Notes on life from an e-bike saddle in Santa Fe BY SPENCER WINDES a u t h o r @ s f r e p o r t e r. c o m
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Fe in 2011, spending time in Amsterdam, New York City and LA, then returned in 2021. What follows is something a little different for our cover: It’s a yearlong diary of sorts, with Windes taking you along on his e-bike journey beginning in May 2021.
MAY
It’s a coincidence that the week the e-bike comes, someone crashes into my car. It arrives in a large brown box. Designed in Seattle, made in China. An hour of assembly later, I step up into the saddle. The sensation of electric assistance is hard to describe. Yes, it’s a bike—you pedal, you steer, you lean into the curves. But you also fly, feeling like Lance Armstrong with the injection mark still aching in his bicep. I need the help—I’m middle aged, overweight, and my knees have played 12 years of rugby. Two days later, someone takes out my parked Kia. They hit it hard enough to
SPENCER WINDES
s Santa Fe sits in the smoky shadow of New Mexico’s largest-ever wildfire and the nation sweats out record high temperatures, climate change has been on the minds of many locals. Though it’s probably too late to drag our collective selves back from the abyss, strategies for changing our individual and community dependence on fossil fuels are sharpening. So, here at SFR, we were delighted when Spencer Windes wanted to share his story about the year he spent in Santa Fe and elsewhere on an e-bike—a decision driven, in part, by his desire to do his part. Windes, 52, is a writer, filmmaker and professional fundraiser. Windes left Santa
SPENCER WINDES
I Sell the Car
Palace of the Govenors, May 2021.
damage the underbody and somehow still drive away. I call the Santa Fe police, and an officer tells me to fill out a form online. That’s it, no investigation. The bike is now my transportation. After work, bombing down Alameda, the cottonwoods erupt in their ersatz blizzard of snowy seeds. The days grow warmer and I take the bike up onto the dirt trails around town. I’m blinded by the sun and splash through a puddle, mud shooting up my backside. It’s surprising, the details you notice from the saddle—the fine weathering of metal, the pale dust that settles on every surface, the Trompe-lœil tricks rich people apply to their new houses to make them look old. New Mexico must have the least legible road signs and license plates in America.
JUNE
The bike arrives in May 2021 and takes about an hour of assembly. It cost $1,299 but now runs $1,499.
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JUNE JUNE 15-21, 15-21, 2022 2022
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Riding in Santa Fe is a delight. The weather is great, the city is pretty flat, without too many killer inclines. You can ride across town in 20 minutes. There’s easy access to open land. It’s beautiful, everywhere. The old, tight city center is easier to get around on a bike than any other way. It could be a two-wheeled paradise, except for the cars—
and the people who drive them. Three times in recent weeks I’ve come across the aftermath of crashes that were being swept up by cops and tow trucks and once an ambulance. One morning, a dude in a Jaguar convertible pulls out of a side street, looks directly at me and hits the gas. No harm, I had spied him and left room to slam on the brakes. But the entire time he performs this action, he picks his nose. Full on, past the knuckle, booger spelunking— like a raccoon digging in a trash can. A heat wave hits the Northwest, 121 degrees Fahrenheit in British Columbia. A firestorm devours the town of Lytton in 15 minutes. The heat wipes out clams and mussels, bakes starfish to death and damages the salmon run. Six hundred people die that week in Washington and Oregon.
JULY
A driver hits me with their car. I’m OK, no injuries, just a bit sore. She’s doing maybe 10 mph when, during a sudden downpour, she strikes me in a crosswalk. I go over my handlebars and land on her rainslicked hood, leaving a large dent on her fender. I stand up and walk it off, no worse for wear than after a good tackle.
