Marcescent Soutane

Anselm Kiefer, “I want to fly my bicycle”, neo-expressionist lead, steel, and wire sculpture; artist is best known for exposing authoritarian atrocities for decades and never more timely.

Christian clerics wear cassocks to show they live to serve. These garments were inspired by padded riding tunics of nomadic Persian adventurers who performed good deeds at the bidding of those who deserved kind boons. Slowly soutanes withered to nothing more than ceremonial vestments bereft of importance, possibly because nobody anymore quite knows adornment type, button number, fringe material, sash selection, or such regalia and rules befitting a false sense of majesty and traditions to which they cling. Bicyclists’ bib tights more closely resemble original outfit, but churches frown upon congregants who don lycra or dress down.

Good deeds for community’s sake supposedly satisfy self and serve others, but none go unpunished. You can hardly help anyone without interference from their questions and resentments. No number of arguments or explanations overcome distrusts and misgivings. Letting down one’s guard when all goes well for a while can be such an extravagant luxury after signing over one’s rights unnecessarily at insistence of bankers, bill collectors, or insurers. People only accept assistance on their own terms, even when they don’t understand what’s going on, thus adding to chaos and blocking their prepotence. Blame assessing and finger pointing immediately ensue. To paraphrase Jean-Paul Satre, “Condemned to your freedom machine, Hell is other people interfering with your scene.”

Church times, city planning, and cycling politics haunt Dave Walker’s cartoons.

Another rainy day? Early New England Springs extend into interludes of misery and mud as ground heats, permafrost melts, and sequestered carbon emerges into atmosphere. No wonder climate tracers warn of eroding glaciers and skies are gray every day. Drizzle keeps many riders out of saddle, while black mold and tree pollen makes for allergic bike rides and potential asthma attacks. Consequently, new insights and reveals elude. Aged, belligerent, cantankerous, damaged dowagers, and indeed Labann, indiscriminately shower angry, burnt, cautionary factoids upon apathetic readers who don’t heed because they can. Why bother preaching?

Never roll through a shiny spot or standing water masking a pothole, which can trap entire wheel causing an endo. A helmet with a brim helps keep drips out of eyes. Goggles fog and obscure outlook. Gloves improve grip and protect hands in a fall. Beware of hypothermia; dress in warm, wicking clothes, windbreaker, and winter shoe covers. Cash, cell and keys belong in a zip-lock baggie to deter getting soaked by gutter juices. “Acqua e sapone,” they actually say. Clean and dry bacteria laden apparel, bike, and equipment; re-lube drivetrain to avoid chain wear and rust. Slow down. Take extra care; motorists with steamed windshields might not see you. Anything that interferes with tires gripping pavement - broken glass, cold wet, damp leaves, ice patches, loose gravel, sand shoals - can be dangerous and disconcerting. Broken pavement also causes flats.

Flats fit 3 categories: pinch, puncture, or sidewall. Pinches are caused by improperly installing tube twisted or under tire bead, hitting sharp edges of curbs or potholes, or running at too low pressure. Punctures come from rolling over glass, metal, sand, thorns, or wire. Sidewall blowouts can be avoided by never entering into linear cracks that scar sides and renewing setup at regular intervals: new rim tape, tires, and tubes. Inspect rim beads and entire rims for damage, too. Carry a "boot", which is a plastic self adhesive patch to bridge gap in sidewall allowing you to limp to home or safety. Don't try to patch tubes; abrasion thins, valves go; carry two or more because being prepared for failure means it occurs less often. Don't tighten the knurled nut on valve; it's only there to stabilize the pump head, not hold air in; some remove altogether because they can freeze and prevent repairs. Prevention is perfection, avoiding anything by parsing paving.

Ironic how flats with skinny racing slicks are so much easier to repair than with stiff beaded twice as wide gravel and mountain specifics. Using butyl tubes, Kevlar belted tires, and plastic liners, almost never get flats, so ultimately save time. Need two tire levers and a new tube, never patched used ones. Deflate old tire, dismount wheel (assume quick release skewers or you'll need a hub wrench), lay bike down with drivetrain side up, remove knurled nut from valve, and use levers to pry off tire entirely from rim bead. Importantly, inspect beads, rim tape, and sidewalls, remove punctured tube, and rub entire inside of tire with fingers and thumbs to find and pluck anything piercing through before reusing tire; use needlenose pliers to remove embedded bits of wire unless you want another instant flat. Remount tire halfway (note if one directional, some are), slightly inflate new tube, thread inside rim so valve sticks through evenly, then carefully install other bead of tire in rim careful to avoid pinching tube. Inflate a bit more, squeeze sidewalls all around to encourage proper seating. Pump (or CO2 inflate) to spec, reinstall wheel onto bike, and ride on. Some brake calipers have small ratchets that spread pads off rims for removal. People might forget to swivel ratchet back into position after reinstalling tire, which affects braking tension.

