Ride along

I met Esther Kennedy at the pub, as it would be called in Australia (or in England), as I was curious to know what her thoughts were on cycling in Shreveport vs. her hometown of Melbourne.

As Kennedy told me, Melbourne is equipped with great biking infrastructure. With a population of 4.4 million people, the high-density living allows for transportations of all types: by rail, car, wheels, trolley or feet.

While she frequently rode her bike as a child on country roads, it wasn’t until she was 23 that she began using it more frequently to get around, and by the age of 25, cycling was her main mode of transportation.

“When I got a really cool set of wheels that I liked, I starting riding it everywhere,” she said. “It had a basket up front, and I could fit a six-pack of beer in there.”

She used her Malvern Star, similar to an American Schwinn, to commute to work, meet up with friends at a pub/café, or casually ride around in the city.

In fact, Kennedy lived in a share house (read: roommates) with three friends in Melbourne, and none of them had a car.

With such great biking infrastructure, one of my initial questions was, what about bike traffic?

“When I hit the main bike superhighway – as I’d called it – I’d get caught with 25 bikes at a light,” she said. “But it never occurred to me that it wasn’t the way to go. The quickest way to get from A to B was absolutely to ride.”

Wow, regular, everyday bike traffic.

Sometimes she’d have to wait through two cycles of lights. I couldn’t imagine.

Fast forward to spring of 2014:

Kennedy visited Shreveport on a tourist visa, and prior to leaving to go back to Melbourne, she met Stephen Pederson of SBC Bike Social – now known as Bike Shreveport.

“I was relieved to find a cyclist culture – people in casual clothes riding for transportation,” she said. “It’s an independent group that’s adding to what’s already in Shreveport. Embracing the culture and adding to it.”

So, once she moved back on a work visa in August of the same year, she began attending rides with Bike Shreveport.

“I really liked [riding my bike] while I was still getting acquainted with Shreveport,” she said. “To be able to see it on a human level was really cool, and to meet people who enjoy that as well and enjoy all the benefits that not only riding as a person but riding as a culture brings, was a huge reason why I felt like I could belong here.”

Kennedy said it’s hard to separate who would be her Bike Shreveport friends and who would be her friends – because they’re all the same. As the administrative of Shreveport Common, the cycling culture bleeds into her job as well via the Bike Container, located at 869 Texas Ave.

“One of the coolest things I’ve done with work [and Bike Shreveport] was a project where [Shreveport Common] solicited donations of bikes that Bike Shreveport then prepared, and helped facilitate the donations to people living in social service organizations within Shreveport Common,” she said.

There were 20-25 bikes donated, including bikes from the Shreveport Police Department. Local artists worked with the residents to get decorations on them, and the bikes were part of the Doo-Dah! Parade with the Big SCENE! in April. For residents that already had bikes, they all received helmets.

(Fun fact: It’s illegal to ride without a helmet in Australia and has been since 1992.)

In the future, more things are to come with biking and other modes of transportation infrastructure in Shreveport Common, as they have begun to already.

“I think a cycling culture is very local.

A cycling culture doesn’t come down to a continent, country or state. It comes down to a city and parish. They’re the ones who will make the decisions that will help or hinder the bike culture.”

She continued, “I think Shreveport is on a good trajectory to create that. The people have created a reason for it, and the city is responding to it. It’s going to be the city and parish, rather than state or federal, that make it more bikeable in Shreveport.”

In the meantime, Kennedy will continue to commute to work from the Broadmoor neighborhood, catch up with friends with cycling lady dates, and show Shreveport to visitors via a ride she calls, “Winning Shreveport,” of which she says is, “my favorite bike ride is showing an out of towner a mix of cool and dive bars by bike.”

For those still on the fence of picking up some new or recycled wheels, I like the way this Aussie puts it: “It’s a nice way to start the day. It’s happy-making. That’s it.”

Karen E. Wissing works in Shreveport-Bossier City and loves her community.

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