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.

Hanker Sane

“They say that, ‘Patriotism is the last refuge to which a scoundrel clings.’ Steal a little and they throw you in jail; steal a lot and they make you king. There's only one step down from here, baby. It’s called the land of permanent bliss. What’s a sweetheart like you doing in a dump like this?” Bob Dylan, Sweetheart Like You, Infidels, 1983

None can predict what might occur with certainty, though irrational behaviors often bring harm and ought to be avoided if possible. Don’t expect genius decisions from brains afflicted with dementia, parasites or syphilis. Legally and politically, ignorance is no excuse, but insanity does provide a lame defense. Madmen can be entertaining, about the only reason anyone nowadays acquires a name, evades blame, gains fame, or stakes a claim. One ought to hanker defining reality over sane washing absurdity. But as a criminal regime dawns, exemplary service in society’s interests secures yawns.

Andrew Wyeth (1930 to 2006) watercolor on board; artist is known for painting scenes from native Maine to Pennsylvania brimming with intense surrealism and magic realism.

“The truth knocks on the door and you say, ‘Go away, I’m looking for the truth.’ and so it goes away. Puzzling.” “When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called Religion.” Quality maniac Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (HarperCollins, 1974, 448 pp.), 50th anniversary

Before 2024 election, couldn’t get enough of Strike Force Five and their hilarious criticisms of sick cultists in diametric contrast, and sparkling wits such as John Stewart and Tim Miller (shown below in parent’s basement flanked by bicycle posters). Now they are too sad and tragically targeted to merit same attention. Entertainers and journalists who champion truths and expose lawmakers will always be the enemies of tyrants.

Compulsions to create authentic content instead spread fallacy pollution. You can read lies daily in salacious headlines drawing audiences to another dull presentation meant to meet deadlines. Social media uses artificial intelligence to score influence, and, since purchased by privileged immigrants, sift out disloyal or dissident participants. All you can legitimately do is avoid trolls, boycott nonsense, buy nothing, ignore clickbait, and resist despots. Meanwhile, the exact opposite coexists, modest titles fronting indispensable testimony, intangible religiosity, and nontaxable charity.

Robert Isenberg, Mile Markers (Last Picked Books, 2024, 220 pp.), “A bicycle isn’t just a piece of sports equipment or a fun hobby. It is the purest innovation, a tool of liberation, the antidote for a million human woes.”

Complex phenomena come from random insufficiencies. Situations greatly vary. Seldom does one size fit all. Ice Road truckers don’t benefit as much from bicycle transportation as crosstown office commuters. Bicycles are labor saving devices compared to walking, but not while hauling tonnage. Who wants to be forced arbitrarily to do something more difficult than necessary? Jacques Derrida warned of torturing poets on a Procrustean Bed which sacrifices context for conformity. Old farts who plot violence and proceed unhinged against those they swore to serve will themselves, “Be hoisted with their own petard,”poetic justice of ironic outcomes, unintended suicides during terrorist bombings, not to be confused with pittards, leather gloves that protect well until outdoor winter trips trigger frozen fingertips.

After a year in America that saw historic investment in bicycling infrastructure and reciprocal equipment purchases, you’d naturally expect books, films, and songs to acknowledge and celebrate, and a dozen sparked recognition. Never underestimate the power of visual stimuli to shape perceptions and sway behaviors. Pick for yourself which one promotes prudent conduct. 

Alcoholic divorcee Michael (Brian Stillar), known locally as Bike (Terrance Odette, dir., 2024), resorts to collecting bottles, raiding dumpsters, running errands, scrounging beers, and stealing bicycles. One assignment has him arduously messengering a mystery envelope up a steep escarpment. His one hope, to jumpstart a relationship with his teenage daughter, runs into a detour when he witnesses a drive-by shooting.

Camera Corner (Josh Weinberg, dir., 2024) documents Wende Cragg’s archive of thousands of photos of early mountain bikes and Marin County’s MTB community circa 1974.

In uplifting fact-based feature film Hard Miles (Daniel Hannah, dir., 2024), social worker Matthew Modine ushers juvenile delinquents serving soft sentences on an epic bicycle tour to Grand Canyon, aided by sag driver Cynthia Kaye McWilliams and wrench tech Sean Astin (Samwise Gamgee in LOTR). Everyone tumbles at least once on first attempt at using cleats.

Heretic (Bryan Woods and Scott Beck, dirs., 2024) follows Mormon sisters Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) and Paxton (Chloe East) blithely biking about, imposing their beliefs door to door, while seeking converts, until they arrive at the home of atheist psychopath Mr. Reed (Hugh Grant), lock up bikes, and shuffle indoors. Resembles empty promises and fraught visits on political campaigns. This grim film received 2 dozen award nominations.

Rebel Ridge (Jeremy Saulnier, dir., 2024) shows ex-special forces marine Terry Richmond (Aaron Pierre) run afoul of corrupt police in rural South. After they knock him off his mountain bicycle and confiscate cash with which he was planning to bail out his cousin, random Rambo mayhem commences.

