I missed this article when it appeared last year on Slate (that noble last bastion of cycling journalism) in which Andy Bowers discovers the "exhilarating and pleasingly subversive" experience of bicycle commuting in Los Angeles:
One day, I found myself biking down an empty little access road next to the notorious 405 freeway during the evening commute. The freeway, as usual, was paralyzed, and I noticed I was actually moving faster than the cars. … Not only has riding my bike enabled me to glide past all this gridlock (in fact, I'm often not even aware it's happening), but it has made me realize that it's an illusion. The city itself is not gridlocked—merely the narrow asphalt ribbons onto which we squeeze all our single-occupant cars. On the back streets I now take, everything is quiet and serene. The main roads may mimic Times Square on New Year's Eve, but the areas between L.A.'s clogged arteries comprise mile after square mile of low-density, low-stress residential bliss (the same is true, I suspect, of most American cities).
I'm sure plenty of people have rejected the idea of commuting by bike simply because their only experience of the roads is from inside a "protective steel cocoon". But when you try it, you discover a whole new "secret" city just waiting there to enjoy.
For an extra laugh, listen to the MP3 recording of the article which features at the top, without apparent irony, an ad for Lexus. D'oh!