Poli-Urethane

“Father, father, we don't need to escalate. You see, war is not the answer for only love can conquer hate. You know we've got to find a way to bring some lovin' here today. Picket lines and picket signs: Don’t punish me with brutality. Talk to me so you can see, oh, what's going on... Everybody thinks we're wrong; but who are they to judge us simply 'cause our hair is long?” Al Cleveland, Obi Benson, and Marvin Gaye, What’s Going On, What’s Going On, Tamla, 1971 - Protest song inspired by police brutality on Bloody Thursday in Berkeley hit #1 among Billboard R&B singles, made money for Live Aid chartities, and was covered profitably several times.

Bike&Chain exists because of marginalized bicycling culture, and recognizes “Fertilization Administration” has declared war on citizen cyclists, independent women, and public servants, so any program that supports lane designations, reproductive rights, or safety nets is now forfeit unless they unite to fight. Not to justify latest tirades to youths, culture inseparably intertwines with politics, though often authors won’t admit it. Small shop owners as Aaron Johnson of GoGrava must react to de minimis shutdown and new tariffs. Seems politics at its core tries to score through biased polls, deliberate lies, and varnished truths. David Nyberg debates, “Deception appears to be normal... a workday attribute of practical intelligence,” though ethics advise elsewise on sticky evidence. Mucilaginous polyurethane dries into several bike components including apparel cloth, bar tape, helmet inserts, inner tubes, pump gaskets, saddle shells, and such accoutrements. You're not a thane just because you back a baby daddy dictator politically, have assets worth billions, and want to be called a doge or minister; you must get elected first to govern or represent nation's constituents.

Bike Radar compiled a list of Best Cycling Books 2025, and said it’s for “cycling bookworms”; instead, most titles would only appeal to endurance athletes and wannabe racers rather than poli sci majors. Even James Hibbard’s The Art of Cycling (Quercus, 2021, 320 pp.), previously reviewed, has nothing to do with art or culture at all, rather what’s in it mentally for you, though more recently published than bulk of titles they recommend. By assembling citations and specifying contexts you elevate importance of items probably beyond their worth. Not surprisingly, Labann’s noncommercial volumes were again overlooked.

Zachary Mooradian Furness, Put The Fun Between Your Legs! The Politics and Counterculture of the Bicycle "(University of Pittsburg, 2005, 228 pp.) - Peer reviewed doctoral dissertation includes an extensive bibliography and short filmography, and touches upon all historic points of bicycle advocacy. “My analysis is focused upon the politics of cycling in the United States... largely based upon a critique of car culture, and with it, the ideological assumptions that inform our labor practices, consumption habits, uses of technology, and our relationship to our material world... important to analyze because globalization has resulted in the mass exportation of American culture and economics to other parts of the world.” Dicatators hate that, so VOA was just silenced. Must’ve been something in the air, since Bike&Chain also had been written by then.

Treatment equality among bicyclists, motorists, and pedestrians has been federal law since 1990, but same old culture war persists after decades. Federal Highway Administration officialy reaffirmed in 2010, "Because of the benefits they provide, transportation agencies should give the same priority to walking and bicycling as is given to other transportation modes." Federal regulations prohibit planners from impeding bicycling or severing routes bicyclists use during new construction; bridges must accommodate bicycling and walking. Despite long established guidelines, mounting lawsuit losses, and repeated court injunctions, new regime bullies onward, defies constitution, and ignores observance. But such criticism assumes normality and precedents one hopes, not criminality and disobedience from public servants. Charity directors, law enforcers, and school teachers who witness incivility may somethimes turn into misanthropes. Government officials are supposed to work for your reciprocal cooperation and toward your best interests. Seems cabinet of April fools, Mad Hatter, and March Hare rather make millions of resentful antagonists. Better consider what they do, not believe what serial liars say, to those they harm.

Ken Avidor, Bicyclopolis (2017, 98 pp.) - Intricate bike-centric graphic novel 17 years in the making was self published by this Minneapolis based cartoonist, first mentioned in March of 2011 while still being developed. Through a time travel theme, Avidor predicts where demented environmental and political abandonment lead. Amidst a global climate crisis, it’s not the time to shutter NOAA or withdraw from Paris Accord.

DeFranzy, Cycling is Freedom [German pop], single video, self, 2018 - Just so, suffragette, and when they begin to infringe upon basic motility, call it what it is: verboten slavery, vicious repression, or vote suppression. In a democracy, everyone gets a vote, women in majority foremost, unless theonomic ideology of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaiden’s Tale comes to pass as a direct consequence of Project 2025. Can’t happen here? Read Genesis 29:29. Already has with sex slaves, toxic bros, and worse offenses upon horizon.

Adonia E. Lugo, PhD, Bicycle / Race: Transportation, Culture & Resistance (Microcosm Publishing, 2018, 192 pp.) - Cultural anthropologist defines “mobility justice”, and discusses racial discrimination and sustainable transport. Gets Labann thinking of how bicycles are stolen and vandalized less often than cars, with a huge black market for catalytic converters, quarter panels, and wheel rims to fulfill. Bicycles don’t suit lazy thieves, who'd rather plunder US Treasury, world's biggest target. "Infrastructure neglect" is just another tactic to funnel funds their way. Senator Booker's filibuster set record straight: American people are in charge.

“In mid-2018, women in Saudi Arabia gained the freedom to ride a bicycle, and the efforts of women’s activists such as Baraah Luhaid played a part in this, as she established Spokes Hub... We often see the bicycle just as a form of transport, but it’s much more than that; it’s a classless item that billions of different people across the globe own.” Zain Hussain, The bicycle: a symbol of unification, Medium magazine, 2019 - So, Saudi women are bestowed this right a century later than Americans and Europeans? Wow!

Ken Avidor, Courier, single video, self, 2019; short animation related to a future dystopia where bicycle couriers have to deliver food to front line battle zones instead of Door Dash, Grubhub or Uber Eats after petroleum paradigm crashed. First in a series where sabotage hero poses as a bicycle courier.

