Permit me to rhapsodize for a moment.

I was doing my usual weekly ride around the lakes today and headed back home on the Midtown Greenway, getting off at Park Ave and heading downtown, when I got a pinch flat in my back tire. Fortunately, I was only a couple blocks from the Greenway, so I just turned around and walked my bike to the Freewheel that’s part of the brand-new, ridiculously awesome bike center there. Inside is a sleek, spacious bike shop/cafe/depot with lockers and showers for commuters, and bike parking and service and of course plenty of expensive gear to gawk at.

They fixed my flat and put a new, better-sized tire on my wheel in like ten minutes while I had a coffee and watched all manner of riders come and go—and not just the rich white lycra-clad gear fetishists, but mothers and their small children, and old men, and kids from the surrounding neighborhoods, pouring into the place to get their bikes serviced or just look around.

So many things are wrong and unfair right now, it’s reassuring when something works the way it’s supposed to, if not better. Sitting in that place, buffeted by friendly service, high ceilings, clean lines, right angles, and air-conditioned convenience, I felt like I was seeing into the future—in a good way, for once.

I nudged my bike back out onto the Greenway (itself a marvel) and rode home swelling with sustainable-transportation-infrastructure goodwill. Between that and Dosh, I’m really proud of my adopted hometown right now.