Souleymane’s Story (Boris Lojkine, dir., 2024, in French) is portrayed by Abou Sangare, who delivers food in Paris by bicycle. To qualify for asylum, he must prepare an autobiography prior to a state inquiry. Was nominated for 10 awards and won 7.

Tess Parks - Some Days: The Bike Song From Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (Warner Bros. Pictures, Tim Burton, dir., 2024), “I don't like anything, but I love everyone some days... when the sun is out and good people are about it restores my faith.” Lydia Deetz’s psychic heir Astrid (Jenna Ortega) avoids colliding her bike with carelessly driven trucks but crashes through fence into the yard of Jeremy Frazier (Arthur Conti), who secretly designs her unsolicited destiny for his own expediency. Despicables dupe innocents, especially during elections. Living free is wondrous, withstanding afterlife monstrous. 

We Are Rock n Roll (Justin Balog, dir., 2024) is a documentary of the American Criterium Cup, a series of up to 10 races for points for purses totaling $500,000.

Bicycle Film Festival is currently and virtually presenting BFF Classics, short films previously introduced during its 25 year history, through 31 March 2025. There will also be physical exhibitions of new works at various global locations including Copenhagen.

Pandemic doctor Daniela Schwendener gets revitalized by gravel bicycling on her Days Off (Liam Higgins, dir., 2022), an overlooked short from a few years ago promoting Cotic Bikes shot on location in England’s Peak District National Park.

Project A (Jackie Chan, dir.,1983) casts himself as Sergeant Dragon Ma Yue Lung and performs in martial arts battles including a frenetic bicycle scene set in Hong Kong alleys. What’s the goal of that silly slapstick sound at every kick?

Patricia Taxxon, Big Wheel, Bicycle, self, 2024 - Rambling aural experiment eventually gets around to lyrics: "The big wheel in the sky, he arcs o’er miles and miles... We can see the whole town from up here, feel the wind sail past our ears, the whistling noise it makes, so frigid and so fierce.”

Which Essain?

“Go forth, voyager, and imitate, if you can, this mighty avenger for freed men.” [Abi Viator, et imitare, si poteris, strenuum pro virli liberatis vindicatorem] - Jonathan Swift’s Epitaph 

Saw Carl Sagan on a bicycle (Cosmos, Episode 8) speak about Albert Einstein riding his own bicycle while ruminating upon light speed, thus deriving Theory of Special Relativity. Nothing can travel faster than light, and light you emit while in motion isn’t additive. Later, during year’s first night ride along a lonely country road under headlights and starry skies, this thought thread led to recalling Hubble’s Constant (H0 = 7%/Gyr.) and red shift. Doppler is relative to one’s point of perception. No matter from which direction sound approaches, pitch rises, then lowers as it recedes, even when passing from behind at 90°. As do all cyclists inundated by phenomena, have heard this personally many times over, especially in light traffic under low visibility. Disgusted by those who deny or ignore such reality; science requires curiosity, logic, memory, and organized thought impossible while smashed, stoned, or stupid. Ignorance must be bliss, because being observant means more anxiety, suffering, and worry about what’s already wrong and what’s coming that’s worse.

While identifying worldwide bicycle brands, noticed how Asian makers don't mention who built them; individual contributions aren’t lauded or revered there as in the West; founders and workforce were considered functionaries who filled roles then were swapped out unceremoniously. Balance abhors extremes of conceit and humility. Although cultures vary, a lack of alternatives among paths to survival defines slavery. Buy-in expects rewards you trust. What’s left to incentivize workers or writers? Death threats? Fierce intimidation? Tire treads, too, almost imperceptibly daily get ground down eventually, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

Latest bike boom seems to have stalled. Some blame elitist attitudes and LBS hubris. But politics do hugely influence sales. Contagion protocols, spiraling food and fuel costs, and supply chain disruptions boosted bike buys. But conservative nabobs in bed with Big Oil want to bury bicycling, because for many it’s a viable alternative to motoring and wasting fossil fuels, a dwindling state subsidized resource for which they overcharge for obscene profits. Their ill conceived tariffs will hike price of each Taiwan bike, by far world's biggest source. Republicans also object to Congestion Relief Zone Tolls, meant to free up Lower Manhattan’s streets for safety’s sake, whose proceeds partially fund bicycling advocacy. Meanwhile, GOP candidates got preponderance of campaign donations from sports team owners. These billionaires are burnt, because viewership for all sports are down based upon how exclusive they’ve become, yet you can’t even watch live broadcasts of local crits or major tours due to network bias against.

The Wheel magazine (New York, 1883) opined, “Of the city ordinance prohibiting bicycle riding in Central Park, bicyclers are as much entitled to consideration and provision for their enjoyment as the owners of carriages and light wagons. Discrimination against them on the ground that their vehicle is peculiar is simply absurd. To permit the owner of a light wagon to use it on any highway from which the bicyclist is excluded is an abuse of power...” Enter Jane Jacobs and her 40 years of social criticism covered in her centennial remembrance Jane Jacobs, Vital Little Plans: The Short Works of Jane Jacobs (Random House, 2016, 544 pp.) including essays Downtown Is for People, and Pedaling Together. If her nemesis urban planner Robert Moses had his way, he’d have replaced more bike friendly neighborhoods with multilane motorways.

