A Letter From Bogotá, Where Hunger Feels More Threatening Than the Virus

Delivering Fruit by Bicycle, an Expat Pedals Across the Sprawling Capital City and Tries to Imagine What the Future Will Look Like

Earlier in the spring, while riding my bike and delivering fruit around Bogotá, Colombia, I passed by dozens of customers lined up patiently, resignedly, outside a bank on a main avenue. All wore masks, and all left at least a meter distance between each other, in obedience to the police officers standing watch nearby.

But there was something unusual about the group: all were women.

Bogotá and other Colombian cities have long imposed a traffic policy called “Pico y Placa,” which prohibits each vehicle from using the streets every other day as …

Bike Rides to the Ocean

A cento composed of lines from the songs by the Canadian band Hey Ocean!

The basket on my bicycle is hanging low.
It’s filled with strange things you said.
We took …

How Bikes Helped Invent American Highways

Urban Elites With a Fancy Hobby Teamed up With Rural Farmers in a Movement That Transformed the Country

Before there were cars, America’s country roads were unpaved, and they were abysmal. Back then, roads were so unreliable for travelers that most state maps didn’t even show them. This …

Why BMX Bike Riding Is a Matter of Life and Death

What My Trick Bike Taught Me About Friendship, Risk, and Shock Trauma

Rather than spending time in the sunshine on my last day of exams, I found myself strapped onto a gurney, an accidental passenger in an ambulance speeding down the wrong …

Curb Your Antagonism

A Commuter's Conversion to Cycling

Five days out of every week I make the commute from Santa Fe Springs to downtown Los Angeles, 14 miles each way, on a bus.

I receive high praise from others …