Advise? Abstain?

Anxious to be adored? Never speak of money, politics, religion or sex. Cash calls signal anguish and distress. Many are born into divisive partisanship and/or exclusive dogma. Sex is all at once bothersome, coercive, compulsive, disappointing, ego triggering, regrettable, repulsive, uncomfortable, and worrisome, though almost everyone, even monks and nuns, would, risking life-ending STDs and "of all" their tomorrows, indulge in any instance. Divulge the least interest in this hormonal imperative and get labeled a disreputable deviant or media celebrity. Abstain from giving any advice? Why not let people fend for themselves and suffer consequences? Where's the love?

A shoulder to cry on, a shoulder to cry about: If only DOT engineers retained or restored 6 foot road shoulders, cities would be both bike and motor friendly. Roads with 2 travel lanes in either direction, undivided without shoulders, are where most accidents and fatalities occur. One can identify such facts, but readers won’t know what they entail until faced with same situations.

Frank Patterson (1871 - 1952), Good Luck! notices how in 1895 scorchers were ticketed and vilified, but by 1925, at time of this pen and ink illustration, police encouraged bicyclists, even racers pressing hard to win. Now, a century later, bicyclists are marginalized by transportation planners and mistreated by impatient motorists.

In nation’s most congested state staying home out of fear instead of bicycling, can spend hours binge viewing media and perusing splendid images and posters of bicycles and cyclists from yesteryear. Never do what they did. Instead apply meaningful improvements they helped innovate over time, such as cleated shoes and pedals, which avoid feet slipping off platforms and winding up with serous injuries, better than toe clips with straps that catch on shoes and don’t release timely.

Carbs and cars: Poor diets, sedentary habits, and substance abuses kill majority, hundreds of times more than gun violence, infectious diseases, and warfare combined. Began fighting back with a simple Burn and Count Program: Daily diet consisted of 5 vegetable, 4 fruit, 3 dairy, 2 protein (4 ounces max), and 1 whole grain servings, limitless water, but no chips, juices, processed foods, sugar, or sweetened beverages. Moreover, incorporated self propulsion into daily transportation; biked and strode instead of drove. Lost 5 pounds each week before reaching target weight. Starving? Body’s telling you program’s working; drank more water while stomach shrank back to normal size and withdrew fat deposits from waist bank. Didn’t give up a thing, rather traded for a better something.

How many gears does a rider need? Only 3 cassette gears - large, medium and small - but others in between make shifting more reliable and smoother. Peloton refers to front/rear gear combinations by tooth numbers - 52-16 is where Labann’s at on flat - neither high or low gears, nor shifting down or up. Can also get away with just crankset and a Davinci continuously variable transmission rear hub, so one actual gear, as does a fixie, front and rear. Derailleurs can only handle certain cassettes, and limit min-max sizes. While climbing mountains a triple crankset proves crucial, though cantankerous during day-to-day shifting and tough on chains. Clean, lubed chains last longer and may preserve chainrings and gears; wipe with a rag every hundred miles or once a week. Shift into big chain ring more during summer, when unimpeded by extra clothing and long tights. Fly by in single ply. "Gear" might also suggest apparel, helmets, multiple bikes, racks, spare wheels, or tools.

A floor pump stands ready right next to stored bicycle awaiting use. Soft tires lead to flats; thumb-check them before every ride, because they inevitably leak, and pump if they give like a ripe avocado. Over last several years chose lower pressure Kevlar belted tires that don't flat as often or require constant firm up. Pressure min/max figures embossed on sidewalls promise dangers if you exceed. Learn different types of flats (pinches and punctures) and how to avoid and repair them. Anything that interferes with tires gripping pavement - broken glass, cold wet, damp leaves, ice patches, loose gravel, sand shoals, slick tread - can be dangerous and disconcerting. Broken pavement itself can bite carcasses and cause flats.

Which bags work best: frame, handlebar, or saddle? Not that you can't have all three, but why carry all that extra weight? A handlebar bag is practical for retrieving frequently used items, i.e., a smartphone, though some use a phone mount instead, yet a bag up front might impede laminar flow, let stuff rattle around annoyingly, and occupy precious space. Some bags are designed to mount either on handlebars or saddle. Ruled out panniers and rear rack bags/baskets, which are inconvenient, though necessary for touring. Rear racks interfere with throwing your leg over bikes with top tubes, not as much an issue with mixte and step-through frames. When fenders aren’t attached, saddle bags might divert some splashes, but don't protect contents. Stuff stored in frame bags must be fairly flat, or legs will rub. Bags attached to bikes afford better comfort and control than sacks strapped onto your body.

