community
photo by jon styer
clean and green and healthy, and before long, the bicycle grew into an object that fit squarely into Wyse’s thoughts about (and even theological understandings of ) community, simple living, peace and sustainability. “[Biking] is fundamentally about moving us toward something that’s more whole and healthy for the human community,” he says, sitting in his basement workshop, surrounded by bikes, tools and bucket-after-overflowing bucket of parts gleaned from the bicycle graveyard outside. A fuller realization of that vision for wholeness and health will require more people living the bicycle lifestyle. Wyse chips away at that from his end, applauds the work of others who’ve been active in the community to make it a
better, safer place to bike, and laments the fact that it takes such persistent effort to put better infrastructure in place. “We have a long way to go in terms of convincing the city that spending money on cycling is a good investment,” he says. “Without the citizen [advocacy], the city would be doing nothing.” Many in the area have cheered as the city has garnered recognition in recent years from state and national groups as a good place to bike. Wyse, though, sees these as a bit of a disappointment, in that they overstate the degree to which the city is making the bicycle lifestyle an easier one to live. Then again, frustratingly slow though it can be, change is happening. Go check out the crowded racks at the city’s middle school, he says. There weren’t
Ben Wyse ’99 runs an innovative “mobile bike shop,” where he does repairs at locations convenient to his customers. Wyse has been showing Lucas SchrockHurst ’12 (left) how to do bike repairs.
nearly so many students riding a few years back. Not long ago, Wyse did a simple re-fit for one of his customers, who, as her pregnancy progressed, needed some adjustments to keep comfortably riding beside another child of hers to elementary school. What if, someday, that sort of thing becomes the norm? Wyse asks. It’s where he hopes we’ll end up: a time when riding bikes isn’t special, isn’t niche, isn’t unusual, when kids ride, when old people ride, when it will be entirely nonremarkable to see a pregnant woman riding down the street with a child wobbling along beside her. — Andrew Jenner ’04 www.emu.edu | crossroads | 37