Four Horsemen, Same Destination, Apocalypse

How many brainy essain [essays, swarms, or trials] does it take to escape fears and feel free? Which one will resonate effectively to save constitution and democracy? It’s no easy mission. Invert letters [essian] and you wind up in a wasteland. Apathetic people only heed repeated threats. Not all essayists grind their own axes and hone at-home causes; Busy bees and Labann published dire warnings against lawless monsters, but voters rather acquit and confer power to convicted psychopaths, known rapists, and media moguls who micromanage opinions. Between illogical misinformation and willful disinformation, goal of incessant lying is not to convince victims, but to discredit truth so no one believes anything. Philip Dick assumed, “If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words.” Were that true, deranged dictators would be under thumbs of cagey intellectuals, though this usually proves exactly the opposite. Dullard jocks bully timid nerds. Dimwitted hoodlums cower compliant sheep.

The longer you’re around, the more absurd your numbers sound, for example, 250,000 miles by bicycle, then 2,500 consequent pages about bicycling culture in an imaginative style AI could never imitate including definitive brands and songs indices beyond a 150,000 page career writing nonfiction. Just needed to do, but who did it serve? Septuagenarians should go fewer miles at higher frequencies to make up for when they were weekend warriors logging centuries. Similarly, activists must organize more protests against every unconstitutional policy that favors wealthy few over vast majority.

Candidates, congress, courts, networks, and press all colluded with oligarchy and hoodwinked voters this election cycle; survival is up to citizens now. Not everyone concerns themselves in everyday toil or knows how miles get trod in another’s shoes. Biking beats walking, but still requires physical effort many despise. Those who enjoy privileges of affluence, comforts, and intelligence are obligated to act wisely and exercise freedoms against tyranny and want, of religion and speech, to protect such rights and set examples. Office holders are supposed to serve public, not stuff own pockets with dark money due to Citizen's United. Democracy isn't broken, representation is; worse, perceived corruption legitimizes empty promises of remorseless swindlers.

After pro-Nazi Bund rally at Madison Square Garden in 1939, one supposes that 1970 and 1973 Nicks’ NBA championships there subsequently, and 53 amazing Grateful Dead concerts, had exorcised its villainy and restored its vibe. But in 2024 another hate filled fascist/racist rally occurred at MSG. How many Taylor Swift performances will it take to cleanse venue again? She’s already vowed not to appear in red states that betrayed care of citizens and rule of law. Blue states with brain trusts bailed them out for decades. CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 disproportionately benefits red state workers as a gesture of solidarity. Why bother?

With limited capacities and lifelines, humans conveniently sort everyone into dynamic groups: Ignorables, Givers, Reciprocators, and Takers. Some rate one’s circle of trust, or rather rhombus of doubt, square of condemnation, or triangle of suspicion. Such callous discriminations cast every feature film or stage play ever written, but never capture reality of individuals across lifetimes of development and withdrawal on a spectrum from benign to lethal. Aged ED leads directly to edgy evil devoid of empathy.

Ignorables are those you don’t know and will probably never meet despite fact they mean obligations for which you tacitly pay yet vociferously resent. Givers are altruists, lovers, mothers, and others who do for everyone else and expect little, perhaps gratitude, which slowly melts these saints into puddles of self. Masses prefer Reciprocators who trade whatever they have—effort, goods, produce, skills, time, wealth—quid pro quo for something they desire or need. Describes anticipated relationships among businesses, citizens, corporations, government, neighbors chipping in to defend nation and share in programs including bridge and highway repairs, child welfare, clean water, consumer protection, healthcare availability, law enforcement, retirement security, waste management, and whatnot... taken for granted though never guaranteed. Failure thereof is despicable, particularly treasury raids. Takers are deplorables, often born into or perverted by bad habits for which they were never punished; they develop antisocial personality disorders from which they abuse privileges, accumulate property, commit crimes, lord over others, never share fairly, take revenge, and use power bestowed upon them with brutality and impunity. What of the hypocrisy of rejecting vaccine immunity while requesting legal immunity?

Steps towards authoritarian rule pivot upon consolidating power and dehumanizing ignorables: Anyone unpaid deserving relief or meeting needs including homemakers, children with birth defects, ethic minorities, illegal immigrants, indentured servants, military families, retirees on pensions and social security, soldiers overseas, trafficked slaves, welfare recipients, and whoever has no champion and looks vulnerable enough to cut off, deport, enslave, forsake, murder or sacrifice without blowback. Hungry refugees can easily be cowered into kowtowing. That why republicans create recessions whenever they control congress, courts, or presidency. Educated, self assured, successful citizens see right through demented schemes of smug thugs; dolts don’t and get duped time and again. With a smile despots elevate criminals, exploit neutrals, and persecute innocents.

