I was on my way home from work today, and I drove past a group of five or seven touring cyclists. They looked like Gypsies, hairy and hodgepodge. From the tail to the lead, each bike was weighed down, heavy with spare clothes, tents, sleeping mats and one guitar to share. They carried each their own worlds with them, and it showed. Besides the grime building up on every man, woman, and bicycle, every rider had the same distant gaze fixed on their face; that look acquired only when one's goal is nowhere in sight, and hasn't been for miles and hours on end. Even, their leader, built so strong from God knows how many centuries behind her cranks, wore that same worn, longing gaze.
Still, like a circus, I wanted to ride away with them (hey guys, i have a bike - like me!).
Sure, i was listening to The Temper Trap's "Drum Song," and i was hungry as a rabid dog, and have a brand new bicycle, and it was quite literally magic hour, but still, i'm not convinced i was entirely irrational. Well, save the image of them as a group of Arkansas-based gypsy-cyclists-circus clowns, and the urge to join them was quite reasonable.
Cycling, after all, is about pure, hardcore freedom.
Think about it; the very nature of every single race is to be ahead, to separate yourself, to see none ahead of you and be alone in your vision. Separation and the open road mean you aren't being bogged down (literally not bumping elbows with everybody else of average capability). Ergo, performance in a race equals freedom.
And what about our collective experience with riding? For many of us, cycling, riding that first Huffy, was our earliest experience with truly separating from our parents. Freedom. As we learned to ride, we learned to find our own ways to the grocery store, school (the arcade, honestly), or our friends' houses. Before long, we would come to terms with the fact that it was the ride itself that drew us into late summer hours, and we would find ourselves just... riding. Riding wherever flight took us any given day, till the sunlight fell short of our drive and we had to fumble home in thick twilight.
And then there's the very process of learning to ride without training wheels. Our parents of choice (dad, in my case) would hold us steady, pushing us along, swearing all the while that we could do it. It may as well have been magic, for all we understood cycling at that age (still is magic to me). But in that moment, when our parents let go, we faced all the fear and disbelief that Lief Erickson encountered when setting sail from Iceland to Odin knows where, on the verge of true freedom and revelation. Even as we pedaled, we turned our disbelief and fear (there's no way that's possible!) into reality, magic into marvel (it works, I don't know how, but it works!). I never wanted my training wheels taken off. Speaks volumes of whatever about me.
Bicycles don't come with kickstands any more, not once you're an adult. Their very nature as machines is violated when they're stationary. Even motionless, they seem to fly. Mine does, anyway. There is something about bicycles, good bicycles, that stirs in us something old, that flight for freedom. This blog is an exploration of exactly that.
Still, like a circus, I wanted to ride away with them (hey guys, i have a bike - like me!).
Sure, i was listening to The Temper Trap's "Drum Song," and i was hungry as a rabid dog, and have a brand new bicycle, and it was quite literally magic hour, but still, i'm not convinced i was entirely irrational. Well, save the image of them as a group of Arkansas-based gypsy-cyclists-circus clowns, and the urge to join them was quite reasonable.
Cycling, after all, is about pure, hardcore freedom.
Think about it; the very nature of every single race is to be ahead, to separate yourself, to see none ahead of you and be alone in your vision. Separation and the open road mean you aren't being bogged down (literally not bumping elbows with everybody else of average capability). Ergo, performance in a race equals freedom.
And what about our collective experience with riding? For many of us, cycling, riding that first Huffy, was our earliest experience with truly separating from our parents. Freedom. As we learned to ride, we learned to find our own ways to the grocery store, school (the arcade, honestly), or our friends' houses. Before long, we would come to terms with the fact that it was the ride itself that drew us into late summer hours, and we would find ourselves just... riding. Riding wherever flight took us any given day, till the sunlight fell short of our drive and we had to fumble home in thick twilight.
And then there's the very process of learning to ride without training wheels. Our parents of choice (dad, in my case) would hold us steady, pushing us along, swearing all the while that we could do it. It may as well have been magic, for all we understood cycling at that age (still is magic to me). But in that moment, when our parents let go, we faced all the fear and disbelief that Lief Erickson encountered when setting sail from Iceland to Odin knows where, on the verge of true freedom and revelation. Even as we pedaled, we turned our disbelief and fear (there's no way that's possible!) into reality, magic into marvel (it works, I don't know how, but it works!). I never wanted my training wheels taken off. Speaks volumes of whatever about me.
Bicycles don't come with kickstands any more, not once you're an adult. Their very nature as machines is violated when they're stationary. Even motionless, they seem to fly. Mine does, anyway. There is something about bicycles, good bicycles, that stirs in us something old, that flight for freedom. This blog is an exploration of exactly that.
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