Global Cycling Network (est. 2013) is some sort of advocacy group apparently living off advertising clicks for last decade. Content impoverished, they recently concocted this list of “Bike Terrors: 6 things that cyclists are scared of” [random and unrated]: Animals/pets prowling roads, black Ice, being doored, destination cafés closed, slippery white lines, and wet drains. Lame and unimaginative? Or is it AI generated claptrap?

If Labann were asked to list and rank: 6. Losing car keys or catalytic converter while parked for a ride; 5. Loose debris, gravel or sand while cornering; 4. Breakdowns/flats during extreme weather or when riding through bad neighborhoods, 3. Hitting a deep pothole or linear crack while descending at speed; 2. Attacked by apex predators on back roads; 1. Being overtaken by a motorist whose license to operate already has or should have been revoked years ago. All such arguments grossly impeach cycling as dangerous, ignore deadly scourges of motoring, and never examine root causes. How about calling out self serving conservatives who want to kill bicyclists to continue profiting off environmental ruin?

When asked to rank their anxieties, Gen Z respondents named fatal car crashes as number one. Young adults aren’t yet concerned about top general population killers: cardiovascular diseases, cancers, and existential threats, rather their main threat. Fascist candidate facing imprisonment offered Big Oil cuts in environmental controls if they donated a billion dollars to his campaign, from which he’s already demonstrated a felonious propensity to pay personal legal expenses and state levied fines. If reelected, he’ll avenge any opposition and suspend state support for bicycling, which he already stated he adamantly hates.

Skells, sluts, and studs are beyond your control, attacking fragile victims, extorting cowering minion, slapping kissers of crooked suckers, stealing coveted stuff, unworried they might murder some and spend rest of their lives in prison, because repeat felons running for office seem to have gotten away with worse offenses forever. Not even angels can fly away from vile examples. Sustainability derives from battling daily. 

MAGA RINOs stampede under a banner of better living through Christian Nationalism, neither of which previous administration and its führer espoused, merely self serving plays for domination bringing economic recession and human desperation. This power mad sociopath dreams of becoming America's and world's dictator;  menace of poverty makes public cower. What did you think? After years of being conditioned by advertising bullshit anyone couldn’t be convinced to vote against conscience for a cartoon villain crime lord? Some believe whatever they are told, can’t apply basic logic, have no tools for comparative analysis, lack common sense, and won’t ever change their minds. Are there enough normal voters who value what independence America still affords?

Unless district attorneys, DOJ, FBI, journalists, and police act in concert and do their unenviable jobs, “conduct becoming” hardly applies to military officers, never mind civilians and politicians. Censure and scandals currently surround Congress supposedly serving us, conservative SCOTUS, and previous POTUS. Accused stalling proceedings for literally years betrays guilt. Infamy only lasts for next few news cycles. To become an indelible household name means to own ubiquitous blame. Seems more time is spent on producing feature films and taping TV series about crime than actually collaring and prosecuting criminals. Why so encourage wrongdoers? Recognized experts are disregarded; mob obeys social media influencers whose messages were recorded drunk or stoned behind pickup truck wheels while wearing flannel and red felt ball caps.

Among automakers, bicycle builders, and gunsmiths, who do you think has been repeatedly and successfully prosecuted for deaths and injuries? Both cars and guns kill more Americans with complete impunity than infectious diseases, yet due to less than lethal design flaws bicycle factories have been closed and workers laid off. How has this happened? Mom and pop businesses get steamrolled by multinational corporations. But for altruistic activists, evil typically eclipses marcescent virtue hanging on by a hopeful thread.

“Language is my knife, my weapon.” Sir Salman Rushdie, 2023, Booker Prize recipient and hate crime stabbing victim

Petite Madeleine

Celebrated Bike-to-Work Day by parsing paving to revisit "scenes of the crimes", locations Labann once schooled or worked before pandemic decimated placements. What once seemed so important and sustained livelihood surprisingly appeared about as remembered, maybe less outstanding and worse for weather. One can go home and revel in past, but it just steals from present. Memorial Day promotes happy plans for summer and hollow ceremonies without dolor. Lifelong selfless service to society earns no honor.

