controlled environment.

Going for a stroll gets a big thumbs up from me and riding a bike is fine but if it's exercise you're after you need to build your muscles. I read once that muscles are like motors, the bigger they are the more energy they burn so if you have small muscles you can ride a bike till Kingdom Come and the number of calries your burn will be minimal. And those of us that like calories need to pay attention. 

From my perspective electric motors on bicycles will get people out of cars and onto two wheels and clear the streets of some traffic. These aren't  going to be necessarily exercise fanatics but they may be people intimidated by the thought of pedaling wildly and an electric motor may be just the ticket.

But now we have the usual backlash against a novel idea especially as  electric bikes are taking off. The ones most in the cross hairs are electric scooters which have no pedals. It's funny that I bought a cheap model from Costco to avoid the traffic jams next year when the bridge into Key West is going to be partially closed but it's not a machine I particularly aim to ride much beyond that. I live 23 miles from work so an internal combustion scooter such as I already ride is the ticket for me most of the time. However the problem with the modern electric scooter is that the state is woefully behind the  curve on designating licensing requirements for electric two wheelers. They can't be registered as motorbikes as they lack vehicle identification numbers but if they don't have pedals they aren't bicycles. So what are they? Eventually Tallahassee will come up with an answer. Maybe. 

In the meantime the morality brigades argue the purpose of a bicycle that has always been human powered and now may not be. Happily there is always a reason to get upset and even though street electric bikes are governed to  not exceed 28 miles per hour there are the angry commentators who act as though cars are the only solution. Around town I prefer to walk, with Rusty of course and my camera but for many city residents a bicycle is their means of transport and for many others the electric motor has proved irresistible. Yet they are viewed with condescension at best.

Parking is always problematic in the eight months of the year the city is crowded but scrabbling over parking spaces is apparently preferable to encouraging transport innovation. We humans are bizarre.

Pedal Hatred

I was reading a post on one of the dedicated Key West Facebook pages and as is so frequently the way the thing got completely out of hand. I don't do much with Facebook because of that, but from time to time I look in to keep up with friends. When I was in the hospital it was a life saver so I am reluctant to be too distant from the service. But...

Some dude posted a rather negative paragraph about electric bicycles and how they speed down the sidewalks at "30 to 40 mph" which sounded like a horrible exaggeration to me. Well, the shit show started and as far as I know it continues because I stepped away. The comments were so derogatory and angry I was quite shocked by the tone of the whole post. 

Funnily enough it fell to a friend of mine, a mild mannered soul who potters to his voluntary environmental causes on an electric bike to defend the use of these instruments of the devil. Of course the clamor against electric bikes headed into the "report this to the police" stuff from outraged citizens and my buddy patiently explained that under Florida law if electric bikes don't exceed 20 mph they are mere bicycles. That contention set off another firestorm of vituperation of an intensity sufficient to burn the city down. 

The paragraphs got longer and longer which on Facebook is the equivalent of shouting to be heard and not being listened to...no one reads more than three sentences if that. Writing ten column inches on Facebook is the equivalent of pissing into a hurricane, no one notices. And that's what all the posters were doing.

The thing is there is already a solid contingent in Key West that absolutely positively hates bicyclists. And on bad days you can see why. Locals and tourists (who already treat city streets as extensions of Disneyland) do frequently ride with total contempt of rules common courtesy and common sense. I feel that car drivers who hate cyclists are frequently expressing fear in reaction to a near miss, as most people really don't want to kill their cycling neighbors.

Given that cyclists are scofflaws when it comes to stopping for stop signs and red lights it is rather hard to expect car drivers who are bound by these irritations to care very much at all if bicyclists get annoyed by car drivers accidentally failing to in their duties to bicycles, passing too close or opening doors into bicycle lanes and so forth. In Old Town it's almost impossible to give three feet of room when passing an ambling distracted cyclist  blocking traffic.

So when you are driving in Key West's congested narrow lanes and looking for somewhere to park you may be forgiven for bursting a blood vessel when an inconsiderate hoodlum on a bicycle slides wildly by, hopping off the sidewalk, swinging too close while running a  stop sign...and then parks and walks away while you are still figuring what to do with your land yacht. 

Oddly enough the debate I had dropped into quite by accident had taken bicycle hatred to a whole new place and one of the loudest angriest voices was a bicycle promoter in Key West. It turns out everyone wants to see people riding bicycles just they have to be the bicycles advocates describe as acceptable. And apparently in the socially fractured world in which we live electric bikes are the devil's handiwork. 

I find it nuts, frankly. It seems to me the more people riding bicycles, electric or not, the fewer cars we have to contend with and putting people on electric bikes can lead us to hope the pedals may get some use, increasing with time and familiarity to increase the practice of beneficial exercise. The beauty of an electric bike is that it allows you to get to work in good order, not sweating and discombobulated. The  riding home you can cranks the pedals for a bit of stress reduction in pedal assistance...

Electric bike advocates are pushing their machines as true alternatives to cars and I think they are on to something, as bicycles are familiar, friendly (usually) and require no bureaucratic paperwork or enforcement. Compared to a motorcycle that requires a licence and skill to ride as well as insurance and so forth a bicycle is as familiar as any other household appliance. Adding a motor makes it just a bit more useful. Fantastic.  

It is time for the advocates to wake up and support getting people out of their cars instead of worrying about what kind of bikes they are riding. The law is clear and manufacturers know their machines are speed limited. In Florida bicycles have to yield to pedestrians but are permitted on sidewalks. Key West has the state's worst bicycle fatality rate so riding ion the street though permitted seems like a terrible roulette risk to me. Instead of remaining calm and carrying on people seem ready to start fighting over nothing very much.  

 I see an electric bike in my future and sooner possibly rather than later, namely when road work starts on the bridge into Key West. Traffic is expected to be impossibly backed up for the best part of a year. My plan is to park my car outside the city and ride a bike - electrically - into town, side stepping traffic back ups. Smart eh? Not universally appreciated then.