An old Afghan saying says that "A man without a gun is like a woman without jewelry." As such, the Kalashnikov is de rigueur for the well-dressed Afghan (or militant Texan) male even in times of peace (or absent the black U.N. helicopters). Such institutions are part of daily ritual because they were necessary a long time ago and since a plausible argument can be made for their continuation and even enhancement. This is clear in the current trends in modern mobile phone design. I freely admit that it may once have been useful to make mobile phones smaller so that you didn't get a hernia when you needed to move them. Yet I hope I'm not the first to say that phones today are so blessedly mobile that they move faster than you can remember where you left the damn thing.
Since BlitzMail is more convenient than a mobile phone and S&S takes a dim view of students packing heat, the common jewelry of the Dartmouth community is the bicycle. Professor or student, male or female, affiliated or unaffiliated, the mountain bike is an institution at this campus. And why not? Anybody can enhance his prestige with a bike. Riding one ostentatiously signals respect for physical fitness, time efficiency, love of the outdoors and eco-friendliness.
As such, everywhere on campus the casual onlooker can see bikes with front and rear suspension, aluminum or composite frames, and elaborate locks that keep the $500 machines firmly attached to bike racks for months while their owners take terms off campus. Variety is also found at the lower end of the spectrum; a stroll around campus reveals a variety of rusted, creaky, under-maintained and otherwise vintage bikes -- Rocinantes among the thoroughbreds. Indeed, in spite of our hilly community where six months out of the year it's unsuitable for using them, our densely developed campus and the adversarial attitudes of New England drivers, we sure worship our bicycles here at Dartmouth.
Yet our love of the two-wheeled conveyance is not without costs. Most issues are brought on by the existential problem of bikes sharing facilities with pedestrians and cars and being optimal for neither. On a campus with no bike lanes, a biker has two unpalatable choices. The first is to share the road with car and truck drivers that have little sympathy for the limitations of pedal power. The other option is to share the paths with clots of pedestrians that, unmounted, don't share an enthusiasm for either eco-friendliness or time efficiency. Frequently, these enlightened folk move at speeds below the minimum necessary for the biker to remain upright. And they'd be damned if they'll interrupt their important conversation about beer pong to make way.
Sorry. Some of the biker's bitterness showed through in a publication that has no room for bitterness, Katie Greenwood, Mohamad Bydon and Liam Kuhn notwithstanding. You see, I ride a bicycle on the same paths as regular pedestrians with one distinction: I have a bell on my bike. I know that my bicycle is almost silent and that the combination of stealth and speed can scare pedestrians. So on my last trip to Amsterdam -- where bikes are the dominant form of life on the roads -- I got a bell so that I could gently alert pedestrians to my passing so that we all might mutually benefit.
The sound of a Dutch bike bell doesn't appear to translate in English. Here a "ching-ching" translates into something like "Anything but a bike is coming through. Continue as normal." At short ranges it frequently means "Biker coming through! Step right in his path! Snap to it!" Due to the paucity of warning sounds for bikes and the lack of a convention for bicycle reaction, we have a situation where ringing bells only spawn further confusion. It's as if we've all forgotten how we conduct ourselves on public roads, escalators and moving walkways: keep to the right! Something like that ought to be in the Principles of Community on the following grounds: Failing to appreciate diversity won't fracture your skull but failing to pass on the left will.
And while we're on the topic of things getting broken, why not talk about the rusting bicycles parked everywhere on campus? Honestly, it's a travesty to pedal up to a bike rack and find out that you have to chain up to a tree because six bicycles whose owners are in Italy decided to chain up to the rack. Worse yet is the fact that because of insufficient storage facilities, we have to leave our machines out in the elements. Given the choice between hauling a bike up flights of stairs or leaving it outside in the elements, most of us would merely bet on getting a basement room at the next room draw. Rusty bikes reflect poorly on the community and cost FO&M resources to cut the bikes loose. Why is it that parking cars on campus is a privilege and parking a bike isn't? If bikers, like drivers, had to pay user fees and penalties when they broke the rules, we could afford ample interior storage, paths for bikers, and there would be disincentives to pollute our environment.
There are unique problems associated with bikers on a campus built for walkers and cars. Bikers and pedestrians need particular accommodations for each other, including warning, separate paths and rules of the road. A system funded by user fees offers harmony and equity to the non-cycling members of the community.