Editor's Statement
It's been a summer of roadtrips. For someone so concerned about alternative transportation in the urban environment, it can be rather embarrassing to look back on the few thousand miles burned on the nation’s highways in the name of bicycle riding. No cross-country drives or anything, but a number of long weekends with friends in the name of bike polo with a longer jaunt or two thrown in for good measure. Driving for hours, sleeping in close quarters on some accommodating person’s floor, getting into and out of trouble in unfamiliar places together.
In the case of polo it has become a genuine culture all its own. Even with explosive growth the scene is still small enough at a national level that people are regularly traveling to far-off tournaments and you’re bound to know people no matter where you turn up to play. Due to the nature of the sport—lots of standing around between games for one—it has become a remarkably tight knit community in just a matter of a few years while remaining open to newcomers. But a microcosm of the larger urban cycling culture.
Close, but still welcoming. Willing to question its own conventions. Urban cycling as a whole needs to remain such as it’s latest iteration continues to grow and mature. If the trending continues we’re bound to see a lot more people on two wheels out there, no matter what our individual cycling poison may be.