Avidor Family Singers, My Bike is Freedom, single video, self, 2020 - Short Ken Avidor animation with an original song. Bicycling is the fifth freedom, along with freedoms from tyranny and want, and of religion and speech, all of which are at risk under authoritarian attack.

Max Whittle, Cycling is Freedom, single video, self, 2020
It’s a sentiment that adheres longer than orange facepaint, more like steadfast shellac.

Peter Cox and Till Koglin (editors), The Politics of Cycling Infrastructure: Spaces and (In)Equality (Policy Press, 2020, 261 pp.) - “Physical infrastructure is currently posited as the primary key to unlock cycling’s potential as a primary mode of sustainable transport... Governance mechanisms that provide for and respond to citizen voices... recognize the need for and implement change... Infrastructure is never neutral and always inherently political.” Most articles in this anthology based analyses on European cities. In USA, conservative congressmen aren’t even holding public forums anymore.

Some American mayors brazenly act out their bicycling abhorrence. According to Jody Rosen’s article The Bicycle as a Vehicle of Protest, (The New Yorker, 2020), “N.Y.P.D. has a long history of hostility to cyclists... police have used questionable, sometimes violent tactics to sweep up participants in Critical Mass, the guerrilla group rides that aim to promote cyclists’ rights... Transportation issues are social-justice issues... American bike riders [are] of all races and backgrounds, but... The term ‘invisible riders’ has gained currency among critics who decry the marginalization of black, brown, female, and working-class cyclists by establishment activists.” Bike boom at the time kept reluctant bus riders moving alternatively, minimizing recession effects of pandemic quarantines.

Chris Watson, The Bicycling Guitarist, pedals beyond politically correct into some sort of unbalanced chauvinist rant while playing original tunes, poising himself and his Stratocaster guitar, and riding his 1977 Schwinn Sportabout 10-speed in circles.

The Bicycling Guitarist fea. Chris Watson, Repoman, Elektra’s Room, self, 2020 “Oh, Repoman. He likes my band. So I guess my Schwinn is safe from being repossessed. That means it was possessed more than once. Possessed and depossessed, then repossessed. But, fortunately, fortunately it's an ‘exorcise bike’.” Among a half dozen albums, this oddly appears to be only song that directly references bicycling.

American cycling team gets Trapped Inn (Leah Sturgis, dir., 2024) at a remote European mountain lodge; teammates then start unexpectedly dying. Taps into contagion angst. Peloton protagonists Connor (Matt Rife) and Greg (Robert Palmer Watkins) compete to solve this otherworldly mystery. Horror film genre merely mirrors and woefully understates what's now actually occurring because of DOGE meddling in earned benefits, established services, and foreign aid.

Heartfelt 2024 testimony from Claire Pomykala of Living By Bike declares that bicycling at all is a political act. “Resist capitalist forces and lifestyles that sit, to fight status quo, to reconnect with nature, to recognize our ignorance: bicycling is inherently political... Bicycling is revolution.” Battle hardened Claire has bike-packed from Atlanta to Oz through Europe, learned hands-on loads of lore, and taught self a myriad of truths through living vulnerable to what world provides. New US administration believes it can rescind visas. restrict travel, and strip citizenship from anyone who opposes their goal to control, because laws only apply to you, not them. Bicycling is human, not conservative, liberal, or partisan; all demographics ride except abject invalids and beer swilling, coal-rolling, extreme right, fossil fuel addicted wimps, who may or may not notice X's tweet logo now includes a sieg heil salute despite billions in stockholder losses undermining temporary victory. As in all crime syndicates, fraudulent DOGE forwards same fascist agenda yet insulates felon POTUS from prosecution. Unless you're a multimillionaire, you'll pay more taxes and suffer loss of services.

Montreal, Quebec has enjoyed better bike accommodations since Claire Morissette’s advocacy in 1990’s. Yet after decades many residents still don’t get it. A short Oh The Urbanity! documentary, I Went to an Anti-Bike-Lane Revolt (Patrick Murphy, dir., 2024) shreds local misconceptions about alleged bike issues of ableism, ageism, school safety, and such notions adopted without regard of indisputable evidence to the contrary. Everyone is mistreated, some more than others, though goal is to avoid egregious examples. Bruised egos can be self inflicted, so too close to exercising personal freedoms to cure. Roads mistreat bicyclists who nevertheless ride and tolerate them.

Wes Marshall, PhD, PE, Killed by a Traffic Engineer (Island Press, 2024, 424 pp.) - A professor of civil engineering whistleblower contends that AASHTO (American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials) guidelines aren’t wholly based on inclusive safety or sound science. “There wasn’t nearly as much science behind the numbers as the 1,000-page manuals make it seem.” No sh*t! says Labann, who spent decades battling bull and writing manuals. Since 1899 when they began counting vehicle crash fatalities, 4 million Americans have died, many times that globally, more Americans than all military conflicts in which they fought including founding revolution. Best laid plans of Three E’s - Education, Enforcement, and Engineering - are rife with shortcomings among texting, tired, and twisted motorists, planners, and police.

“Asking Americans to sacrifice their beloved cars is not a winning political message, but helping them rediscover something they love more can change the world.” Steven Goodridge, The Conservative Case for Walking and Bicycling, Medium magazine, 2024 - Informative article appends a nice bibliography. Could continue with citations and contexts, but do conclude politics concern cyclists. It's too easy to round out paragraphs with so many asinine, bizarre, criminal, and despicable executive fiats signed daily, then immediately struck down by courts as illegal and unconstitutional. Forever forward, forge past onto next spin session and subsequent post toward velorution.

