of spinning wheels
by mary richardson
We took these pictures over the course of a year-long ride through New Orleans. We didn’t really know what we were doing at first, but we sort of felt pulled into it, then unable to stop. Our intention, we eventually figured out, was to uncover and document the way that we felt living in the city. To us, the bikes exuded the explanation.
From the start, the project consumed us like it owned us, like we were carrying out its will. More than once, someone on the street commented that they had often thought of photographing these bikes. This created a weird sense of pressure that drove us into it further. We went nowhere and did nothing without first deciding how our plans could bring us more pictures. At the time, the city was beginning to close on another eight-month convection oven summer, which only intensified the desire and the reason to go out looking for bikes.
Just like Bourbon Street lures in tourists, we were initially drawn to the flashiest and most fanatic things in sight. The first bike we found was covered in leftover tiki decorations, the second was wrapped front to back in fake poinsettias, and they both had cup holders attached to their baskets. But every day on, the perspective grew deeper and broader. The bikes began to reveal to us flittering glimpses into the heart of the city, meanwhile the pictures started to build questions that only more pictures could answer. Beyond a striking overall impression, we learned to see the little things you fail to notice at first glance: the king cake baby hung in a wire noose from the seat, the stainless steel butter knife shoved between the handlebar and the basket to stop it from rattling over cracked-up asphalt, the way the color of the frame exactly matched the wall.
We stalked them outside bars and coffee shops or anywhere there was somewhere to eat, drink, work, kill time or do laundry. We’d patron all the secluded cafes of the Bywater just for a reason to search further and longer. Bikes are everywhere in New Orleans but they don’t stand out. City-sponsored chaos surround them, clamoring for attention, any they just sit there like chameleon. Balconies lean, walls crumble, wrought iron poles line both sides of the street, and bikes collect outside.
Before long, our senses were consumed by the objective. Our necks twitched at the sight of two wheels or the motioning of a streamer. The process became like science as we slowly combed through the same lot, day after day after day, uncovering little by little. When we found a bike, shooting it could last thirty minutes. Sometimes we went back to the same one three or four times, or back to the same spot to find different bikes. But it was always like we hadn’t scratched the surface. Each was just a small artifact, quietly hinting at larger insight into the city and the riders.
These are not just bicycles, they are extensions of personalities, tainted with the grime of the city. And they are individuals in the rawest sense. The slipping on of New Orleans creates a unique effect on each one. No one just takes a bike home and makes it look like this. When ribbons and stars appear, when paint layers start to crack and chip, when rust sets in, it doesn’t happen overnight. The longer they drift through the city, the deeper it drifts into them. For a bike, New Orleans is the difference between the junkyard and staying on the street. Not much is required to get around, so over time, things that are useless fall away while personalities slowly appear. The changes set them apart from other bicycles, yet bind them to the city. When they get comfortable coasting, they forget how to push up a hill.
New Orleans sets into people in much the same way. Living there, the city becomes you and you become it. And in this boundless relationship, your bicycle is the link.
Entering New Orleans as a resident is like getting caught in a current. It pulls you outside the safe formula and drops you off. Staying there is not a decision so much as it is a decision to give in. For anyone ejected from some Midwestern garage or big city basement, it easily becomes home. You get there, get work, often for cash, usually enough. You get by, day- to -day, week to week, and you wait. Life is not insane like Mardi Gras, but something like it is always around the corner. You stop planning out your life and you stick to planning your next costume. Today is yesterday recycled. Days and nights, months and years, they all run into each other. Endless nightlife blurs the transition. Absence of differential seasons aids the seamless flow. There are no breaks or awakenings, no sharp ups and downs. It’s one long dream that you don’t wake up from because there’s no pressure to do anything different. It’s so culturally detached from the rest of the country, even being occasionally jobless or homeless won’t put a dent in your social life. And there’s always something to celebrate. Even if there isn’t, it’s not a far ride to where people are acting like there is. A lot of people come into New Orleans and never leave. For anyone born there, if they do leave, they know with a tortured heart that they can never really leave. Spinning your wheels down narrow streets filled with remains from last night, a residue that becomes comforting after a while, once you’ve experienced it, you will always mourn for it.