Ample stowage is an absolute must when touring extensively, although few ever do. Yet all members of theater troupe Handlebards travel exclusively by bicycle to perform Shakespeare’s plays across Britain living on road and pedaling between venues. Once shared a vegan burrito with Skip Kipchoge while interviewing his musical ensemble Ginger Ninjas, who likewise traveled by bike between performance venues from 2007 to 2019, supposedly now working on a band documentary. Led them by bike to next venue just to boost enthusiasm.

Depressive German drama I Was at Home, But... (Angela Schanelec, dir., 2019) shows widow Astrid (Maren Eggert) deal poorly with grief, even during her purchase of a used ten-speed, presumably for transportation she previously didn’t require. Interspersed throughout, school children are reciting lines from Shakespeare’s Hamlet alluding to Ophelia’s tragic demise.

In classic period film Jules et Jim (François Truffaut, dir., 1962) bicycles encouraged female emancipation in years surrounding WWI, with French heroine Catherine (Jeanne Moreau, left below) entertaining two lovers, inspired by 1895 Gladiator advertising posters.

Nina’s World (Kevin Micallef, dir., Season 1, Episode 23, November, 2015) animates Latino heroine teen Nina (Isabella Farrier), who’s shy about resuming riding her bicycle after an accident. But once Abuelita Yolie (Rita Moreno) and gang organize a bike school, Nina regains confidence then reengages in bike delivery from their pastry shop.

Award nominated sci-fi thriller No One Will Save You (Brian Duffield, dir., 2023) pits neurotic homebody Brynn (Kaitlyn Devers) against murderous space aliens invading her remote home sanctuary, forcing her to expose herself by pedaling into town.

Joseph Trapanese, Bike Into Town, No One Will Save You [soundtrack], Hollywood Records, 2023  

British comedy-drama Scrapper (Charlotte Regan, dir., 2023) named Georgie (Lola Campbell) is a pint sized thief collecting metal, other people’s bicycles in particular, to build a tower and visit her recently deceased mom in heaven. Won European Film Award and Sundance Grand Prize in its categories.

Consumer Cellular has Ted Danson cheerily riding a cruiser bike while selling service to Marcus, a recent retiree, who believes he knows how to be free.

Allan Holdsworth, Tullio [jazz guitar instrumental], Hard Hat Area, CREAM Records, 1993
Late jazz fusion artist’s 6 minute homage to Gentullio “Tullio” Campagnolo (1901 to 1983), who founded the premier bicycle component brand 60 years earlier (1933)

Apple iPhone Swoop Spot has a bicyclist and her ceramic smartphone surviving an attack by an angry bird causing a minor crash.

Donovan Leitch, Cosmic Wheels, Cosmic Wheels, Epic, 1973
“Just when I'll find my course again with these boulders in my way, I should be rolling down the skyway on my cosmic wheels, instead of stumbling down this highway on my boots of steel.” Before Beyonce or Madonna were known on a first name basis was this innovative Scot singer-songwriter. Can also imagine lyrics, “Caterpillar sheds his skin to find a butterfly within. First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is,” describes peloton’s struggles and triumphs on grand tours facing and overcoming doubts, hills, obstacles, and problems, as Tour de France 2024 campaign begins.

Walkings, Bicycle [J-pop], Tomodachi, Maruzen Rec., 2018

Blaine or Blane?

Likewise, Rene and Riley can be either female or male names, but blaine means lean and blane means curiously yellow, summoning a slew of references including para-cycling World Championship and World Record Holder Blaine Hunt and indomitable spirit of late Swedish bicycling actress Lena Nyman. Any individual can sexually identify as either or neither with pride and without your permission. All have a right to choice in lifestyle matters... effeminate adverbs, nuance of nouns, pit of gender pronouns be damned. Homosexuality was legalized in catholic majority cycling crazed France during 18th Century. Ancient cultures included and other creatures still behave bisexually. Major contributors to culture and science throughout history were gay. Bible Old Testament disapproved in passing, so it’s been around forever, not a recent liberal invention. 

