WHAT MAKES #ROADSLIKETHESE?
3 QUESTIONS WITH @JPBEVINS, THE CREATOR OF ONE OF CYCLING’S MOST UBIQUITOUS HASHTAGS
There are more than 400 000 posts under your hashtag. What was the original inspiration?
I just wanted to get people to stop and appreciate what’s around them. In 2014, at the end of a cross-country road trip, my friends and I did a ride up Mount Vaca in California. It was a pretty shitty ride, honestly. I got dropped, so I took my time with my point-and-shoot. It started to get cloudy and misty, and there were tons of switchbacks, and foggy, beautiful views. It reminded me of a photographer, Todd Hido, who did a series of landscape photos called ‘Roaming’. I posted the photos and introduced the hashtag when I got home. Show me beautiful roads, show me where you are. Now
it’s insane.
Do you have a favourite road? One of the coolest I’ve shot is Alto de Letras, in Colombia – it’s one of the longest climbs in the world, 84km. You pass through villages where every house is a different colour. But I don’t really favour specific roads – I like to pay attention to the transitions. I like watching the city dissipate into suburbs, smaller towns, countryside. There’s no other way to see that except by bike. Driving, you’re stuck in a little bubble. Walking is too slow.
So, #roadslikethese. Was it really about the roads?
My intent with pretty much everything I’ve done is to try and build community. There are so many really good people who have taken the hashtag and pushed it. It has brought a lot of talent from cycling into photography.