The range of people that inhabit New Orleans don’t fall into categories or resemble each other. Whether it’s the rider or their bike you’re looking at, there are no conclusions to be drawn. Beyond appearances, each one is a unique mystery, whether exotic or comparatively plain on the surface. The bartender might be a chemistry Ph.D. or a painter living in his van. The girl doing shots, the aging waiter in tuxedo pants, the antiques dealer—they’re all just as likely to own the strangely beautiful bike outside as the skinny kid with the tattoos on his face.
But realistically, they all have a bike tied up somewhere. The economy’s poor, cars are expensive, and riding the bus or the streetcar can take as long as walking. Most things are close enough to walk, but sometimes it’s just a little too far. Biking in New Orleans is not a trek through life-threatening traffic; you’re not shadowed by towers or choked by exhaust. On the height of a bike in New Orleans, you’re in it, eye level with everything. It’s hard to get lost and all the streets are completely flat. You never break a sweat, the city’s sweat breaks on you; nothing is urgent, faking a breeze is the only incentive to pedal faster. And the simplicity of acquiring a bike is liberating. There’s no spectrum of $3,000 racers to gearless hipsters. There’s only the beautiful quality of being on your own and not needing anything. You just find something that rolls. No gears or new seats. Low tires won’t slow you down. Maintenance is optional. If you get a flat, you just lock it up and take care of it later.
A ride across the entire length city takes about 35 minutes. Uptown and in the Garden District, between the parallels of Magazine Street and Saint Charles Avenue, the houses and trees look like they haven’t been disturbed in 80 years. It’s divided from downtown by the interstate, where the business-hour traffic comes in from Metairie and is retained a few blocks away on Poydras, the street with the skyscrapers. Past this area is Canal Street, the main artery of the city, a wasteland of hotels, souvenir shops, commercial eyesores and empty buildings in disrepair. Stay on Canal; you’re in Midcity. Cross over it, you enter the French Quarter. It’s a sensory trip that never gets old, a merry-go-round through the faces of tourists and regulars, musicians and painters, mimes and psychics, waiters and bartenders and whoever else is out there today trying to make a buck. You fast-forward through the scent of balconies and courtyards in bloom, and what’s left of last night. Run over the Taco Bell someone couldn’t finish, divert the bartender’s collection of go-cups and black muck as he drives it across the street with a hose, pass the mule, already sweating and panting, as you navigate further into narrow streets shadowed by intricate ironwork and humble architecture. It’s an embrace you long for every day. At night, bikes congregate at the narrow end of Decatur Street and on the other side of Esplanade, where it turns into Frenchman. People and bikes spill out of the bars and cars try to avoid their traffic. Just steps away, you’re in the Bywater, Uptown’s reclusive alter-ego.
New Orleans will always be this way. It’s not trying to run away into the future; it refuses to suffer responsibilities like rush hour. If you hold it to typical city standards, of course it will live up to all of its derogatory names. But it’s just not interested in modern ideals. All the business-minded boomers live in the suburbs and the old money’s busy hosting soirees. The most any of them are capable of is an embarrassing tourism campaign. New Orleans appreciates its dingy bars and 100-year old restaurants. The more something is dilapidated, pulled-apart and abused by time, yet has kept the integrity and dedication to stay standing, the more it is appreciated. Beauty is not reflected in a polished new surface. It’s reflected in authenticity of character.
Within these standards, these bicycles and the rest of the city’s residents have a home. Anywhere else, they couldn’t exist like this. Anything or anyone that lives in New Orleans long enough eventually becomes a part of it. That’s the trade off and the gamble. Life is easier and slower, but you have to settle for a busted ride. How far you go, how long you last, how many times you can make the same rounds, not ever knowing when it will finally take you—it’s the risk you take for the freedom it gives. Maybe you’re the kind that can ride out of town any time you want to, just a new set of brakes and a chain and you’re gone. But the humidity brings dependency fast. Too many nights spent sulking in the streets can take it away. Stay there long enough, a day may come when you’re blurry and one-dimensional, just another accent to the decaying landscape. It’s the day nothing is left of your desire to be flashy or equipped, and racing for the money doesn’t sound like a good way to live. It’s the day you accept what is and what isn’t possible, and you realize that you want it no other way. It’s the day you know that you’re free, but only in New Orleans.
It’s a life that can’t exist outside the schizophrenia of unlimited limitations. New Orleans bicycles: the crippled potential, the lust to keep pushing down the same old streets, the looks of peace as they’re chained and bound to their city, and the knowledge that it’s just a short distance to their destination, but lack of motion can be paralyzing.