Pays de Cocagne

Still from feature film trailer Crooklyn (Spike Lee, dir., 1994)

Freedom, Freedom, Freedom, Freedom... Sometimes I feel like a motherless child, a long way from my home. Sometimes I feel just like I’m almost gone. I got a telephone in my bosom, I can call them up from my heart... when I need my mother, Mother!” - Ritchie Havens

“I been Ayn Randed, nearly branded Communist, 'cause I'm left-handed... Well, I paid all the dues I want to pay. And I learned the truth from Lenny Bruce, and all my wealth won't buy me health, so I smoke a pint of tea a day... I knew a man; his brain was so small he couldn't think of nothing at all. Not the same as you and me, he doesn't dig poetry. He’s so unhip that when you say Dylan he thinks you're talking about Dylan Thomas, whoever he was. The man ain't got no culture... I been mother, father, aunt and uncled... I just discovered somebody's tapped my phone.” Paul Simon, A Simple Desultory Philippic, 1966

America, land of honey, milk, and plenty, as if from medieval myth, once acted as an amusement park, liberty beacon, motherly bosom, preferred destination, residential station, and welcome wagon. For a short while that also included people of all ages, colors, creeds, orientations, and races before conservatives beat civil rights back to antebellum biases and gave citizens the royal shaft. Through personal computing, almost entire planet has become virtual; mobsters and monsters can exploit anyone from elsewhere without costs, rules, taxes or toil. Now that data is more valuable than even crude oil, writers worry that producing content, especially gratis, only gets used against them and for what they never meant it to be. Einstein's abstract insights multiplied mankind's existential plights. AI will kill anyone it views as a threat. Prophets of doom live short lives of misery. Who needs panic porn they spout? But that's what bad leadership brings about.

Publishing bitter attacks, casual observations, fervent emotions, pertinent facts, or radical notions seems foolish, possibly ruinous, when you don’t own a single item you’ve created and shared. You become a marketing target and unit of profitability, or contribute to social dilemma of immersive media. Saying the truth and speaking one's mind should be smart but are not. Fox Network has nothing but programs with dysfunctional families, incompetent coworkers, and interpersonal violence. Within a society that glorifies idiocy, anything that separates you from the herd makes you vulnerable to predators. Bicyclists know this all too well, rather gather with friends or strangers than go solo amidst dangers, though you need no motivation other than your own to take a spin, a slo-mo adventure outdoors. Got to wonder whether staying home is safer given household accident statistics and risks of not visibly standing with others against social injustice.

Data warehouse RIPON secretly stole profiles from Facebook and Twitter for Republicans to spy on potential voters and swing those undecided. Rates right below QAnon agitators who conflate every case of child abuse or sex trafficking to promote reprehensible leaders blustering about it with no intention of interdicting. Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Britanny Kaiser adds that your credit purchases and local movements are used for personality modeling. Current laws totally permit this privacy invasion. Pandemic furloughs and quarantines further provoke cyber crimes, internet scams, and savings hacks. Worse, situation is being used to preach against freedoms, promote conformity, suppress rights, and wrest control. Easy to blame hapless victims for lack of compliance; impossible to hold real culprits culpable and prosecute for justice and reparations.

Psyops represents the latest iteration of illegal behavioral modification used to brainwash American public for conservative domestication. That you don’t believe in how psychology can be used to get you to act against your own interests is just part of their successful programming of you. Motorists pay plenty for convenience and promise of speed, but they get repeatedly cheated by construction, gridlock, and rudeness. Immersion in movies once seemed less nefarious and nobler than indulgence in politics, but both shamelessly use sociological tactics to twist facts and wrest trends to their own advantage.

You’d think with all these surveillance cameras on every pole they could make streets safer for bicycling by noting where motorists buzz or cut off cyclists, form uncrossable queues, refuse to follow traffic controls, stick nose into intersections ignoring boulevard stops, and turn or weave without warning, which, by the way, are all seldom enforced traffic violations. No, these days you are instead advised to isolate yourself from humanity. How does that help you? Social animals only survive through interpersonal contact, what people do for each other, services rendered. After paying dearly to drive motorists are being deprived everything of fascination that might be experienced between origin and pulling in to destination. Distancing has been gaining ground by privileged design since Reagan era. Haves only suffer have-nots to extent they create wealth and do chores. You’re only allowed to survive so they can take what’s yours.

Misery loves company so much those who suffer will infect, injure, maneuver, or otherwise drag down whomever they can, particularly a gullible samaritan. Lately cross to other side of street to avoid contact and maintain distance. Saw man with an intimidating dog, who seemed ready to cross. Rolling closer, realized it was a service dog unwilling to chase a tennis ball and thereby lead blind master into traffic. So deviated to middle and kicked ball to happy pooch. Situations are often not what they appear to be without in-depth study. Tennis ball put all proximate at risk, but what can you do?

To enjoy being in the vicinity of great people you’d have to have fought a good fight yourself, lived in peril, wandered through same battlegrounds. Personally met decorated soldiers, famous authors, a goddess, a Nobel laureate, rock legends, a saint, and several presidents and statesmen. Labann behind handlebars, prisoner to pedals, slave to saddle so far has served over a half century of a life sentence, though somewhat rewarded for good behavior, while Satan took Sin for a spin causing crisis planet's in. Many people would prefer quieter lives, but there’s no perks without risks. Have been beaten, betrayed, crashed into, shot, stabbed, and stressed but survived. Must assume everyone has character flaws, yet insulate oneself against harm they will cause. Brothers in blood can be worst of frauds.

Made mistake of taking a bike path shortcut on a midday weekend. Knots of families with dogs and kids blocked way, so just stopped on left, where cyclists supposed to pass, and waited. Fast trailing cyclist yelled, "On you left," repeatedly. Didn't respond. Once crowd dispersed, spun up quick to 25 mph, caught, and blew by impatient passer, who, despite trying to chase, faded quickly behind to invisible. Peeled off to seal deal. Sometimes you have to send a message that dispels delusions of self superiority. You are not king of all you survey and, at only 16 mph, lord over any bikeway. Real bicyclists don't rely on dedicated paths as race tracks for contests against unsuspecting opponents. Ego isn't served by edging out someone who may be at end of a long tour, just getting back into pedaling, or new to cycling as recreation or sport. Among bicyclists and pedestrians an automotive mentality doesn’t belong. Peloton racing is an exclusive club involving young idiots exploited in a spectacle for advertising. Excluding these few thousand individuals, a billion riders are commuting and recreating, not racing.

