Discovering Cities By Bike!

Kees Preston

United States

Who’s Kees and what do you do?

Kees is originally from the United States where he grew up in Oklahoma and later moved to Ohio and Michigan where he spent 10 years before moving to Europe to study sustainable development which is where he is now! “Columbus and Detroit are more important for my history and who I have become as that’s where I first studied and first started biking!” 

Kees’s passion is biking where he has discovered cities from another perspective and became a part of communities in ways he never would have if he stuck to an automobile. Read on further as he speaks about why he loves to bike and how it impacts his life!

Where are you currently and what do you do?

Currently, I am in Leipzig after school went online due to COVID. I am in Leipzig for the semester, studying abroad!  I mean, I haven't met anyone. I don't know my professors. I've never been to the campus. I just look at my computer all the time, like many of us students right now! I study sustainable development and hope to focus more on a community level when I graduate.

What are some highlights from biking so far?

Alleycat Races!! I started by organizing Alleycat races(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alleycat_race). I think I organized four races before I ever even raced in one. I'm really slow. I'm not actually that fast at riding bikes, but they’re so much fun and you meet the nicest people, plus the after parties are always great! Usually, it's a scavenger hunt type race, with checkpoints across the city. 

There’s a lot of races out there!  I've now participated in a fair few of them in different continents. What I love about these races is that several times I've been on a bike trip where I meet someone and they just tell me there's one happening. These races aren’t like normal bike competitions. For me, I was always on my touring bike, with a bunch of stuff so I was not going to win, but it's a great time as you meet new people and get to see the city from a different perspective. It's really nice!

Why do you bike around cities?

When I moved to Columbus, parking there was horrendous! It was always faster to bike. I actually sold my car just 6 months after moving to Columbus. Now, cycling (or walking) allows me to fully engage and understand and appreciate the community in which I live. 

What is the biggest bike ride you have done?

I mean, it's only one week or nine days but they're not, they're not as wild as they sound. I go for five or six hours, then chill with my friends, cook some food, have a big sleep, have some snack breaks, and then do it again for a few days in a row!

Do you bike intercity?

Yeah! Usually, we plan and have cities as starting/endpoints because that's convenient. I’ve gone from San Luis Obispo to San Francisco, Pittsburgh to DC and Copenhagen to Berlin!

What do you love about seeing new places from the seat of your bike?

I think it's that you get to do more than just seeing them.  You hear them, you smell them.  It's really engaging.  For instance, if there’s a slight change in temperature, I noticed that. If it goes slightly uphill or downhill on your way into the city, you pretty much notice it if you're cycling. You hear the block party that's three blocks away and you think, Oh, I guess I should go check that out. 

On the contrary, if I was in the car, I only smell the most vital of smells that make it through the car. I don't notice that it's slightly uphill. I don't notice that it drops two degrees or it's two degrees warmer in the city. None of that happens in an automobile.

Where have you been with your bike?

Canada, Brazil, Denmark, Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Switzerland, Netherlands, and Croatia. That's probably it. Those are probably all the countries I've had positive cycling experiences too. I mean, definitely the US as well. 

What challenges have you faced from automobile drivers?

Some places are so shitty. It gives some insight into what it's like to be from any of the many different marginalized groups. As a white male, I didn’t get that in my normal life, but cycling in the US really gives you some insight into interacting with the world in a way and society in a way, wasn't designed for.

Often you're cycling on the street that was never designed for anyone to cycle on and everyone's yelling at you as you're doing it while you're also experiencing all of these other things.

A lot of people in the US are just really into their cars and they think if you're on a bicycle, you're somehow infringing on their ability to drive their car as they want.

A common one is people yelling at you throwing stuff out their window, spraying us with water as they try to pass, even when temps are barely above zero. It's overall positive after eight or nine years, although there are more negative experiences than I can remember.

One neighborhood that I lived in for just a year, they were really classist and they didn't like the idea of lower-class people within their neighborhood. And of course, it wasn't based on reality. The two guys that I lived with were all consultants in our mid-twenties, our household income I'm sure was higher than any of our neighbors but they didn't care about that. That's not reality. All they saw as we had one 30-year-old car in the driveway and we mostly walked and cycled everywhere and they would say so many mean things to us about our perceived social status. You could tell they thought we were stupid poor people because we would bike to the grocery store. The grocery store was one kilometer away...

At the end of the day though, it’s worth it! 

Do you have advice for others that want to do the same?

I guess one thing from me is not to spend money on the bike, rather spend money on things such as lights, a lock, and a waterproof bag. I would then say to spend your time learning how to fix the bike.  The majority of bikes I've ever had I got out of the dumpster!

The important thing for me when exploring around the city is not the bike itself, it's more around ‘can you lock it? Do you have lights? Do you have a waterproof way to carry your laptop or a jacket or something?’

WOW! How did you learn how to fix your bike?

It's mostly just doing it, but for me, I used to spend a lot of time fixing cars and motorcycles. So the basic skills are the way there, and they're mostly not such complicated devices. It also may mean doing it three or four times before it's working properly, but that's fine.

How do you cope with the weather?

I usually have a car but I find many people ask me ‘Oh, you do have a car and yet you're still riding your bike on? It's minus 10 and snowing!’

For me, a car is not always warmer. I actually think the bike is warmer in the winter. In a car, I'd have to go start the car and then spend five or 10 minutes scraping all the snow and the ice off of the car. Plus the engine needs to warm up first so it’s around 20-30 minutes before the car is starting to get warm (depending on what car you have)!

Whereas, if I just started cycling, I would have been warm in five or 10 minutes. It’s more the distance that would influence if I biked. For instance, work used to be quite far and so I would usually drive instead.

What have I learned?

I now know there's a lot of value in vulnerability rather than being surrounded by a huge cage (car) where I can't see or smell or hear anything around me. It's such a different environment. When you’re biking you can just stop and talk for two minutes and have a chat if your friend is cycling in the opposite direction. You don't do that when you drive past your friends. 

Do you have any future plans for bike trips or cities to discover by bike?

While trips are great, the bicycle as a tool to engage with and build community locally is what initially drew me to this lifestyle. In these Coviddy times, my only plans are to continue this local focus.