Every government improvement Labann ever suggested involved vetting a candidate’s character and competence, such as picking a president from among tenured senators. What happening is the opposite, anointing someone with least experience, who’s surrounding himself with loyalists of less competence, who’ll break laws to fulfill his lust for vengeance. This insincere Sin City crime syndicate has been flooding zones with culture wars (pedophilia, transgender) and petty issues (drones over Jersey), focusing on domestic purges, and using reflexive control, so you neglect monitoring enemies, domestic and foreign, real threats. USA has never been closer to World War III, largely because of disregard of constitutional compliance, democratic norms, national unity, and rule of law.

Because of conservative congressional votes and red state sovereignty, federal minimum wage remains $7.25/hour, and $2.00/hour at worst in Oklahoma. Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich says of this rigged system, “Among American workers, the median wage of the bottom 90% has not increased, adjusted for inflation, in 52 years. Where did all the money go? It went to the top [10%].” Economists say a living wage depending upon where you reside would now be 2 to 3 times more, between $15 and $25/hour; blue states MA, NJ, NY, and WA now mandate $15/hour. Millions of American families occupy remote homesteads, usually without electricity, running water, or state services. Because so many can’t afford rents, 600,000 are still homeless. Property ownership began a downturn during Bush recession and its resultant mortgage crisis. But media predictions for and relentless caricaturization of Biden’s term as a failure were lies; GDP and stock markets hit historic highs, house values soared, 70,000 infrastructure projects began, and unemployment hit 50-year lows, but, no surprise, corporate profiteering and crony gouging incensed masses and incited voter discontent. When promised the opposite, 21% of Americans instead revisited conservatism that already failed them. More collectively but unsuccessfully chose progressive candidates. Too bad blue wave passes with election results. Be prepared to lose equity and savings when economy collapses.

A storm looms. Forget any promises to deflate grocery prices, improve 450 federal agencies, and prune $50 trillion in public debt. Expect whatever sweeps wealth into general fund, so it can be seized by same thieves who ceased taxes to trickle freeze billionaires, ran up deficit $8 trillion, and still hawk sleezy bibles and weird souvenirs to unwary cretins. Describing institutional counterpoints and reasonable regulations as “deep state” projects frustration of not being able to get away with atrocities. Immigrant deportations and government layoffs will result in disastrous job losses and escalating debt from revenue reduction. Affordable care, cancer research, food inspection, Medicare, school lunches, and Social Security will likely be curtailed among other programs. Lawless will be redefined as unloyal. Will Dick Wolfe’s cops and feds protecting public from fictional perps still get higher ratings than Hannity unreality? Fox's answer will be shutting down agencies to allow unchecked mayhem only they can report on, and stay on mission to make American democracy look not worth saving. Federal real estate, Fort Knox gold, national museum treasures, and whatever citizens own in common will be auctioned off to creditors and divvied up among oligarchs. Opponent asset/property seizures are probable. Cuts in entitlements for elderly and patients with existing conditions equal death sentences. Health, wealth, and wellbeing of citizens possess no priority within an agenda of embezzlement and enslavement. Next, financial institutions and insurance companies will be targeted for tax increases. This raises premiums and reduces returns, since costs are passed on to depositors and insurees.

International free trade is a war deterrent. It gives all parties reasons to avoid war because it risks own productive infrastructure and supply chains to resources not locally available. Rabid nationalists don’t grasp this subtle diplomacy. Intended to punish foreign traders and reboot domestic producers, tariffs attack trade, curb income, hike taxes, impoverish population, invite boycotts, and welcome isolationism, enough to drive entrepreneurs away, leaving only exempt billionaires and poor masses, who they’ll treat as slaves until they revolt. This scenario has often been repeated but never ends well. Zero sum games kill everyone alike, including alleged winners. A social contract of constitutional rights built USA into an economic powerhouse and world leader. China may boast of burgeoning growth, but America has been its main customer; another GDP downturn will preempt their plans and project weakness. If they can’t dominate trade, they’ll have to invade.

The diversity of hundreds of sovereignties suppresses evil bids for world domination and vile ambitions of megalomaniacs. Every territorial grab urges other countries to expand their empires as well. China eyes Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam, has already made inroads into Africa and South America, and owns expanses of American farmland. Incoming POTUS jokes of annexing Canada, Greenland, and Mexico as a half dozen USA states while ignoring protectorate Puerto Rico. Russian bots ferret out any social media discussion and input spin to counter anything that detracts from their political goals. FBI caught RT red handed bribing influencers to sway USA’s elections. As did Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin, Putin had troops target Ukrainian bicyclists as a control tactic. Bicyclists evade capture, represent freedom, and spread intel among resistance, facts well documented by WWII historians. Despots can't allow that.

Preamble spells it out. “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” Amidst divisive splinters where are these unified blessings? Framer Thomas Jefferson warned, “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.” Whose freedom? What vigilance? Where has everyone’s yearning for justice gone? Worn down by a decade with no due process? When overrun by own government factions, 330 million disorganized residents who hitherto exercised freedom without responsibility forfeit whatever recourses they once had. Consensus on critical issues that once led to cooperative solutions now represents the greatest threat to authoritarian rule, therefore becomes its primary target for disruption.

