I try to avoid bicycles. The seats hurt my butt, and I'm always in constant fear of becoming road kill. Yet because Nashville seems to be taking on the same bicycle obsession found in cities like Portland and Seattle, I decided to give our new bike-share program a try.
On a Sunday (a day when we knew car traffic would be lighter), we parked my truck in Centennial Park, near the B-cycle dispensary (a sort of bicycle vending machine), populated by a line of immaculate, retro-looking, fire-engine-red bicycles. We inserted a credit card, the locks opened, and away we went, guided by a printout of the Music City Bikeway we'd downloaded that morning.
The Music City Bikeway stretches 26 miles, from Percy Warner Park in the west to Percy Priest dam in the east. Some of that is very bike-friendly, with bike-only lanes, but other spots, such as Green Hills, are downright scary because you must share the shoulder-less road. The path from West End to Downtown looked like our best bet since there aren't too many spots where one has to share the road.
I immediately took to my three-speed bike, more Granny-like than Tour de France, with wide comfy seats and a basket for Toto or whatever you might find on your journey.
We saw gritty parts of Nashville we hadn't seen before, zig-zagging our way through warehouse districts, vacant lots overgrown with weeds, and that public-housing neighborhood of Caribbean-colored cottages just west of downtown. And though we passed through many a shady spot with benches occupied by homeless folk we never felt threatened. On the contrary, most of them waved to us with a kindly "good morning." On one occasion, a man wearing sandals made of duct tape helped us find our way.
Click through the gallery to see the growing number of art sculptures disguised as bike racks!
We passed the community garden in Watkins Park and marveled at the vegetables and huge elephant-ear plants. We stopped at the old Marathon Motor Works factory and chatted up barista David Smith at the Garage Coffee Company, who enthusiastically served up his Slingshot, a small juice glass layered with espresso, vanilla cream, caramel, and a sprinkling of smoked bourbon salt.
We stopped at the farmers' market in Bicentennial Park and bought a bag of peaches and some okra (thank goodness for those baskets), and we walked our bikes along the granite timeline of Tennessee history, absorbing the human failures and achievements of the populace of this awesome state.The bikes also come with locks, so we stopped for brunch downtown, at Past Perfect, a little-known eatery on Third Avenue, where we like the Bloody Mary bar that features homemade, infused vodkas. (I recommend the horseradish variation.)
At trail's end, we found the B-cycle dispensary at the end of Broadway, on the river, and wheeled our bikes into their berths. They locked with an automated click, and as we rode a cab ($7) back to Centennial Park, I couldn't help but wonder who would share my bike later that day. Where would they go? What would they see?
If you go:
The bikes cost $5 apiece for a 24-hour pass. (Use a credit card.) The first hour is free; $1.50 per half hour after that. Max per day is $45. For more information, and to find the location of the bike dispensaries, go to Nashville.bcycle.com.