Handshakes, once a business mainstay, are taboo. Socially responsible greeting gestures now include a bow, a hand over heart, hello in international sign language (a right handed salute), namaste prayer, a nod, a peace sign, a shrug, or a wave. Bicyclists respect each other with a passing nod or thumb’s up. World Health Organization doesn’t include no touch chest thump, elbow bump, fist pump, or slap rump because all infringe upon personal distance. WHO does give advice on wearing masks over both mouth and nose, not stuck below chin, in hand, off ear, turned inside out for a second wearing, or wherever it does no good. Exterior of mask is contaminated and unfit to be fiddled with on face or touched without immersion wash.

In other words, you are only free to do what is responsible; otherwise you could die from negligence, not much of a choice. Every hour spent bicycling affords another whole day alive if you don't inadvertently die in traffic. Although you might get away with wayward ways, benefits don’t outweigh delays, yet majority don’t appear to care. Stooges united on a bicycle built for three parties rolling downhill into certain chaos, massive stupidity seems to predict an election win for incumbent boob who runs things for billionaire bosses, so they don’t have to reveal their influence. “Fear no disease,” he dares to declare after only he receives cutting edge treatment after denying millions affordable care and two million pandemic deaths. Consider source and take every precaution.

If you take time to think about content before you publish it, you often derive new insights or reconsider accuracy of what you wrote. Debatable and disreputable statements contain adverbs and hyperboles of “always”, “only”, and “we”. Yet there's an overwhelming drive to get ahead, glide with tide, go with flow, let go of control, and make a retraction only if compelled to do so. Blatant lies, bold emphasis, and fake news enrage readers who are already on edge. Behooves a writer to clarify and condense, even when it’s all been said before. Labann excels at annoying. Nothing is so unloved as honest advice on best practices explored over volumes with the exception of simple truths, which nobody can tolerate and likely does wrong if they try to apply. Before and during outings so often remind self about a dozen sensible things to do, feel a reckless urge to delineate them for you:

1. Clean bike frequently; note cracks and dings. Never ride on a cracked frame. Touch up bare paint on steel to avoid rust. Dry, then oil, chain and pedals; wipe off excess. Oil derailleurs and shifters once in a month. Sanitize saddle.

2. Disassemble bike every few years because bottom bracket, calipers and derailleurs can fail, gum up, or stick; reassemble to specified torque ratings. While zooming down hills at 60 mph, you’ll consider it as packing your own parachute and feel more confident.

3. Consult take/wear checklist, since forgetting a cell phone, helmet, house keys, or tools can progress past just annoying into life threatening.

4. Expect - bad motorists; broken, bumpy, crumbled, potholed, sandy, trash strewn pavement; linear cracks that will impede balance; road furniture; sewer caps, slotted grates, and sunken pipe covers. Much of what constitutes bicycling entails avoiding idiot motorists, constantly watching where you’re going, and wending around hazards and obstacles.

5. Flip crank around before leaning into a turn so pedal doesn’t hit curb or scrape pavement. Level pedals over speed bumps. Never lay bike down on derailleur side.

6. Give tires a pressure check before every ride; keep between max and min. Inspect hubs, nipples, rims and spokes. Tires and wheels take the most abuse. Protect spokes from damage while riding, storing, and transporting.

7. Stick to a straight line rather than weave except when avoiding items in #4.

8. Take the lane. Within their rights, bicyclists are entitled to use entire street, squeeze aside only to let faster traffic pass. Drivers must avoid crossing edge lines or gore areas, so, refuges for cyclists. Riding close to curbs, in gutters full of trash, or on sidewalks will result in flats or you might crash; plus motorists might not expect or see you there.

9. Tuck in before a bend in road, so trailing motorists, who momentarily lose sight of you, don’t edge around corner into you. Friendly roads have lanes wide enough for trucks and shoulders wide enough for biking and parking, but it’s up to you to evaluate sight lines.

10. Understanding how #8 and #9 apply, when descending a hill faster than other traffic, use best pavement across lane’s width. Drivers trying to pass can suck it; enabling scofflaws is not the same as impeding law abiders. Likewise, while climbing slowly, pick an unobtrusive line and let them overtake without fuss so they pass sooner.

11. Whenever you see a crooked crucifix or God Makes Cretins logo, anticipate bonehead maneuvers and random aggression. Bus, pickup, SUV and van drivers take up more than their share of travel lane and resent your presence even when off road edge. Despite all advice, do whatever’s necessary for your own safety.

12. Bicycling is supposed to be fun, commune with nature, reduce stress, and take time while pedaling and recuperating, repaid in longer life expectancy. Gives pause for thought about hidden truths, source for over 2,000 pages of Bike&Chain before disappearing into ignominy again.

Civil "Emanci-pain”

Never forget that roads are public space for all to share for which those who buy merchandise, earn paychecks, or own property fund by paying taxes. It's not motorists paying fuel excise fees who foot the bill, far from it. Asphalt paving comes as a byproduct from fractioning crude oil, so gasoline does now play an integral part. Yet ancient Romans slaves paved tens of thousands of miles with cut stones, segments still around after millennia. Asphalt is an ephemeral, ersatz and expensive substitute. Bicycling brought a byway boom, construction practicality which enabled motoring, but motorists betray benefactors by pushing bicyclists aside. No need to kiss butt; a modicum of civility would befit mutual benefit after or astride.

Roads resemble magic carpets that take you where you need to go and transport sustenance you can't forego. They link farms to towns, harms to clowns, qualms to frowns, whatever rolls down the pike that you do or don't like. Pandemics and polemics race along jet paths, sea channels, and transportation corridors. What makes them so deadly efficient is that segments are contiguous. Streets connect in such a way you can drive from here to there, portal to portal, and return from destinations to origins with no drama at all. Not so bike paths, which can end abruptly and just disappear annoyingly. Bikes are freedom machines except for pains to which you’re subjected. It all should flow together, each path exit onto a wide road shoulder, not steal so much time your liberty is imprisoned by detours for a year.