If economic aid was offered to Russian people provided they’d overthrow Putin, threat of current war expanding throughout Europe would be mitigated. Inflation there is hovering at 23%/year. However, if you value sovereignty, you don’t go about toppling other governments; no, you abide will of their citizens, presuming they must be content with mismanagement, given they vastly outnumber rulers and own everything, at least on paper. Yet Russia actively provokes Americans into believing nonsense and fighting among themselves. Atychiphobic Putin is desperate to discredit democracy, because his autocracy is failing. Seeing hundreds of thousands of army age males fleeing country, with war against Ukraine going just about as well as Afghanistan, he doesn't want remaining subjects figuring out he's a foundering fraud. If you believe to build nation you must invade neighbors, you’ve misgoverned own domain and wasted citizens' resources.

What is a nation anyway? Blood may be thicker than water but it’s woefully less refreshing. America is the sum of its constituent diversity, each experimental component strengthening it as a whole. Confidence in 250 years of consistent entitlement to steer ship safely despite whatever comes along naively overlooks Civil and World Wars, elected domestic enemies, organized crime syndicates, and others who would rather burn it all down than revitalize democracy for mutual benefit, which means barring billionaires from buying influence. Downside of leveling a revenge curse is it diminishes both the sender and recipient. Dig 2 graves.

Doom and gloom are feckless holiday topics. People rather assess blame and blindly complain than resolve differences and solve problems. Hope demands action revealed by truths and resolved by efforts. Tyrants take no responsibility for their violence. Can myth and promise of an American way of life survive vultures circling? Wishing for a Christmas miracle won't cure malignant normality, a term recently coined by psychology scholar Robert Jay Lifton. After decades of abusing drugs, letting politicians raid treasury, and running up public debt, future you borrowed from is here to collect what’s it's owed.

“So Many Roads I know... Mountain high, river wide, so many roads to ride... all I want is one to take me home. So many roads tease my soul.” - Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter, 1992

“When ya get half crazy from the August heat, or on a frozen rutted road with no one to complain to about your achin' feet, you're gonna walk that endless highway, walk that highway till you die… With the cost of livin’, and the price of dyin’, well it looks like t'me this time I wont be buyin’... I sing by night, wander by day. I'm on the road, and it looks like I'm here to stay.” - Again relevant Nobel Laureate Bob Dylan, Endless Highway, Before The Flood, 1974, half a century ago

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.

Obscene Sexteyn

Pedaling increases testosterone, which tempts scorchers into trysts for which they might need to atone. Among obese cyclists exploring trails, comely athenas might draw gaze of lonely clydesdales. For clergy, an acolyte or medieval sexteyn could sacrilegiously serve allegedly celibate pastors in sacristies. Bodies are driven by electrical synapses, endocrine hormones, and natural processes to procreate, produce, and seek releases regardless of moralities. Orgasms are a potent analgesic. Only a refined sense of consequence keeps reasonable people from drowning in regrettable pornographies, or endorsing sex trafficking criminalities. Though cracks in affection and fulfillment get filled with anger and resentment, nothing excuses interpersonal malfeasance. Expect to stew excessively in silence.

Johns, junkies, tweakers, and winos vainly volunteer their vulnerabilities to gangsters, murderers, pimps, and politicians, who wrap themselves in national flags and religious vestments. Half of illicit opioids are laced with China white, deadly fentanyl. Being impaired in public certainly doesn’t exonerate felonies but definitely encumbers legal docilities. In-car-cerated doesn’t mean stuck inside your comfy ride, rather you don’t get to pedal a conveyance where you’d like and must hide inside an imaginary shell among depraved predators in a prison hell. Convicts inside are given jobs, so, along with busy monsters hunting outside, get to celebrate Labor Day, which ought to exclude freeloaders and parasites, who make up an increasing portion of US populace. They don’t appreciate that sweat of exertion improves and purifies like nothing else.

However gross, messy, scary or smelly these realities sound, obscene instead describes arresting climate clarion Greta Thunberg and threatening her with a 6 month sentence for protesting Big Oil. So, it’s come down again to condemning youth for speaking truth, who were likewise honest and persecuted in the 1960’s, as history has proven. Conservatives since Nixon fatten upon fossil goo, gun sales, and tax breaks for wealthiest few at the expense of altruism, education, infrastructure improvements, job creation, social programs, and whatever else liberates those whom neocons crave to enslave. With elections looming, they’re condemning nonfiction blogs and books and hiking gasoline prices, economic terrorism they’ve relied upon time and time again.

While alternatives can be half-assed and standardization begets efficiencies, choices matter and deceits boomerang. Much more could be done to promote self propulsion, such as donating unused bicycles to charities, lobbying congress members and state legislators for code enforcement, setting good examples by riding responsibly, and welcoming newcomers of all ages. It’s no hardship dropping off hardware at local bike recyclers or forwarding tax deductible donations to such organizations as:

Bikes for the World - Rockville, MD, USA (99% rating)
Ships used bikes to economically challenged regions worldwide.

