Electrobike Founder Marcus Hays Talks

Seven Years Into It, What's Happening to the Promise of the 21st Century?
Marcus Hays, Electrobike Founder and CEO
July 2007

The 2003 ArroyoFest was for me both one of the most fun and most profound experiences in years. For those unfamiliar with this amazing event, ArroyoFest organizers spent several years and a great deal of their personal money orchestrating a temporary closure of the Pasadena 110 Freeway—California's first freeway and perhaps the nation's as well—which runs the approximately 16 miles between the cities of Pasadena and Los Angeles.

From 6—10 a.m. on the morning of Sunday, June 15th, 2003, over 5,000 enthusiastic pedestrians and cyclists got a momentary glimpse of the future (or perhaps, sadly, a glimpse of the past)— how a car-free society might look, feel, and smell. I was as close to the front row as elbows, surrounding curbs and a median strip would allow, waiting quietly in the early morning mist for the air-horn that would signal to us all that the official closure of this famous stretch of automobile-traversing concrete was begun. To either side, forward and behind were people of all ages, genders, races, sizes and proportions.

Immediately on my right sat a six or seven-year-old little chap on his Batman bike—for whom I had more than a momentary pang of concern—as the horn sounded and as one enormous, synchronous flow, we all pedaled away together ...including that little fellow who, when last seen, was churning along at what appeared to be 100 rpm.

We remained elbow to elbow for the first 25 yards...only the feeling and sound of onrushing air in our midst. Thirty cyclists abreast—this is what the Tour must be like, I thought—looking for space to stretch out...down slope...more speed, more air. A gentle rise or two, another down slope and voilà! There, on the immediate horizon loomed that shinning beacon of modern 21st civilization, the City of Angels' skyline.

So what's the point of noting it here? Consider that 5,000 people—smiling for the most part—fit on that stretch of freeway into a space normally occupied by merely 100 one-occupant cars 80% of the time according to the AAA, 5,000 people who made the commute to downtown LA in no more time than is currently required via a car on that same stretch during rush hour, but that memorable day on bicycles!

This is supposed to be the beginning of the 21st century, not the 20th. The promise of the 21st Century is being wasted on a seriously backward, outmoded (putting it nicely) transportation model. We're killing ourselves, sacrificing teenagers, and ruining our planet in the name of Hummers? Insane. In the name of Priuses? Ludicrous.

I wish more of you could have shared this ArroyoFest experience. That was truly an extraordinary day...it's freedom thoroughly, delightfully infectious. It was a glimpse—albeit a brief one—of a future so easily attained if only more of us will decide to leave the world a better place by unseating our collective derriere from that coffin on wheels and re-seating it atop a bicycle saddle.

Rise up! Or at least press the down position on your car's electric window switch and shout to the person 12" away—equally demoralized on what would otherwise be a beautiful day were it not for his or her stomach roiling from the tension of being similarly trapped in this claustrophobic mess euphemistically called rush hour—“I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!”

Even better: put air in the tires of your bike tonight. Then tomorrow, leave your car where it is, push off down the street on your bike, and, with the wind in your hair, become part of the 21st century's cure for our oil addiction. Breathe deep the clean air—it's the future.