One Man’s Account Of Cycling During The Week Of The Marathon Bombings

An interesting read:

The policeman stood in the middle of Arsenal Street, the main road through Watertown,Massachusetts, and screamed at any vehicle that didn’t belong to some arm of law enforcement or the emergency services: “Turn round! You need to get turned round!” Either side of him in the 1am dark sped, flashed and wailed a procession of emergency vehicles of a variety and quantity that, even in a career where I’ve covered a reasonable amount of terrorism and other trouble, I had never before seen.

A little up the road, I now know, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the presumed bombers of the Boston Marathon, already lay dead. Somewhere else in the nearby suburban streets, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, his brother, was hiding, trying to evade the arrest that would come around 18 hours later. And my attention, for at least a few seconds, was focused on a bicycle.

It was one of the themes of the week I spent in the Boston area, starting a week ago last Monday, covering the aftermath of the bombings at the annual marathon, that I often found myself staring longingly at bicycles. I missed my wife and children very much. I was moved at some of the expressions of shock and grief I encountered. But the sight of people on bicycles provided a persistent, nagging reminder of what I was missing about my everyday life. Those people, for that moment, could experience the uncomplicated feeling of freedom that so often comes from riding on a bicycle – and I couldn’t.

Read the rest here.

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