Remarkable how in Remembrance of Things Past (aka In Search of Lost Time, 1913–1927, seven volumes celebrating center of its centenary) Marcel Proust found truth in a small tea soaked morsel of petite madeleine. Moreover, much has been made of how a galaxy exists in a grain, and Proust’s observations about what you consciously expect to recollect versus what you involuntarily picture again. Has to do with how incredible, indelible or ineffable an impression becomes. Bicyclist/painter/sculptor Marie Nordlinger (upon whom some argue character Albertine was based in part) became a warm light in Marcel’s luminous but truncated life (51 years, d. 1922) during which this asthmatic bisexual perfected the art of reflection, and wrote 20th Century’s most influential novel. “Marie delighted in riding a bicycle, and it was the image of ‘the girl with the bicycle’ that sparked Proust’s conception of Albertine, a character who dominates Remembrance of Things Past,” in particular volume La Fugitive, 1925.

There’s a book inside every doer/reader/thinker/traveler. Some skilled psychologist might decipher why an author focuses on certain facts, not others. Bias and prejudices blind the willfully delusional from seeing reality as it is. Only the most assiduous and perceptive bother to gather and weigh all sides of any argument, and who has any right to expect otherwise? Any miscreant in social media who sees world as losers or victors will kill you over a minor disagreement.

In court, whoever narrates convincingly and succinctly wins. Deep dives and empty filibusters only succeed in blocking congressional resolutions and maintaining status quo; on street, sincere blather scatters audiences. Fame follows decisive, divisive, feckless, and senseless who steal spotlight, ignores selfless servants or true talent. Journalists say they trust the inherent value of truth in an information age, but you can never tell if what they report is reliable. Not as if there are not hundreds of unsolved mysteries: alien invasion, cryptozoology, supernaturalism. Misfortune of suddenly learning the truth drives even normal men mad.

Seldom, if ever, endorse or rate books. In fact, you can find something interesting in every one even though otherwise a pedestrian waste of your time. Because humans are social animals, they’re best entertained by congregating en masse and selecting suitable individuals with whom to commune. While books expand potential for embracing many tribe members, multiple barriers and perfidious distribution limit readers. Every year dozens of new titles invoke bicycling, but they usually repeat old tropes. B&C, begun long before latest boom, likes to choose among them to review those with a new take on riding a bike.

Marc Augé, In praise of the bicycle (Reaktion Books, Limited, 2019, 96 pp.), translated from French Éloge de la bicyclette, Editions Payot & Rivages, 2008), is an anthropologist’s extrapolation of current trends into a dynamic tomorrow using bicycles to humanize “non-places”, a term Augé famously coined. “Riding a bike in a way gives us back our child's soul and restores both the ability to play and an awareness of the real. It is thus similar to a sort of refresher (like a booster vaccination), but also to continuing education for learning again about freedom and clarity, and as a result, perhaps, about something that resembles happiness... A return to utopia, a return to what is real — they are the same. Get on your bike to improve everyone's life! Cycling is a humanism.”

Paul Fournel, Need for the Bike, (Pursuit, 2019, 224 pp.), derived from Allan Stoekl’s English translation from French (Bison, 2012) of critically lauded Besoin de vélo (Seuil, 2002, 235 pp.), covers personal insights, joys and pains based on articles Fournel contributed to Rouler magazine from 2006 onward. Latest edition was made cheaper and shorter by deleting original illustrations and publishing as a paperback. Must admit that a daily 3 mile walk as an hour’s constitutional will always be improved if you bike 15 miles instead.

Jorge Zepeda Patterson, The black jersey: a novel (Random House, 2019, 312 pp.) portrays French-Colombian domestique Marc, who belongs to an elite Tour de France team led by American star and best friend Steve, favored to win. Then someone machinates a series of deadly accidents. Marc agrees to help gendarmes investigate, but as suspects disappear, main suspects become Marc and Steve. As the finish line approaches, Marc must decide what he's willing to risk for friendship, justice or podium position. With rampant doping, world’s most prestigious contest is rife with jealousies, mayhem, and sabotage, so why not murder?