Bikes Not Bombs - Boston, MA, USA (82% rating)
Ships used bikes to economically challenged nations in Latin America.

International Bicycle Fund - Seattle, WA, USA
Promotes advocacy and awareness around the world.

Recycle-a-Bike - Providence, RI, USA
Teaches underprivileged teens to rebuild bicycles so they learn marketable skills and wind up with own transportation to work.

Salvation Army - Alexandria, VA (100% rating), plus 15,000 locations in 130 countries
Not only do they welcome drop offs, General Brian Peddle (not Pedal, but close enough), chief executive since 2018, wishes to sell used equipment at rock bottom prices with proceeds going to job therapy for addicts and indigents. What they don’t sell gets passed along periodically to other charities.

Two Wheeler Dealer - Wilmington, NC, USA
If you drop off a unit, they’ll refurbish and donate it for you.

World Bicycle Relief, Chicago, IL (84% rating)
Has donated half a million bicycles to developing countries in Africa and India, as well as taught mechanics how to maintain them. They’ve partnered with Trek and World Vision to support local government efforts.

 A slew of NGOs do nothing but extol bicycling, rather than take a proactive role, such as attend group rides and be seen riding bicycles themselves. Some suddenly close for lack of patronage or scandals over embezzlement. You can gain confidence that those you pick still do worthwhile work by visiting Charity Navigator, which provides contacts, ratings, and specifics.

To be clear, not all people can successfully propel a bicycle, no more than operate a motor vehicle. Less than half of Americans have driver licenses. Both require minimal coordination, intelligence, reflexes, and stamina. To coax those who are deficient is to force failures irresponsibly, though you can’t forever shelter them since they are free to behave responsibly and exercise choices that positively impact self and society. Risks from bad habits, cumulative stress, poor diet, and substance abuse are all more deadly, while bicycling has proven to be a cure and deterrent for all of them. Builders make adaptive handcycles, recumbents, and tricycles for paraplegics and those otherwise challenged, while road users are 20 times safer going by bikes than cars.

E-bikes and pedelecs, essentially light motor vehicles, might not belong on bike paths where speed increase isn’t expected by dog walkers, pedestrians, and unwary users. Want to go faster? Be a faster; abstaining and dieting are world’s cheapest hobbies, whereas international food tourism is the most pricey. Bicycle touring fits budgets; bicycle commuting can cut costs of car ownership tenfold. Sadly ironic, bicycling facilitates motoring by freeing space on streets and postponing oil depletion by using no fuel other than meals.

Surely someone is rushing to set up a defense fund for Greta, as any woke cause is worth exploiting. Private fortunes and public appeals supposedly fund animal rescues, earthquake and hurricane relief, green space rallies, nature conservancies, and several dozen related nonprofits when what really happens is directors enlist volunteers to do dirty work and pocket every donation, while results so far are deforestation, devastation, mass extinction, no improvement or reversal of any condition, the opposite of what they purport. A gift of $1,000/year will save no polar bears or whales without policy changes among the worst national offenders, particularly China and USA. They immorally use your angst, guilt and rage as weapons against you, while you to seek zero carbon footprint on your own.

If majority avoids waste, identifies threats, opposes tyranny, recycles avidly, teaches progeny to do same, and uses only what’s necessary to thrive, nature heals and threats lessen. Don’t wait for God, who’s no fan of ecological suicide, to intervene. You can’t be absolved until you acknowledge trespasses, confess sins, forget debts, and forgive others. Yet you can’t ignore or tolerate audacious actors as they rise to mass murder.

When “Captain Obvious” speaks plainly it invites cancelation, censorship, character assassination, innuendo, rumors, and slander. Enlightenment author Denis Diderot observed, “Those who fear the facts will forever try to discredit the fact-finders,” or as folks escalate nowadays, “Kill the messenger.” Have you ever been subtly shushed by having a topic abruptly changed? Ever accused of “being lost in the weeds” when exploring a fuller picture? Maybe you intended all along to alienate, challenge, frustrate, and separate self from uncaring acquaintances. Even worse, have friends and loved ones had their minds poisoned against you when all you sought was cooperative friendships? You will be ostracized for introducing information beyond scope of current conversation even though everything is part of an interconnected fabric from which universe is made, so always holds relevance to some degree.

Though little good comes from sitting in group meetings, and many dismiss scientific tools as utter mendacity, pareto analysis focuses attention on which influences are the most potent, and what to ignore as butterfly flutter or white noise. One can savor privileges within a web of total delusion; in fact, those who do insulate themselves against public tumult, but someone always pays the price of ignorance. Halfwitted bloggers can make a decent living spouting misinformation and opinion that serve someone’s agenda through advertising, grants, or stipends. QAnon numerologist Michael Protzman attracted nearly one hundred thousand followers by claiming Donald Trump, Elvis Presley, and JFK Jr. were cousins descended from Jesus Christ, until killed this summer in a motorcycle accident.