Republican regime currently in charge doesn’t care, prefers polling places where fewest constituents appear and voters from whom they never hear. Culpable for atrocity and hypocrisy, they generate fear and mistrust so they can take clear advantage of the fair and just with their shameless crust. None has any worthwhile goal in mind, simply derides opposition’s as recklessly blind, and nominated an impeached crime boss to run again and subjugate mankind. Gone are leaders who quoted facts and reacted in kind. Now you only feel cheated by rhetoric’s emptiness. The closer you study, the clearer you see who’s your adversary. News opinion conflates reported facts, fosters self fulfilling forecasts, goads criminal acts, pits parties at odds in order to profit and suit specific agendas. At what point does so-called news cross line into felonious sanction and sedition? When innocents perish, social inequality worsens, and vulnerable lament, time to oust those who were supposed to prevent. People should also flow together, in productive cooperation, not suffer intolerant division. Though the opposite describes what goes on today, evil should be punished and good rewarded, as movies usually portray, though most aren't more than feckless illusions anyway.

Drifter Jack McCloud (the late Patrick Swayze) travels with a dog, who’s really a genie who grants Three Wishes (Martha Coolidge, dir., 1995) to the Holman family: War widow Jeanne (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio) and her two sons, Tom (Joseph Mazzello) and Gunny (Seth Mumy). Jack, who may have been a major league ball player or medal of honor winner, becomes a father figure and sports coach for Tom after mom takes Jack in to heal from a broken leg for which she feels responsible. Set in 1955, kids all travel by bike between grade school and little league practice. Tom diligently oils his chain, but fails to chase down Jack, who leaves once cast comes off to resume his mission of finding folks who deserve granted wishes.

Biopic of 1960’s radicals Abbie and Anita Hoffman (Vincent D’Onofrio and Janeane Garofalo) Steal This Movie (Robert Greenwald, dir., 2000), a film half of critics hated, faithfully describes why Woodstock Nation evaporated. According to country’s founding father Thomas Jefferson, revolutions should reoccur every decade or so; otherwise, complacency ushers in tyranny. Critics serve establishment, so they better not legitimize counterculture. CIA, FBI, local police, and other agencies illegally and repeatedly targeted the Hoffmans to oppress them politically and suppress their ideas. Conservatives have zero tolerance for honesty or infamy. They forced Abbie into a 6 year, 63 town underground odyssey of bicycling from cheap tenements to temporary jobs to dodge bogus charges and cruel entrapments. You don’t need to prove your identity if you bike instead of drive. Codefendant Jerry Rubin is quoted from a speech, “We’re irrational and crazy because America destroyed our dreams.” Faced with precipitous arrest for his willingness to attest, Hoffman endured bouts of mental distress, but emerged a discredited but unrepentant activist, more altruistic in nation’s best interest than deserved by ambivalent liberals and apathetic rest. Nevertheless, Nixon Nazis never really left The White House, because too many citizens are still disposed to acquiesce.

Kind hearted but lonely young bicyclist Richard (Richard Vallejos) embarks on an uplighting 10-speed vacation from downtown San Francisco to forests and seaside. He takes along his dwarf hamster Etienne! (Jeff Mizushima, dir., 2008), who vet diagnosed to die shortly, so his only friend can live out his tiny life under towering redwoods. Along the way Richard collects souvenirs and encounters several nomads who enrich his experience. You are limited only by your endurance, imagination, and willingness to bear burdens for love.

Victorian psychologist Dr. Robert Dalrymple (Jonathan Pryce) suspects when women don’t reach orgasm it causes Hysteria (Tanya Wexler, dir., 2011). His manual treatments have frustrated ladies lining up. He engages hunky young Dr. Mortimer Granville (Hugh Darcy) to assist, whereupon he augments patient list and meets Dalrymple’s two daughters, Charlotte and Emily. Bicycling feminist Charlotte runs a settlement house for London’s poor. When a hand cramp gets Mortimer fired, he co-develops world’s first electrical vibrator, makes a fortune, and marries Charlotte after saving her from a court ordered hysterectomy. Just because she punched a policeman doesn’t mean she’s disturbed. Pedaling goddesses don’t need a vibrator, do they?

Not to be confused, Hysterical (Chris Bearde, dir., 1983), deemed one of the worst films ever, does have its moments. Throughout Crazy Ralph (Robert Donner) rides his bicycle into dangers he shouldn’t while telling everyone, “You’re doomed!” It’s he who narrowly escapes such harrowing predicaments as being nearly mowed down by a tractor trailer.

The Giant Mechanical Man (Lee Kirk, dir., 2012), played in shiny loose suit, silver face paint, and strap on stilts by Chris Messina, owns a bicycle but never appears to ride it, akin to Jerry Seinfeld’s Klein MTB (or was it a silver Cannondale?) hanging in his apartment. Insecurities plague men and women alike. It’s a wonder anyone ever leaves home, never mind rides amidst merciless traffic vulnerable on a bicycle. Blame insurance company, who sells motorists permission to operate irresponsibly, though vehicular negligence still carries a prison sentence.

Boyhood (Richard Linklater, dir., 2014) made cinematic history by filming the same cast over a period of 12 years. Mason (Ellar Coltrane) grows up, learns to ride a bike, and reaches marrying, motoring and voting ages. Participants collected over a dozen top awards: Academy, BAFTA, Golden Globe, and New York Film Critics.

Griffin Cleveland and his foursome of zeroes ride their bikes around Santa Clarita in Southern California, back and forth from middle school, and straight into adventure. In their meanderings they come across a suitcase of incredible Time Toys (Mark Rosman, dir., 2016) from the future. With them they foil Zircon CEO Greg Germann, whose conservative bent and theft of futuristic weapons threatens all life on earth decades hence. High tech shoes enable one boy to pedal up to 80 mph to outrun corporate henchmen chasing by car. Feckless new CEO Ed Begley, Jr. pulls up in a limo to ask children to bail him out and follow on their bikes. Plot devices appear to be purloined from recently reviewed P.U.N.K.S. (1999).

