I do understand the longing for a roadway unimpeded by other self-similar vehicles.

When stuck in traffic - physically boxed in by other 2-ton objects, then further encarcinisated within a shell of its own - the view of a careless cyclist breezing past with seemingly no regard for any constraints is truly a sight to behold. The child within us, our animal being outstretched towards the open skies, understands the levity and lightness of moving with the wind - as the wind - or at least matching its speed.

The measure of a road’s usefulness and importance is to know whether it sees daily gridlock. Only the most important roads regularly come to a stand-still. If it weren’t so important, people wouldn’t want to be on that road, ergo it is important. The traffic actually justifies the existence of the road; the road exists because there is traffic for it. A road without stand-still traffic has no reason to exist. So the thinking goes, at least.

But open roads are what the animal child within us actually wants. A road without traffic. Imagine the roads you see in commercials for cars; they are winding roads, or perhaps there are no roads at all; the car is off-road, in the desert of fantasy. We understand what this means, down to our bones. The car vectors our agency away from humanity and into the expanses of nature, where we can be truly free.

The cyclist manifests this very animal freedom: one moment a pedestrian, the next moment a falcon, surfing the updraft between skyscrapers, riding the wind above and beyond the traffic below, which pulses in peristalic waves that slowly digest and disgorge the daily bowel movement of vehicles.

Envy for the open roads, for the free movement of the body through space, for catching the breeze and just going with it … but finding one’s self mired in gridlock and having no ideas of how to get out. The feeling of this. The raised forehead, wrinkled up with an innocent and understandable jealousy, wishing if only my lane were clear… And then, the desire to snatch it away for personal use: if that were my lane, there would be no traffic … and I could move with the wind!

This much is true: the lane is clear if you want it.

But: the price is paid with sweat, vigilance, and the will to survive in a hostile urban environment. For whosoever should seize upon the chance, no license is required to ride a bike. And, for those who are able, all that is needed is to decide, one day, to ride with the wind.