While Bike&Chain appears articulate and informed, observing behaviors and effects accurately, Labann was never smart enough to rake in a blogger’s average of $38,000/year in revenues, rather incurred net losses and wasted 15 years. No individual can solve life’s issues, only act kindly, be useful, follow laws, pursue nonviolence, and serve needs lest be labeled ludicrous and lose liberties.

Mint Forebrain

Being called upon to do something outside one’s area of expertise isn’t unusual. Not his day job, Labann’s legacy can be summed up by thousands of pages in hefty volumes documenting a century of culture often traced to origins. Much of it exposes incompetence and malfeasance rather than sings praise in human forbearance. Kick ‘em when they’re down? No, appeal to better natures bestowed. Although B&C targeted bicyclists, they travel lightly, so never took up this heavy load. Though it all fits on a single CD less than 2 ounces encased, it preoccupies billions of synapses that would lay waste any rider’s attentive capacity and sensitive taste.

Regret no inquiry and wouldn’t change any figure of speech. Unless you invent something useful, make a lasting impression, publish a popular book, or share embarrassing details, you’re remembered only by a grave marker (unless ash strewn cremated, lost at sea, or mass interred) or some footnote or list entry from a news microfiche. Born, lived, died, forgotten. Among attention starved wannabes since WWII, protests went from beatnick be-ats, to hippie be-ins, to little man extremists bashing capitol barriers with bike racks. Loud boys leftist anarchists and proud boys rightist terrorists don’t speak for vast moderate majority though they try desperately to divide. Only a hundred thousand humans are jealously vilified or vaguely lionized versus a hundred billion who ever lived. CBS could only muster a list of 151 lost celebrities in a year that will forever be known for mass death, 400,000 Americans to COVID alone, nearly as many as Influenza epidemic a century ago, and a surprising increase in automotive deaths given huge cuts in motorized trips and increase in those biked. 

Break down intelligence: What you find is autonomic autopilot, hindbrain responses, limbic instincts, midbrain processes, and muscle memory carrying bulk of the load, with forebrain functions directing decisions as little as possible, since that expends a great deal of electrochemical fuel. Brain uses more than any other organ. Neglecting proactive action risks earning a reputation as a fool. Explains why many hate to read and repeatedly do self destructive things, let themselves be exploited, and suffer losses. Proper planning prevents poor performance, yet so few behave responsibly, hardly anything winds up within conformance. On plus side, their forebrains are left in mint condition, wear free, worth harvesting if you’re a politician, vampire or zombie.

Energy you expend can be replaced and gets rewarded: Biking long distances, earning wages to save, hiking up a mountain to ski down, paddling a kayak against tides. Anyone who won’t disbelieves allure uttered, while alive slips by and apathy steals vitality, what for, and why. With gyms and schools shuttered, it’s back to fresh air and sunlit reps along icy lanes strewn with fallen leaves in between reads among extensive sheaves and time spent on overlooked movies that each internet search retrieves. Inside the White House, however, president elect Biden will probably pedal his customized Peloton. Who knew he was a cyclist like so many predecessors?

Underscored by Irene Cara hit tune What a Feeling during intro scene of Flashdance (Adrian Lyne, dir., 1983), aspiring ballerina and nightclub dancer Jennifer Beals stylishly commutes on her steel ten speed Motobecane to her steelworker job, where she’s sexually harassed by Pittsburgh coworkers. Chasing a dream is hard work that usually has to happen fast to succeed at all. Never felt completely safe on many a damp predawn commute.

In teen sport flick Rad (Hal Needham, dir., 1986) listed in B&C, aspiring BMX’er Cru Jones (Bill Allen) tries to qualify for Hell Track race run by corrupt promoter Duke Best (Jack Weston) and beat Olympic champion Bart Conner (played by himself) who is sponsored by Mongoose.

High school teacher and wannabe novelist Lance Clayton (Robin Williams) isn’t World’s Greatest Dad (Bobcat Goldthwait, dir., 2009), far from it. When his teen son Kyle (Daryl Sabara) accidentally kills himself during autoerotic sex, he ghost composes an embarrassment saving suicide note, then a fictional journal, which win notoriety and sympathy. Then he publicly confesses causing confusion and dispelling illusion. Kyle’s only friend, Andrew (Evan Martin) bikes to catch Lance and express approval in final scene.

Set in 2092, planet’s last mortal human, Mr. Nobody (Jaco Van Dormael, dir., 2009), played primarily by Jared Leto among others at different ages, has a secret: He can recall any time during his life, both back and forward, including alternative timelines based on crucial pivots. In a late scene he upsets a space ladder that delivers bicycles to the moon, spilling cargo into void.

Testament of Youth (James Kent, dir., 2014) casts Alicia Vikander (bike messenger tomb raider Lara Croft) as Vera Brittain, whose best selling memoir 100 years ago of volunteering as a nurse on WWI front elevated admiration of her as feminist, pacifist, and socially conscious writer. More than a few times telegraph runners arrive by bicycle to deliver devastating news.