Yona Zeldis McDonough, The Bicycle Spy (self, 2020) follows young villager Marcel, who delivers bread from his parents' bakery by bike and hopes one day to race in the Tour de France, suspended since 1940 when German occupation began. Checkpoints and interrogations teach Marcel there are worse things than a canceled race. Marcel wonders whether he can help his friend's family when they come under scrutiny, but it would involve passing along secrets through risky rides. Filthy fascists, Hoover's spies, McCarthy's witch hunters, Nixon's army, Reagan's union busters, and Trump's neocons: Hardly any distinction among these enemies of community.   

Biological researcher and outdoor naturalist Sara Dykman, Bicycling with Butterflies (Workman Publishing, 2020, 280 pp.) became world’s first to bike alongside and study monarch butterflies throughout a complete migration. She assembled a bike from used parts, attached panniers made from recycled buckets, packed bare essentials, and rode alone on a 3 country, 9-month, 10,000 mile roundtrip. Not just about mucking in fens for flutter-by eggs, she shares her passion with ardent stewards, citizen scientists, eager schoolchildren, high-rise tenants, interested farmers, skeptical loungers, and unimpressed officials.

Jools Walker, blogger and Brit bicyclist Lady Velo, mentioned before pandemic for Back in the Frame: How to get back on your bike, whatever life throws at you (Little Brown Book Group, 2019, 368 pp.), followed up with a reedited paperback sounding pleasanter Back in the Frame: Cycling belonging and finding joy on a bike (Sphere, 2021, 384 pp.), her personal memoire of an all-in-one child tricyclist, preteen BMXer, and renewed roadie who has come of age and still likes bikes. Happily, she now finds herself being interviewed by BBC about cycling culture and giving talks at women’s cycling events. Pedaling by wheel, even casually, is a near panacea and potent tonic for arthritis, cardiovascular ailments, depression, isolation and other maladies caused by a sedentary stay-at-home lifestyle. Bikes are also convenient for hanging your emotional baggage from and studying what's really going on.

In June of 2019 author and pastor Neil Tomba mounted a bike in Santa Monica, CA, and a month later arrived in Annapolis, MD. His goal was twice a day to initiate a conversation with strangers and instill hope among them in Jesus’s teachings. How could that go wrong? Due out next month as a result is The Listening Road: One Man's Ride Across America to Start Conversations About God (Thomas Nelson, 2021, 316 pp.). He’s convinced that people ought to spend time listening to one another, despite differences in creed, intelligence, race, or social status. Every troll says the same thing, only it's you paying attention to them along a one-way street.

Anti-doping activist and multiple medalist James Hibbard retired from road cycling, studied postgraduate philosophy, and wrote a meditation on the sport. Just out this June, The Art of Cycling (Quercus, 2021, 320pp.) shares his journey from racing ruthlessly to regaining passion for pedaling, and shows how cycling can shed new light on classic questions of purpose and selfhood. Cycling’s counterintuitive lessons can be applied to most areas of life and do undermine what’s typically thought of as intellectual in a society driven towards abstract, detached, and virtual dehumanization by an obsession with progress. But wasn’t it a slew of innovations with lowly bicycles (still ongoing) that inspired aerospace and automotive arrogance behind global problems? Without bicycles there would never have been a Nazi blitzkrieg. But you can’t blame invention of weapons with their misuse in mass murders.

Lammass Wiccane

Some plants and trees grow lammass leaves to replace those lost to pestilence. During global pandemics humans might burn to repopulate planet. Makes sense. On August 1st, Christian calendar coincides with Wiccan Wheel of the Year. Loaf Mass Day tithes harvest of wheat to church, while Lammass handfasting binds two betrothed witches together. Both were already lost rituals before being within 6 feet of each other came with a Surgeon General’s warning; make that 30 feet for bicyclists without masks, who intercept airborne particles faster around every corner. Grateful folks relish abundance of fresh summer fruits and veggies. One defines intelligence as adaptability to whatever envelopes you, mostly strife over harvests versus enemies. Suggests motives for merciless misuse and power abuse, for example, how King Herod, reacting to St. Peter’s being freed from chains by an angel and heading right onto Rhoda, killed blameless captors.

For centuries stories idolized adventure and violence, pandered to patronage or wealth, or represented the best and worst of talents and urges, typically with selfish agendas. Hard to discuss greatness or mediocrity of cultural artifacts, since they merely reflect collectively whoever you associate with them. Even so, internet searches for bicycling movies and scenes provide articles that rate instances with false consensus. Hacks who write them just copy one another. It’s as if a few were inadvertently culled and sanctified as sacrifices. Thousands more apposite get passed over. With so many contending for attention, less than half of films even return their investments in ad placements, ticket sales, video rentals, and whatever produces profits. Popularity will never be the measure of mastery. Artistry lies in not exposing its artificiality but projecting authenticity and reality.

