In the spirit of John Green’s book of the same title, our theme for the month of October is “the Anthropocene reviewed.” Writers were asked to review and rate some facet of human experience on a five-star scale.

Generally speaking, bicycle commuting is enjoyable, healthy, and inexpensive. Generally. Bicycle has been my primary means of transportation, off and on, since my Calvin days, and there’s a lot to be said for it.

While my husband, who recently started casually driving for Uber in Miami, is quickly learning huge swaths of an enormous city, I’ve gained intimate familiarity with a handful of short routes in a tiny one. Cyclists know a city very differently than motorists do—as ants know a backyard very differently than squirrels do. While motorists know the look of many routes, cyclists know the look, feel, sound, and (unfortunately) smell of their few routes. We know the gentle pains of rough pavement vibrations through the handlebars, the intermittent swish of a misaligned brake pad, the unbearable roar of a vehicle bearing down on you from behind—and the accompanying silent prayer to please, please let them see me—until they’ve passed uneventfully.

We know the various bird songs, if not the names of their owners; much to my consternation, I once mistook a peculiar call for a squeaky wheel or chain on my bike, noticing my error as soon as I’d stopped and the rusty-sounding screech continued unabated. Another time, some airborne denizen let fly a call so eerily reminiscent of my first ringtone (Motorolla’s “Bubbles”) I spent several pleasant minutes engaging in fond nostalgia.

We have a different perspective on the city’s quirks: where a motorist ought to have eyes only for the road and its occupants, our slower pace and requisite extra vigilance means we might find amusements in the easily missable. “WATERING DONE BY PRIVATE WELL” proclaims a lawn sign at the Seventh-Day Adventist center on my way to church—lest neighbors be tempted to jealousy over the green pastures down the street when water bans are in effect, presumably. I know the intersections most frequently strewn with shattered glass (a typical college town hazard) and those whose sensors can’t detect a cyclist for the light change. I know which particularly obnoxious one has a “protected left turn on green” that means every fresh red light is twice as long as it ought to be. I know the inordinate relief afforded by a four-inch strip of white demarcating a five-foot-wide strip of relatively safe—if extraordinarily rare—bike lane. I know it takes 20 minutes to wheel my bike down the stretch of my church route with neither bike lane nor sidewalk with cut curbs.

We cyclists know the stench of rancid roadkill, an alley populated with feral cats, an overflowing trash bin. We know the value of a breeze, the demerit of rain, the view of sky unobstructed by the roof of a vehicle. But we also—especially in Lubbock—know the peril of sharing the road with motorists, for whom it was built. It’s a motorist’s world here. I’ve written before about how cyclists and pedestrians are curiously invisible to motorists in this city. We take our lives in our hands when we make our way to work. I recently read the crosswalk sign at the fateful intersection of Flint Ave. and 19th Street—even the walking symbol ostensibly signaling the pedestrians’ right of way is accompanied by the curt order: “WATCH FOR TURNING CARS.” Parking lots are ubiquitous; bike racks an uncommon convenience.

“Please don’t take your bike in here,” the guy behind the counter at U-Haul requested. “There aren’t any bike racks,” I pointed out. “Yeah,” he said, with the unspoken “so what?” following me out the door. I cast around for a convenient substitute, then locked my only means of transport to the enormous propane tank enclosure. I’ve snugged my bike up to grocery cart pens, handicap parking signs, trees, and railings—provided they don’t have a peevish warning that bikes locked there will be confiscated.

I’ve avoided calamity, but I’m never as comfortable biking here as I was in Michigan, or even Boston, where traffic is atrocious for motorists, but a godsend for cyclists: slowing everyone to our pace ensures a modicum of safety. In many ways, I’m out of my element cycling here. I have an ultra-reflective jacket (thanks Mom!), but I can count on my hands and feet the number of nights it gets cool enough in Texas to warrant wearing it. I have meticulously-charged fore and rear lights, but there’s that lurking, unshakable sense of invisibility even so. How many cyclists’ last words, a macabre side of me wonders, have been some labored variant of “it was my right… of way”?

I give bicycle commuting (in Lubbock, Texas) three and three-quarters (one and a half) stars.

Natasha (Strydhorst) Unsworth

Natasha (Strydhorst) Unsworth (‘16) is a science communication researcher and practitioner working on her Ph.D. at Texas Tech University. Natasha hails from Calgary, Alberta. Some of her favo(u)rite authors are C. S. Lewis, Francis Collins, and Bill Bryson. Her favourite earthly place is the Canadian Rocky Mountains, and her favourite activities are reading and enjoying the great outdoors—preferably simultaneously.