Dear Zindagi (Gauri Shinde dir., 2016) translates to Dear Life. This Hindi drama has novice cinematographer Keira (Alia Bhatt) returning home to live with her overbearing parents and seeking counseling for her insomnia from offbeat Goa psychologist Dr. Jehangir Khan (Shah Rukh Khan), whose treatment methods include riding bicycles. She promptly crashes, but he refuses to help her up, since session time concluded and she needs to learn self reliance.

Hundreds of features, film shorts, and television episodes bear a title of bicycle, though not all have something to do with a two wheeled lifestyle. Outstanding among them, short drama La Biciclette (Sara Glaoua, dir., 2017) stars young Tony (George Missalilidis) who, alone among his cycling posse rides a razor scooter, has a crush on adult Alice (Leschelle Hewett), who’s already in a meaningful relationship. Despite fact that he vandalizes her bike out of spite, they invite him to an age appropriate party.

One Percent More Humid (Liz Garcia, dir., 2017) has Iris (Juno Temple) hooking up with childhood friend Charlotte (Julia Garner), both on summer break from college, after traffic death of their threesome’s third member. Iris grieves, rides around her New England hometown, and skinny dips in nearby swimming hole. Any wetter, everyone will drown.

Paris, post Charlie Hebdo massacre, another jihadist attack kills sister of odd job guy Vincent Lacoste, who barely gets by but nevertheless must take custody of her young daughter, his niece Amanda (Mikhaël Hers, dir., 2017). They deal with their grief and get around The City of Lights by riding their bikes. Survivors move on, but must differentiate between inalienable free speech and intolerable hate crimes.

Low budget Irish comedy The Young Offenders (Peter Foote, dir., 2017) has Cork teens Connor (Alex Murphy) and Jock (Chris Walley) stealing bicycles to ride on a quest to find a bale of cocaine worth €7 million lost after trafficker’s boat capsized. Unknown to them, bike on which Jock, a bike theft suspect, is riding has had a tracking device planted by Sergeant Healey, an obsessed local sheriff out to trap him in a sting. Soon old rivals and provoked smugglers join chase along the Wild Atlantic Way. Film, based on actual events, earned 20 times its investment and won several festival awards. As a feature filmed on location amidst emerald fields of Cork, joins The Runway (Ian Power, dir., 2011) recently reviewed.

Indian comedy Tripping on a Bicycle (Subbiah Nallamuthu, dir., 2018) has two Buddhist monks, Dorje (James Keenan) and Jamyang (Sikandar Bhana) aiding a neighbor by taking title trek. Haven’t viewed this hard-to-find film; no trailer was readily available, either.

Hedonistic poet Moondog (Matthew McConaughey) parties hearty in the Florida Keys while slowly composing a memoir, The Beach Bum (Harmony Korine, dir., 2019). He cheats on his wife Minnie (Isla Fisher), neglects daughter Heather (Stefania LaVie Owen), and sends wife into arms of his R&B singer friend Lingerie (Snoop Dogg). Acting inappropriately, bicycling in a bong mask and nought but a thong, drinking beer, and smoking ganja fill his parrothead, playboy lifestyle that fans so admire though fraught with continual tragedies. Exploit others, go with greed, and satisfy self in the moment seems its empty message. While Labann looks for instances of adults enjoying bikes, this isn’t an ideal example to show tykes.

Millie Bobby Brown plays bicycling sleuth Enola Holmes (Harry Bradbeer, dir., 2020), who enlists her older brother, famous consulting detective Sherlock, to help unravel a mystery in which her feminist mother (Helena Bonham-Carter) disappears. Patriarchs never want women to have any say. Oligarchs never want anyone to vote. Just about every evil that befalls society somehow descends from the top. While it’s myopic to rely on familiarity of World’s best known literary character, sounds like a fun story of female emancipation, which was so associated with 1890’s bicycling.

Feature film Viena and the Fantomes (Gerardo Naranjo, dir., 2020) has occasional bicyclist and punk roadie Viena (Dakota Fanning) on the tour bus traveling across 1980’s America. Self absorbed band members are broke, attract no audiences, perform at empty venues, and take advantage of entourage. Meanwhile, in another feature, bicycling teen Violet (kid sister Elle Fanning shown on her Schwinn) teams with on-probation classmate Theodore (Justice Smith) to report on All The Bright Places (Brett Haley, dir., 2020) around Indiana. Taboos are challenged as romance ensues. 

These known bicyclist, modern feminist sisters will appear together on screen for the first time in WWII drama The Nightingale (Mélanie Laurent, dir., 2021), another film in production slowed by COVID-19. Surprises that Dakota Fanning’s character Sara Howard isn’t seen pedaling in The Alienist miniseries, although she already raises male hackles for owning her own detective business. TV mystery series Home Before Dark, favorably compared to The Alienist, concerns bicycling sleuth and budding journalist Hilde Lisko (Brooklyn Prince) exposing a cold case involving her own father in the Pennsylvania lake town where he once lived. Filming of Season 2 is also in pandemic hiatus. Prospects for decent entertainment soon manifesting seem as grim as these storylines.

Nilou Hemat is tired of being stuck in a traffic jam every day on her way to grade school. Together with equally precocious Belgian friend Tuur De Baere, she invents a game, Cyclomax (Daniel Lambo, dir., 2020), that aims to change Brussels into a bicycling friendly city and get everyone on their bikes, which would relieve traffic gridlock.

German sports movie to be released next month, Madison: A Fast Friendship (Kim Strobl, dir., 2020) stars Felice Ahrens in title role of a teen racer trying to live up to champion dad’s legacy, but gets sidelined by a track crash. While on a healing vacation she meets Emilia Warenski, who introduces her to mountain bike racing despite mom’s reservations.