Dr. Mercer (Harris Yulin) sends discredited cryptobiologist Mr. Dempsey (Ted Danson) on one last mission to Loch Ness (John Henderson, dir., 1997). With latest electronic gear, he’s resigned to disprove The Monster as a hoax and drink beer. Toward end of his 5-day stay, madam innkeeper’s (Joely Richardson) young daughter (Kirsty Graham) strikes a bargain with him; she’ll show them to him if he’ll buy her a red bicycle. He agrees, and she does (made lifelike by Jim Henson). True to his word, he keeps creatures an unsolved legend and returns with promised bike on board with hopes of calling inn his home having formed a strong bond with mom.

Sat through a plotless hour of bikers on BMXs and fixies doing dodgy stuff To Live and Ride in LA (David Rowe, dir., 2011) along its decidedly unfriendly streets designed specifically for motorists. One bicyclist on a limited access highway between high speed lanes shames horrified viewers as nervous newbies, although you sense it’s such stunts that cause bulk of fatal bike accidents. This is so typical of examples that Google searches provide: Doping exposés, racing action, or reckless abuse that attempt to stereotype riders as drugged, drunken or obsessed losers and senseless risk takers. With 60 million American bicyclists, every demographic is represented, including BMX kooks, commuters avoiding gridlock and subways, intrepid tourists, kamikaze messengers, license revoked recidivists, mamils chasing wamils, middle aged affluents, peloton training teams, savvy teens, school kids, tired retirees, those too poor to afford other means, weekend sportifs, young adults, zealous activists. Each have a right to every bit of pavement unless banned, not confined to broken shoulders, derelict parks, unswept gutters, or wooded trails. Don’t be surprised behind your steering wheel when one passes you. For perspective one might look back to documentary Taken for a Ride (Jim Klein, dir., 1996), which exposed General Motors malicious plot to eliminate competition from mass transit and foster dependency on automobiles, not only in LA but throughout nation. It led to anti-road protests, freeway revolts, highway removals, and relocations underground.

The Runway (Ian Power, dir., 2011) is a dramedy based on fact set in 1983 rural Cork, Ireland. Precocious bicycling delinquents Paco (Jamie Kierans) and pal Frogs (John Carpenter) have set up their own SETI station for seeking Spielberg’s E.T. using electronics they’ve swiped from merchants and townsfolk when they aren’t abiding bully abuse or breaking abandoned windows. Paco actually finds one in downed Colombian pilot Ernesto (Demián Bichir), who has run away with a fortune in emeralds. Anticipating his dad unlikely return from Spain, Paco had been learning conversational Spanish, so acts as translator and convinces town to help while serving own needs. They fix and refill plane and, to get it airborne, pave a tarmac runway.

In an oil deprived dystopia, where residents must bike or walk, everything is seriously Upside Down (Juan Solanas, dir., 2012) for Adam (Jim Sturgess), who falls for Eden (Kirsten Dunst). A decade later, when he learns she survived a real, seemingly fatal fall, he embarks on a quest to restore their relationship. Only thing, Eden and everything from her half of this binary planet obeys an opposite, potentially deadly gravity. Otherworld interaction is forbidden by law. She also has amnesia, so remembers nothing from before accident including him. What do filmmakers have against Ms. Dunst, who routinely gets battered or beaten in every script?

Juliana Betancourth stars as Columbian bicyclist Virginia Casta (Claudio Cataño, dir., 2017). Says unseen narrator, “I’ve always loved movies. I found them a portal to another world, another life. I was amazed.” Most only save a few frames of their lives as memories, usually the least enjoyable ones. Commuting to office cube and shopping in downtown Cali, Virginia cruises about on a ballon tire, blue colored, girl’s basket bike, often on crumbled sidewalks, which cause her to tumble. Driving aggression on nation’s streets was well documented by Bogotá mayor Peñalosa. A nightclub session of restroom sex leaves her pregnant, but, recently bereaved of her mother, she can’t go through with an abortion. Dancing in street, reveling in life, she run down by a texting motorist. Three years ago too few wore condoms, never mind masks. Not enough to fit one on, it must be kept clean, not be touched during use, which makes contagion contact mouth and nose, and wash hands frequently and thoroughly. Furthermore, you have to disinfect anything you bring into your home, especially groceries or mail, and stuff you repeatedly touch, like car latches, doorknobs, shifters, steering wheels, even take shoes off before entering. Yet world today is not so very different considering ongoing prevalence of worse diseases: Hepatitis C, HIV, STDs, Tuberculosis, and whatever else displeases.

