Discuss: Send in the Clowns

Great article! I’m a bicycle tourist and I rode across the states west to east last summer.  I was alone, and avoided compromising, but the reward was meeting people.It gave me the hope that we’ll make it through this difficult time. If you want this experience get out and ride knowing you may not get to where you want to be, but it won’t matter

This article was informative, inspiring, and beautifully written.  What an intensely woven poetic tribute to the circles in our lives—the ones we think about and the ones we ride on.  Gandhi tells us that the best way to change people’s minds about anything is for us to be the change we want to see in the world.  This writer learns, believes, lives, reflects, and writes—a daily examined life to be sure.  Such a wonderful gift to the people who meet him and all of his readers.

Beautiful writing and thinking.

I spent three springs crossing America on a bike, in my fifties, and the thousand miles of Texas was special in a way you capture well.

Thanks for explaining these nomads.  I see them every now and then on my bicycle commute in Cambridge.  Thought they were some kind of local club.

Joe Haldeman

Yea! I work as a Park Ranger on a mountain bike…waiting for the rest of the world to understand this Joy of cycling…thanks, great article

This was an awfully good read. I’ve ridden bikes for 30+ years, including a decade commuting to work (I haven’t sold out: I’m retired). My hat goes off to the people who have given up their car, & use a bike exclusively in their daily lives. If they need a vehicle, they rent one or use the bus. Europeans & European cities are ahead of us in creating a bike-friendly world. But, on a cautionary note, there are also an awful lot of folks who pack the bike in the car & drive someplace to go for a ride to get some exercise. There is something counterintuitive about this to me: What are they doing?

A good read and a transcendent anarchist vision—we can all latch onto a piece of this, where we are, now.

this article was amazing, i would absolutely love to meet david santos and live that lifestyle, if only for a bit.

Where does one draw the line between being a post-consumerist bicycle anarchist and being a parasite? How would David Santos feel about technology if he had a burst appendix or his child had a brain tumor? Our society has developed many bad traits, but has produced no insignificant number of miracles. Let’s make our civilization better, rather than abandon it.