Out this Fall, social documentary Sex, Drugs & Bicycles (Jonathan Blank, dir., 2020) will try to correlate a high standard of living with Netherlands’s permissive, semi-socialist, supportive government. USA, which has been covertly ruled by anal retentive repressive conservatives for decades, rates much lower, 15th or so, than top 5 countries in order: Denmark, Switzerland, Finland, Australia and Netherlands. To be clear, with a population exceeded by only China and India, USA is distinctly regional; some locations have less crime and more amenities. And SOL describes an amalgam of all sorts of livability and longevity issues. You might feel safe, sated and serene where you reside, while a mile away whenever races collide unarmed people are being tragically shot by nervous patrolmen. Apathy explains why corruption flourishes and inequality exists.

Tykes Unslain?

Reading synopses and skipping through film after film have uncovered fewer instances of bicycling culture than one might figure given ubiquity of bikes. You’d think but would be wrong that they’d appear more in Chinese or Indian movies. Costume dramas set earlier than two centuries ago shouldn’t show any. Action heroes increasingly rely on advanced technologies and jet propulsion. Pricey transportation choices don’t sell themselves, only occur as a result of conditioned delusions. Directors will never guarantee expressive quality since criteria are steeped in subjectivity. Face it, most scripts feature juvenile ideas, nightmarish fears, product placements, or silly plots. Filmmakers compile scenes about anything, just roll dice in hopes investment pays off. Big budget don’t necessarily produce blockbusters. Jewels are rare by definition. Movie time resembles what bicyclists mentally do while they ply every byway: Pay attention to approaching pavement, plan next ride segment, use quiet between meditating, noticing scenery, and reflecting on whatever one encounters directly or vicariously in any given moment.

Wide eyed Suzy Bannion (Jessica Harper) dances through cult horror classic Suspiria (Dario Argento, dir., 1977). If only that girl’s bike parked out front wasn’t removed, she could ride into town to escape witch coven that poses as a ballet school. As Professor Milius (Rudolf Schündler) explains, “[Witches] are malefic, negative and destructive... They can change the course of events, and people’s lives, but only to do harm... Their goal is to accumulate great personal wealth, but that can only be achieved by injury to others. They can cause suffering, sickness, and even the death of those who, for whatever reason, have offended them.“ Sounds like what poses as government these days. Greedy and needy, you waste treasures at your own jeopardy. Oddly, in recent remake Suzy walks past a group of liberating bicycles with no thought to ride away and save herself. Jump on and just go, girl!

Television series Pacific Blue (1996 - 2000) was yet another law and order drama. It covered daily dealings of Santa Monica’s elite bicycle squad. Season 1, Episode 3 stunt riders tackled nazi aggressors, nudist protestors, and wall desecrators. Likely it was canceled because it there’s only so much mileage you can get from a bikini clad bimbo and Muscle Beach bravado, although popular competing show Baywatch flexed and jiggled for 12 seasons. Monkees drummer Micky Dolenz who played city’s mayor was the only well known cast member.

A gang of tykes on bikes get embroiled in A Christmas Tale (Paco Plaza, dir., 2005), more like a low budget Spanish Goonies adventure. Hanging at and zooming around an amusement park that’s closed and for sale, they find a woman in a Santa suit, who fell down a well. For foolish reasons they decide to feed her but refuse to help her escape, later suspect she stole $2 million pesetas (less than $14,000 before Euros took over) according to news broadcasts. Once out, she tries to kill them all, only they pull Home Alone tactics, which result in her being decisively impaled but still a deadly threat.

Delusional author Mike O'Connell, when informed by his doctor he'll die of a grave, vague disease before end of next day, immediately implements The Living Wake (Sol Tryon, dir., 2007), so he can enjoy every minute of living, including grief of those bereaved. Considering himself on par with literary great Samuel Johnson, he has his own Boswell in manservant Jesse Eisenberg, who records every moment. Means limited by lack of cash, they embark on a full day itinerary with Eisenberg pedaling O'Connell throughout on a cycle rickshaw.

Protektor (Marek Najbrt, dir., 2009) set in 1942 Prague has Marek Daniel as a respected reporter who collaborates with Nazi invaders in order to defend Jewish movie star wife Jana Plodkova. Antisemitic enemies get the movie his wife bikes and stars in banned. Secretly he’s with antifascist resistance; when he attempts to assassinate Reich’s Deputy Protektor, photo evidence of a bicycle emerges to implicate him. Though couple go to lengths to hide it, bike proves to be their undoing.

Hesher (Spencer Susser, dir., 2011) opens with school kid TJ (Devin Brochu) on a BMX with a duct-taped seat chasing a tow truck and t-boning a car. Accident prone, his arm is already in a cast. Nicole (Academy Best Actress Natalie Portman) protects TJ when bully Dustin, who thinks TJ tagged his sports car, chases, doors, and smacks TJ down. Foul mouthed, mentally unstable, metal head squatter Hesher (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), who really vandalized car to punish TJ, witnesses further bullying, won’t interfere on boy’s behalf, but would later incinerate Dustin’s car and let TJ take blame. Police are unable to make charges against the boy stick without evidence. Hesher brings Nicole and TJ to a vacant home for sale, goes on a destructive rampage, hurls patio furniture and rides another bike into pool, then sets diving board on fire. Adults repeatedly disappoint this traumatized kid, who has lost in rapid succession his mother, grandmother, and innocence.

Daydream Nation (Mike Goldbach, dir., 2011) describes hopes youth have during systemic decline. Some just find cheap ways to dull ire and get high. Residents of a small town worry over smog from a continual industrial fire, so wear masks whenever they ride bikes, and a serial murderer killing cheerleaders, so pair up whenever outside. Wiseacre teen Kat Dennings (Two Broke Girls) safely bikes solo, but occasionally drives a Volvo, whereupon she collides with killer, so does town a favor pro bono.

She sums up society’s turmoil, “People will tell you that nothing matters, the whole world is about to end soon, but... Things don’t need to last forever to be perfect.” This pandemic too will pass, later if not sooner. And, as the late Gill Scott Heron warned, “The revolution will not be televised... reruns... will be live,” gestures supplanted by active changes.