Spanish melodrama La Bicicleta (Sigfrid Monleón, dir., 2006) has Valencia couple Carlos and Pilar Bardem deliver an optimistic message about dehumanizing effects of urban developments that ignore bicycling. Same bicycle resurrected by Sancho Gracia, who swaps in components from other bikes in an ecological and sustainable fashion, gets transferred among three owners at different stages of life. Sancho gives it to 12 year old orphan José Miguel Sánchez, but it gets stolen. Bárbara Lennie uses it as a bike messenger, then leaves it with old fisherwoman Pilar Bardem. Cities are living organisms, continuously transformed, and, as Baudelaire said, “The shape of a city changes faster than the heart of a mortal.”

Bicycling comic artist Kent Osborne stars as himself in Uncle Kent 2 (Joe Swanberg, dir., 2106), an unnecessary sequel that mocks movie industry’s feckless reliance on repeating familiar themes to pick audiences’ pockets. Kent goes to San Diego Comic-Con despite worry over The Singularity causing an apocalypse. He remains upbeat, “We’re here, we’re alive, and we should make the most of it.” He pedals in a hazmat suit and on a tandem side-by-side with a female fan Lyndsay Hailey.

School teacher Lucy Taylor (Jodie Sweetin) in Love Under The Rainbow (Tony Dean Smith, dir., 2018) falls for single parent Jack Evans (David Haydn-Jones) of preteen student Sophie (Dakota Guppy) after outings including riding bicycles together around Stanley Park Seawall Bikepath in Vancouver, British Columbia. Chalk it up as another saccharine made-for-television confection from Hallmark channel that has characters chasing delusional rainbows.

Ombres et Lumières (Martin Amiot & Philipe Bellemare, dirs., 2013) is IBike Studio’s 12 minute documentary about Montreal fixie culture. French with English subtitles.

Whoever you are, wherever you ride is Rapha Core’s 5 min inspirational ad (Martin Gilluck, dir, 2016). “Not riding your bike is like a lobotomy.” Perspectives is a multi-sport followup (Christian Woodmansey & Daniel Wieckmann, dirs., 2017) of their China manufactured, London designed, Walmart owned apparel and bib shorts nicknamed Rapha after 1950’s road team St. Raphael.

Huntress (Kelsey Leigh, dir., 2018), a beautifully produced and wildly immersive 7 minutes, has distaff bike messengers plying NYC streets quietly seeking space and sustenance while withstanding sexist comments.

In German crime thriller Cut Off (Christian Alvart, dir., 2018) coroner Paul Herzfeld (Moritz Bleibtreu) discovers a capsule in the skull of a corpse during an autopsy. Note inside shows his daughter’s name and her phone number. Hannah (Barbara Prakopenka) soon goes missing. Similar clues planted on other bodies help him track her to ruins of a Nazi era U-boat bunker on frigid isolated Heligoland in North Sea, which Britain blew up during WWII in the largest manmade nonnuclear explosion ever. Paul conscripts local civilian Linda (Jasna Fritzi Bauer) to assist on the car free island. Plot slowly reveals that serial monster Sadler snatched bicycling child of a vicious mobster triggering a chain of events into which coroner inadvertently gets drawn because he once refused to compromise his principles and testify falsely against Sadler.

It Follows (David Robert Mitchell, dir., 2014) on foot, relentlessly, even when high school senior Jay (Malka Monroe) tries to ride away on a BMX. Wheels are an advantage against this supernatural death threat transmitted by sexual intercourse, but sometimes you’ve got to sleep. This critically acclaimed horror flick taps into date and disease anxieties in a world full of HIV and STDs.

Set in 1936 France, Les Beaux Jours (Jean-Pierre Sinapi, dir., 2003), aka The Beautiful Days, has Gaby (Clotilde Courau) and Mado (Nadine Marcovici) boldly taking nation’s first paid holiday by bicycling to seashore sans spouses, while other spineless young adults fear losing their factory jobs. Gaby wastes a lot of time loudly deriding them for it.

In opening scene of psychological thriller I See You (Adam Randall, dir., 2019) Riley Caya goes gravel biking and suddenly is lifted from saddle into obscurity beginning a series of strange occurrences investigated by sheriff Jon Tenney.

American Utopia (Spike Lee, dir., 2020) has David Byrne and his company performing their acclaimed concert live on stage without typical encumbrances for a more intimate interaction with audience. Afterwards, entire band leaves Hudson Theater to bike about midtown Manhattan’s theater district together.

Centennial biopic Radioactive (Marjane Satrapi, dir., 2020) celebrates Madame Marie Curie (Rosamund Pike) and covers her controversial fame. The only woman to have won 2 Nobel Prizes, in both chemistry and physics, Marie was not only a gifted scientist but a role model for women. When she acquiesces to marry Pierre Curie, they go on a bicycling honeymoon of pure bliss which doesn’t last. As always, ethics must govern how you exploit what you discover. From Satrapi's banned graphic biography Persepolis about growing up during theocratic overthrow of Shah of Iran comes indelible quote, "The revolution is like a bicycle. When the wheels don’t turn, it falls."