To Escape by E-Bike

This is an introductory paragraph from a remarkable essay in The Point magazine, which I mean to say more about in coming days: I spent my breaks in the city park across from my office, eating lunch on the wrought-iron benches dedicated to old machine politicians, people-watching. Pedestrians would trickle down the crunchy gravel path in front of me — young migrant families pushing strollers, old drunks on e-bikes, state workers talking loudly into their AirPods. It had only been a few months since I’d started, and yet I already felt alienated from the work I was, supposedly, doing. Here I was, out in the community my office served, surrounded by people whose lives would go on with or without me. Did you spot the real hero of the story? Correct! It’s the drunk on the e-bike. He doesn’t bother with alienating work to get by! Oddly, here’s an aside from Cory Doctorow this week on e-bikes: E-bikes are insanely great technology. Cheap, rugged and reliable, they’re basically bicycles that…