World class geneticist William Blakely (Conal Byrne) takes home his research and sets into motion The Reconstruction of William Zero (Dan Bush, dir., 2014). He’s haunted by a fatal accident when motoring home and mowing down his own 6 year old son just after he taught him to ride a bike and told him to pedal on street outside. He consequently separates from bereaved wife Amy Seimetz, then, in order to disappear and escape grief, creates a clone of himself into whom he dumps all his memories. William Two hatches an evil plot to further clone himself and kill anyone who opposes plans, including nosy neighbor Scott Poythress, shown. William Three, aware he won’t live long, kills William Two, reconciles with unsuspecting wife, then transfers renewed relationship to William Zero. Although complete and complex fiction where nobody really died, every day motorists slay tykes, tyros and vets. By now, practically everyone has been inured against feeling complicit.

The Strongest Man (Kenny Riches, dir., 2015), Cuban immigrant Beef (Robert Lorie) and his Korean buddy Conan (Paul Chamberlain, l to r) are construction laborers in Miami. Beef doesn’t drive, loves his gold plated BMX bicycle upon which he can do impressive tricks, but it gets stolen. Conan feels responsible so helps him look for it downtown, which turns dicey after dark. Meanwhile, an existential Beauty and the Beef affair evolves with neighbor’s niece. Plagued with insecurities, Beef wisely testifies, “Sometimes I get anxious... Then I worry about feeling sick. I start worrying about germs, and doorknobs and hands... and humans, and filth, and public restrooms... about getting old... and going to die soon. There’s nothing you can do. Then you die,” prophetically given current events. Labann figures that biking 10 miles a day, or covering full or half century rides weekly, and still being able to lift bike onto its storage hooks provides evidence of one’s vitality and validates clean living and superficial scars through decade seven.

To the Moon (Emma Thatcher, dir., 2015) sent eighteen bicycling activists from San Francisco, CA to Amherst, MA through 15 northerly states, and took its title from an H.D. Thoreau quote about fresh-faced optimism. CoCycle hoped to raise awareness for United Nations’ 2011 International Year of the Cooperative, a socially just, sustainable business model. Such cross continental treks have held appeal for restless youth ever since Kerouac’s On The Road, and nation’s highways that facilitate roadie riding with sag support. Nice not having to pitch own tent and ride with panniers. Nicer sponging snacks off coops they visited along the way. All could hardly believe completing fourscore successive metric centuries to finish in less than 3 months.

2020: Fallen Earth (Joshua Land, dir., 2019) predicts a post Peak Oil shortage that decimates humanity. Ten years later, teenage lead Mitch Holson, who bikes across opening titles, hikes across a barren landscape in search of his estranged uncle’s farm to escape brutality of scavenger mentality. As a species, mankind doesn’t need a zombie uprising to witness apocalypse; desperation to preserve comforts and distribution inefficiency through loss of easy fossil fuels would drive anyone to savagery. Motorists are already impatient savages squabbling over lane space and right-of-way rules in place.

Bitten Tongue

Working in a vacuum is unhealthy. Errors creep in, go unnoticed, threaten truth. Challenged on a public forum, had to revise some figures cited, because billions spent over time unbelievably became trillions when you skip stating decade instead of year. Still, since 2000, USDOT did spend about $1 trillion dollars. If a dollar was a mile, that would be 10,000 astronomical units, 5,000 roundtrips to Sun, more than all miles of paved roads on Earth. You’d think a few hundred million meanwhile spent on bike paths and lane stripes would have cut costs and improved lives. How do you assess this impact? Did driven miles abate? Those “tons of accidents” never came to pass that naysayers predicted because more are bicycling. In fact, crash fatalities are falling. The more who use bikes instead of inherently dangerous cars, the fewer accidents occur, and less they must spend on potholes. Then again, economic recession would similarly impact cuts with fewer commuting to work, less elective trips, and so forth. Attempts to isolate causes and effects fail. Everything is inextricably intertwined, whence “The Butterfly Effect”, the postulate not video in which Ashton Kutcher dismounts off back of a fixie which continues like an arrow into a bike rack.

Have never heard of Poincaré Recurrence applied to vehicular traffic, but using chaos theory would be perfectly logical. Start point and what happens downstream affect conditions later. Traffic flow is randomly affected by building construction, commute times, recurring festivals, road resurfacing, transportation hubs, urban planning, and whatnot. If recession continues, as bridges collapse and highways close, traffic will retreat from multilane gridlock to something resembling local lanes of yesteryear. Engineers don’t study philosophical theories, even ones a century old. People retreat into silos of thinking, because knowing everything in even the narrowest of disciplines is practically impossible. Individual memories fade; progress tosses out historical reasons. Civilization depends upon countless collaborations continually operating upon consensus. Lawyers define a rule, practitioners comply, regulators monitor, supreme court calls it legal or strikes it down thereby completing circle and creating need for always reevaluating how and what you do.

Who can claim to know everything? Whatever you read is wrong. Knowing nothing is closer to reality. Facing unexpected challenges and surviving is the only talent that matters. Being an oracle only means realigning minds to truths before them. Each statement can be judged by its effect. When people instantly respond, it touches upon whatever they are already thinking, but who cares? Brilliant ideas or works sometimes take decades to radiate; by then, everyone accepts them as commonplace or commonsense. Giving up after impatiently waiting is way too easy. “Not doing that anymore,” is today’s epidemic, since everyone expects quality and no one want to provide anything resembling it. Excellent beats mediocre, but mediocre kicks incompetent’s ass.

Geeked Again

June 2012 was the last month of freely shared Bike&Chain. Book is being edited into a single, smaller, tighter document. Best facts from blog will be rolled into book, but this new edition will only be available for purchase elsewhere, details forthcoming.

Book was originally published open source 4 years ago, which meant anything could be used without permission. Author asked for but didn't demand that he be credited. Henceforth, all content is copyrighted. Site remains, however, commercial free.

Geeks at Apple shut down Mobile Me, where content was hosted. All the effort of learning their front end, obeying rules, and staging content has to be repeated. Ever wonder why techies feel they must constantly  reorganize how things work? Can't increase cash flow in stagnation? Never get it right the first time? And they called Labann capricious when practically a fixed frame of reference in swirling madness by comparison.