the Pimped Out Bicycles of Puerto Madero
I received a copy of David Byrne's Bicycle Diaries on Christmas 2009. A collection of travel writings based loosely on Byrne's online journal, the Bicycle Diaries are best appreciated as a bundle of musings by a musician who happens to like riding a bicycle; rather than as a book by a cyclist who happens to be the lead singer of one of the most influential post-punk bands of our time. The Buenos Aires section of the Bicycle Diaries is mostly about the musical evolutions of cumbia, tango and baile funk. His only mention of Argentine cycling culture is that it is, by and large, absent and Byrne forwards theories that essentially say it's because Argentinians are too shallow and crazy to appreciate the bicycle.
There aren't a lot of cyclists in Buenos Aires, of that Byrne is right. There are porteurs who make deliveries on some heavy duty cargo bikes, and there's the occasional teenager on a mountain bike that's seen too many years and not enough oil. There are tour groups that offer guided bike trips through the city, but like the Segway tours of Boston harbor, these seem to be novelty items in the city.
On our last day in Buenos Aires, we were walking through Puerto Madero with silentq's friend castorsd and a few other companions, fresh of an Antarctic cruise. We were on a promenade that ran alongside the Ecological Park, a bit of landfill in the Rio Del Plata that had turned into a blossoming ecosystem thanks to benign neglect. The promenade was crowded with choripan food stalls and families enjoying a balmy Sunday afternoon. Music blared from a half dozen boomboxes, fading into the sound of the weekend, but eventually one radio seemed to stay constant throughout the din playing some anonymous euro house variant that, no matter how far we walked, remained audible and if anything it was getting louder.
"Is that music ... following us?"
Yes, yes it was. The source were two kids rolling along on old singlespeed beach cruisers wired up with speakers cranked to 11. We watched them roll by, we realized that there was a whole group of them hanging out by the promenade: teenage boys and their bikes.
On closer inspection, the rides themselves were odd. Built low to the ground with long drivetrains and tiny cranks, they looked like they'd actually be a pain to ride. Indeed, most of the kids that we saw were walking these bikes around and while there appeared to be some lever that would raise the bike up to get the pedals off the ground , we never saw one in use. Still, it was neat to see them and to wonder about their provenance. Unlike SCUL or other chopper bikes, these did not appear to be DIY jury-rigs. The frames were too uniform and similar in color and construction. Still, each rig was decked out with individual totems of dice and speakers, and as I took photos, their owners puffed their chests out in that universal sign of teenage boy pride.
seriously, I am still looking at this picture and wondering how anyone rides these things
I don't know if these bikes were around when David Byrne was here and if he just missed them while he was spending his time in nightclubs and tango salons; or if these are just a recent phenomenon. Still, it was an interesting reminder that cities like Buenos Aires and countries like Argentina cannot be contained inside of guidebooks and that no matter how much might read about a place, there's always a surprise in store, lurking just beyond one's vision, waiting for you to wander by.
