Pedal Power

First of all, my apologies for the unacceptable absence from blogging. I have so much that I want to write about but it's hard to ever find the time to sit down and write a thoughtful, well-researched blog post, which I would like to include more of.

Upon arriving here, one of the things that I began to miss the most about New York City was my daily cycling regimen. Riding down the Hudson River Greenway gave me a wonderful bike path, some great scenery, and the ability to exercise and commute all at once. This was wonderful, since I never had to motivate myself to exercise, all I had to do was go to work.

Since my apartment is now a five minute walk away from work, bike commuting seems a touch wasteful. However, I have been trying to ramp up my cycling -- more difficult, in that I actually have to convince myself to exercise. My Kia Soul 5-speed is not exactly up to the task of racing or a serious journey (though I plan to do a ride to Gyeongju, 45 miles away, soon). However, Daegu is far from the last place a biker would want to find himself. Cycling is a very common form of transport here. I would estimate that there are a great amount more bikes per capita in Daegu than in New York City, and the most interesting thing about them is that unlike New York, the majority of them are piloted by old folks. Probably one of the most common sights is an ajumma or ajussi (that's an elderly Korean woman or man), cruising around on a rusty, beat-up cruiser with a minimum of 20 pounds of cardboard for recycling lashed to the back. These daredevils are unfazed by anything you put in their path, and you see them zipping in and out of traffic, running red lights, and causing general havoc, their cardboard never budging an inch in its expertly wound bungee.

Finding a road bike here was difficult, probably because the most common two-wheeler is a mountain bike. Daegu is surrounded by mountains, but these bikes spend most of their time on pavement. I didn't quite understand the necessity until I did some further venturing onto the mountain roads. They are usually gravel or pockmarked asphalt, and grooved pavement if you're lucky. These roads are pretty much a nightmare for a road bike. If I had the energy to hang my head in shame as I struggle up a hill in the mountains while grandpa plugs along beside me and eventually overtakes me, I surely would.

Biking in Korea, like New York, comes with ups and downs. The good is:

• Biking is built into the city infrastructure in a planned and often intelligent way, instead of tacked on afterwards with hopes for the best. Daegu has miles and miles of paved bike paths, most of them adjoining the river that nearly circles the city. A few weeks ago, Tom and I circumnavigated the city, a 36 mile ride. It gave me a new appreciation for the city -- as we rode through various interesting neighborhoods and Daegu started to feel more idiosyncratic and less painfully urban -- and an appreciation for urban planning. Coming from the Northeast, it stops me short to see towering office buildings and factories sprawl for miles and miles and then simply stop at an agreed-upon line.

• It's relatively cheap. The bikes themselves are not much different in price than what you would find in The States (although you can come by a used ajumma cruiser for about $45 at many shops in the city), but the parts are cheap, and very often shops will provide "service" in the form of tubes, lights, free tune-ups, and basic repairs.
• A very big majority of the city sidewalks have designated bike lanes. Admittedly, pedestrians will often use them, but the sidewalks are wide and it gives a cyclist the ability to obey pedestrian lights or traffic lights as he chooses. Imagine cycling lanes on the sidewalk in lower Manhattan! There would be riots.
• All the people ride around on fat mountain bike tires, so I'm faster than everyone!

And of course, the bad:

• The inattention or willful ignorance of your fellow riders or pedestrians is appalling. Koreans are often very changeable in their friendliness to strangers. They are happy to help a foreigner who is lost, or wants to practice his Korean, but if you are sharing a sidewalk or a bike path with a group of Koreans, and you are not a member of that group, you may as well not exist. Bells usually mean nothing no matter how loud they are, and people will often pretend you're not there if the alternative is moving over to let someone pass.
• The amount of particulates is more than the human mind can comprehend. Though the bike paths are well kept, planted all around with foliage, and as clean as a Korean thoroughfare of any kind can be, one is still forced from time to time to ride on the roads. The choking dust of automotive pollution is leagues above anything I experienced in New York, and if you don't get caught behind at least 4 buses belching exhaust in one ride, you're probably doing something wrong.
• The traffic is, of course, crazy. If you think taxi drivers in the U.S. are bad, try cycling alongside someone who is talking on their phone, listening to music, tapping away at their GPS, and watching television (yes, the drivers watch television while the drive) all at the same time. It takes a fair bit of learning to get used to the flow of traffic, but luckily, though Korean drivers are crazy, I would say they are not as aggressive as New York drivers, so the odds of a gruesome death on the pavement are a bit lower.

 Of course, the good far outweighs the bad, and I mean to make biking as much of a habit here as it was in New York. Look forward to some posts in the future about cross-country cycle trips!