Ruby the Red Bicycle
At age 20 I subleased my apartment at Purdue to study in Sweden for a semester. Arriving in January didn’t dampen the excitement of being abroad for the first time and I was stoked to take it all in. In a cultural sense it was a homecoming; three of my four grandparents have Swedish ancestry and I chose Sweden with this in mind, and I intended to become immersed in the experience.
Our group of four Purdue students arrived at our quiet little school in the countryside, called Sveriges Landbruksuniversitätet (The Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.) We were greeted by a uniformly gray morning sky which we learned was typical. It didn’t feel depressing because we were, after all, coming from Northern Indiana. Conditions weren’t that different, other than the 10:00 a.m. sunrise.
We were shown our accommodations, a big house for international students, stained in “falu red” (I later learned that the dark red that is so common on Swedish houses has origins from the copper mining industry. Tailings from the process of copper extraction produced a dark red, oxidized hematite which was found to prevent rot, making it well-suited for use as a sort of paint for houses.) Inside, it was all IKEA modern white. Since this was the mid 90’s, we were pretty sure we were living some version of an MTV reality show. We reckoned we were living pretty well.
The big house accommodated seven residents, including a couple of Dutch students and a Finn. We formed our first impressions of the different cultures of the Northern Europeans, which at the risk of stereotyping, still hold as far as I can tell: the stoic Swedes and Finns, the more outgoing Norweigans and Danes, and the fun loving Dutch.
On our first night, the two Dutch guys asked us if we were ready to hit the town. You know I was ready.
“Definitely. Who’s driving?” I asked. That turned out to be a very American thing to say.
“Driving? No one is driving. We will cycle into town,” was the reply.
“Ah. Yeah! Absolutely! Good.” I was mentally dope slapping myself. Listen, I cycle a lot. Even back then I was on my bike all of the time, commuting to class and touring for multiple days, but still, my default assumption was that we would not be cycling in January, at night, in the snow, for six miles, and then riding home, presumably after having been drinking. But that was precisely the plan.
The bike that became my principal mode of transportation for those five months was a red ten- speed that I named Ruby. Ten speeds advertised, just one that worked. That night, we rode by twilight along a narrow ice-covered path, a light powered by my turning front wheel casting a dim beam out in front. The Swedish countryside offered but a few gradual climbs; still, the experience possessed the feel of an initiation. Our new European friends did not bat an eye at the conditions, though they may have been smiling to themselves.
Uppsala was aglow with the college nightlife scene and thousands of bikes filled the racks when we arrived. The Swedish version of university Greek life, called Nations, were brimming with young people doing what young people do. Snärkes Nation is known for its vintage dance music and became my favorite place to try to meet Swedish girls (with little success.) After devouring some street vendor hot dogs, we completed the six-mile return trip back to our smaller campus on the outskirts of Uppsala, and that was that: we then knew what it meant to commute by bicycle in January, an entirely normal Scandinavian practice.
Ruby got me everywhere in the months that followed. I would ride her to the grocery store where I would fill my luggage with groceries for the week, my skinny tires skidding on icy paths under gray skies. Every trip into town to get haircuts or to Snärkes Nation or our Swedish language class in Uppsala was made on Ruby.
Ruby reshaped my view of bicycles forever. Bikes are great fun, but I learned from that semester they are far more; they are a reliable and pragmatic form of transportation that most of America does not seem to recognize nor respect. This was neither the first nor last cultural chasm between Europe and America that I mused upon but it might be the most enduring, and I was intent on spreading the gospel of year-round cycling.
I wanted my students to experience a version of the liberation that year-round cycling provides. So many of them are fair weather riders, or worse, give up cycling altogether when they are issued their drivers’ license. Out of this truth was born the Columbus Holiday Ride. The original concept was a critical mass “Santa Ride,” the likes of which we saw on YouTube in places like Wisconsin, with hundreds of Santas pedaling along and drinking beer afterwards. We sought to cast a light on the dearth of cyclists commuting in the winter months. If our route was high visibility, we reasoned, motorists would take notice and perhaps some of them would experience a small paradigm shift that might result in some behavioral changes for them, in addition to our students.
The Columbus Holiday Ride makes its return this December after a few years off (blame the pandemic) and I eagerly await it. We hope to draw 100 or more riders for the casual, 7-mile ride along Jonathan Moore Pike. It’s small suffering rewarded with hot chocolate and donuts, but more than anything it’s an opportunity to have a conversation with others about the benefits of bicycle commuting. The Swedes are getting it right, along with the rest of Northern Europe. Bike commuting yields improved environmental and health outcomes, for sure, but additionally, reinforce a self-reliant and pragmatic lifestyle that Northern Europeans epitomize.
No one should, as a default, be forced to rely on an automobile to get to work, school, or anywhere else, for that matter. Our infrastructure may be a long way away from supporting large scale bicycling, but that doesn’t mean we need to sit around and wait for a change that may never happen. Ruby showed me that all you need is a single speed and the willingness to accept a small bit of occasional, and temporary, discomfort. As the Swedes would likely say, “it’s good for you.”