Pedaling within the hustle and bustle of the big-city life in Austin I’ve discovered a few places that feel like an oasis in an exhaust-fumed desert. Places that exude serenity, and have the feeling of timelessness, like all motion stops around me when I’m there.

The feeling of motionless, of simply just being, is tremendously enhanced when I’m actually in motion to reach these ideallic locations. The sharp contrast between the physical exertion of my muscles serves to compliment the stillness of the environment. Driving there by car would make me feel like I cheated myself somehow, like hitch-hiking a ride when touring by bicycle. The experiences of the journey are just as important as the destination, if not more.

These places are public places.
Anyone can go and take peek at them.
After all, we helped pay for them to be built. Our taxes maintain them.

Bridges.

Yep, that’s the key to my zen on two wheels. There’s magic in the air, being 20 feet elevated on a bridge helps me to put things into perspective. And there’s a peaceful mystery cradled underneath its arches.

Above, I’m small and disposable, and life around me is concrete and permanent, and oh-so-big.
Below a bridge I’m nurtured and protected. The visible rays of sunlight stream down through the drainage slits and I image the sunlight stretching its fingertips out to touch me.

Just south of the merge of Pleasant Valley Bridge and12th Street, over Rosewood Park, there stands a bridge which provides a clear and often stunning view of downtown. I decrease the force of my downward push on the pedal as I near the mid-point of the bridge, purposefully letting gravity slow the rotation of my wheels. I feel like a hawk perched on the tallest tree in the forest, while I ponder over the on-goings of downtown urban life miles away from me.

Nestled perpendicularly underneath east 7th Street bridge lies the Tillery Street under-pass. Strong cement columns rise up to support the bridge. I understand why rock doves and bats call this place home: there’s a welcoming and home-comfort coziness that’s familiar whenever I mossy on by. I realize that I’m not the only person who feels affection for this space. There’s half a dozen wooden red swings, tethered by rope from the high cement support beams that suggest others care enough for this space to take the time to add these accents.

There, I said it, I spilled the beans about where my jewels in the rough are hidden around town. This weekend is East Austin Studio Tour. I hope you get to peruse through art via the saddle of your bicycle seat. In between glimpses at the map, trying to locate where the next neighborhood studio is tucked away at, I hope you discover a moment at the top of Pleasant Valley before you reach Webberville Road where you can come to a snail’s pace. For a sliver of the day’s time to be glad you’re there, balanced on your bicycle on top of the middle of the bridge.