Private crimes and public behaviors do warrant scrutiny, especially among those who falsify records to hoodwink voters about amoral acts while promising cult followers to rob opponents, queers, transgenders, and women of their basic rights. Ways laws are enforced, indictments processed, and sentences given are infrequent and random; GOP is not hiring police or prosecutors, instead increasing tax cuts that would pay for both. Their Plan 2025 would reduce LGBTQIA+ to a subhuman species by recognizing only hetero gender from birth, among a series of nazi mandates excluding and persecuting everyone except white Trump loyalists.

Rebellious beatnik counterculture? Don’t confuse mid-1960’s protesters with flower power hippies, though some did cross over. Hippies hated violence visited upon vulnerable individuals, so banded together as a bulwark against brutality. Being apolitical, they evaded authorities, whose main interest was and will always be seizing power, which those disaffected didn’t threaten, and loathed personal responsibilities by dropping out and suspending resistance. Valuing freedom, kindness and peace blinded them to consequences of empty promises and false prophets. Without 20 million drifting parasites (one quarter of voter turnout nationally at the time) begging for scraps, drowning in drugs, forgiving political corruption, and retreating from confrontation, minority rule by cruel plutocrats never would have emerged from the cesspool of nation’s worst depravity and horror, cavernous greed hidden behind evangelical conservatism. Can’t dominate, enslave, or oppress without both mind control and unimaginable wealth.

As previously cited, some say MAGA slogan was lifted from a 1929 Mussolini speech, “...fellow citizens who are working to make America great,” but that would require study into history, something cult would rather purge than read. Melania since let it slip that Don directly plagiarized a Michelle Obama speech. Nevertheless, it’s really a law firm acronym that stands for Mammon, Abaddon, Grimoire & Astaroth, the demons who represent respectively temptations, mischief, powers, and false accusations. Indeed, it’s among those spiritually minded that evil incarnate casts his vile net; deplorable and willing transgressors are already legion.

RINOs are all in for Trump, a sociopath convicted of fraud and rape, further accused of espionage, extortion, money laundering, racketeering, and tax evasion; he only got into office because enough independents bought this babbling celebrity and his biased bullpucky. Depending upon when and who you ask, only 25% of voters affiliate with GOP, 33% affiliate with Democrats, while 36% are independents, fools who stand aloof without any representation, then feel neglected and get angry through their own fault. You get the service you pay for, which, in their case, is none. If you didn’t thrive on whatever Washington delivered over last 20 years before Biden, blame Boehner, Bush, GOP, McConnell, and Trump, since they either controlled presidency or senate throughout, thus instigated all these discredited and disreputable policies, and Independents for their lack of organized opposition.

Liberals demand democracy now; lowbrow conservatives own the franchise on hypocrisy. Wow! Americans aren’t free to do whatever they want, only what’s legal and responsible. Majority wants to preserve constitutional rights and pursue happiness. Conservatives want freedoms to commit crimes with impunity, enslave or imprison everyone else accusing them of what they do themselves. MAGA describes itself as anti-fascist, anti-regulation, Christian righteous, constitution preserving, law abiding, national patriotic, pro-life, public inclusive, and radically progressive when it’s exactly the opposite: criminal, false, homophobic, misogynistic, noninclusive, racist, reactionary, selfish, unconstitutional, and xenophobic. Few immigrants are as purely rotten as home grown offenders. Fox and Newsmax went mental when Obama saluted with a coffee cup in same hand and wore a tan suit; now they are doing damage control over their candidate’s civil and criminal convictions acting as if that’s no scandal at all. Double standards this bizarre and blatant just can’t be borne, though much has already been discussed as a source of entertainment rather than extreme threat beyond reckoning, because nobody can stand considering so serious a topic.

Americans don’t need jingoism and populism, humping Old Glory and repeating hollow slogans, nor self styled patriots who rebel without cause based on false flags from seditionist media. Politicians who feed upon fear and pride and promise results that only congress can deliver are big liars and fat phonies unworthy of your vote, one of citizens’ few controls over government. Unhappy with how things are? Be heard through a ballot for candidates free of fraud convictions, not hucksters likely lying to you.

Labann learned a lot, but no one mind can encompass all facts; takes humankind as a whole and scientific consensus. However, majority lacks the necessary foresight and willpower to forge forward. After plenty of analysis yielded useful insight, next steps should have been planning ahead and taking action. But folks rather ask a family member or friend on how to decide instead of applying logic, laboriously remembering, studying anew, and thinking through.

Neither diligent study nor rote repetition leads to omniscience, only direct revelation. Prophecy comes from dreams and meditations that expose subliminal input from a cornucopia of connections and decades of experiences stewed in unconscious undercurrents. Why not read more nonfiction? But deep text dives into conflicting data will always be intolerably uncomfortable for vast majority. Anyone clever can access all sorts of amusing tidbits and audience reactions to late night comedy sketches. Rather than of staying up to watch them live, studying while sober makes more sense. Bicycling and thinking require a reasonable night’s sleep.

Pointed out transportation alternatives for decades. Now millions of newbies have discovered bicycling for themselves and repeated same discoveries. Once reposted bike authors and their titles when few were to be found; now there are just too many to recount. Commercial websites do a better job than a casual blog at recommending more. Quod Erat Demonstrandum (abbreviated as Q.E.D.) is a Latin phrase that means literally "that which was to be demonstrated.” In normal English, this means, "Thus it is proven.” Mike drop!

Recently passed NBA hall-of-famer Bill Walton and Bjarne Rostaing, Bill Walton’s Total Book of Bicycling (Bantam, 1985, 367 pp.) enthusiastically covers bicycle types, cycling apparel, equipment maintenance, long history, physical fitness, racing lore, safety precautions, and touring strategies.

Daniel Shea and Jeremy Withers, Culture on Two Wheels: The Bicycle in Literature and Film (University of Nebraska Press, 2016, 376 pp.) collects 16 relevant essays.

Frank Angelo Cavaluzzi, Standing Cyclist: Flirting with Wisdom, One Breath, One Mile at a Time (ThirtyThree45 Media Group; 2016, 296 pp.)

Gestalten [editors] and Martijn Doolaard, One Year on a Bike: From Amsterdam to Singapore (Gestalten, 2017, 368 pp.)

Gestalten [editors] and Martijn Doolaard, Two Years On A Bike: From Vancouver to Patagonia (Gestalten, 2021. 416 pp.)

Gestalten [editors], Velo City (Gestalten, 2016, 256 pp.)

Eighty years after D-Day, facts have emerged on the role of bicycling resistance preparing for an Allied Invasion to free Europe from Nazi tyranny, as covered by “vélosophe" Guillaume Martin’s books and podcast through Radiofrance.

Guillaume Martin, Socrates by bike (Grasset, 2020)
Guillaume Martin, The company of the peloton. Philosophy of the individual in the group (Grasset, 2021)

Martin’s source bibliography includes:
Bernard Chambaz, Little philosophy of cycling, Flammarion, coll (Flammarion, 2019, 130 pp.)
Bernard Andrieu, International Vocabulary of Sports Philosophy, 2 volumes (L’Harmattan, 2015)
Philippe Hassler, Louison (theatre, 2021, 1 hour)


Jody Rosen, Two Wheels Good: The History and Mystery of the Bicycle (Crown, 2022, 417 pp.): “The bicycle in the nineteenth century was a marvel; in today’s formulation, it is moral. It was enchanted; now it’s enlightened. Bicycles are great - but, more to the point, bicycles are good... the bicycle’s relationship to progressivism and radicalism is grounded in history... Hitler’s first acts upon assuming power, in 1933, was to smash Germany’s cycling union... confiscated bicycles from the local populations. To a repressive regime... the bicycle was a menace, a device that could be used by dissenters to sneak up and speed off, to organize and mobilize and elude.”

Ole Wagner and Shonquis Moreno, edited by Robert Klanten and Sven Ehmann, Velo: Bicycle Culture and Design (Gestalten, 2010, 235 pp.)

Paul Smethurst, The Bicycle: Towards a Global History (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, 208 pp.)

Stephen Fabes, Signs of Life: A Doctor's Journey to the Ends Of The Earth (Pegasus Books, 2020, 408 pp.); physician Fabes gave up a practice to tour world by bicycle, then discovered how medical histories don’t exceed life stories.

Sven Ehmann, Velo - 2nd Gear and Velo - 3rd Gear, Bicycle Culture and Style (Gestalten, 2013 and 2016, 256 pp. each)

Tree Abraham, Cyclettes (The Unnamed Press, 2022, 224 pp.) offers a millennial’s first take on freedom and stillness in motion.

“The bicycle, the bicycle surely, should always be the vehicle of novelists and poets,” opined essayist, journalist, novelist and poet Christopher Morley (d. 1957), long before automotive paradigm and urban rap trampled such sentiments.