Four Australian tourists - Angus Morton, Justin Diamond, Patrick Drapac and Sami Sauri - teamed up to explore Outskirts: Route 66 (Angus Morton, dir., 2018), including what culture still remains around this iconic High Street from Chicago to Los Angeles completed nearly a century ago but fallen in spots to feral ruin across 8 states, 2,400 miles, spread through 3 time zones. Luckily they had motel reservations and vehicle support so rode light without bags for a month on road. “Bicycling... can’t escape it. It’s a drug in itself.” Cross section of characters they meet paints a portrait of basically good but pathetically ugly Americans.

Jochen Mesle and Max Kroneck do Aussies one better as they bike between Ice&Palms (Philipp Becker, dir., 2019, headed south in spring from German border through The Alps to sultry Nice, France. Their itinerary crosses mountain passes, hikes alpine trails, and skis favorite peaks, at one point with their bikes on their backs. They sleep in tents totally unsupported for their month on, well, only occasional roads. Took a while learning how to handle bikes with a load unbalanced by bindings, boots and skis.

Ginger tween bicyclist Gerda Lie Kass discovers she’s not only a Wild Witch (Kaspar Munk, dir., 2019, Danish dubbed in English), but the one destined to overcome an evil plot against nature. Is she Denmark’s answer to Charmed one Alyssa Milano? Black cat Oscar intentionally cuts her off to spark her recognition that he’s her familiar animal friend. If being coven’s most powerful entity is no match for some kid trained to breath right, you might choose another avocation. It’s the Harry Potter snare designed to catch gullible childish unaware, since adults aren’t so easily dazzled and don’t care. Not like witches aren’t repeatedly linked with bicycling (e.g., Anathema Device, Wicked Witch of West Oz) ever since this freedom machine disenthralled women from household drudgery and emboldened them to take their rightful place in society. Patriarchy could never relinquish control so readily, would kill to intimidate half of society.

A documentary on positive ecological practices to ensure a Tomorrow (Cyril Dion and Mélanie Laurent, dirs., 2019) focuses on automotive overthrow, conscript representatives instead of elections, distributed agriculture and manufacture, energy alternatives (geothermal, solar, water, wastes, wind), local currencies (slows cash exportation), manual not oil based farming, permaculture, subsidized composting, transportation alternatives (bike, bus, trains), urban planning, and vegetarian over meat based diets. Surprisingly, some cities, fed up with multinational oligarchies, have long since adopted, though all merely revisit 1960’s with Whole Earth and Woodstock Nation. Each was described and endorsed by Bike&Chain over a decade ago. After designating more pavement for self propulsion, 67% of Copenhagen residents now bike, take mass transit, or walk, which improves city lives exponentially. Economist Jeremy Rifken explains, “[With too much atmospheric CO2] we are now in real time climate change... The whole water cycle of the planet is thrown off... violent winter snows, more dramatic spring flooding, more prolonged summer droughts, severer hurricanes... Our scientists tell us, on all the studies, we are now actually in the 6th extinction event of life on Earth. This is the most important piece of news the human race has ever had... There have only been 5 extinction events in the last 450 million years where there has been a wipeout of life. And it comes quick... death on a mass scale.” On another 100° day amidst burnt out gardens, one wonders how much heat it will take to wipe out biosphere entirely, or whether it’s already too late to remedy. From the soundtrack, Leonard Cohen in 1987 foretold, “Everybody knows the fight was fixed The poor stay poor, the rich get rich. That’s how it goes... And everybody knows that the Plague is coming... that it's moving fast... Everybody knows the scene is dead, but there's gonna be a meter on your bed that will disclose what everybody knows. And everybody knows that you're in trouble... what you've been through... Everybody knows it's coming apart. Take one last look... before it blows.”

Along those lines, documentary Motherload (Liz Canning, dir., 2020) describes the cargo-bike movement. Hundreds of people testified how they replaced their cars altogether with electric assist and manually pedaled units that fuse a bicycle with a trailer. “I just got groceries on my bike!” For those long sold on an automotive paradigm it sound like some amazing revelation, when, after all, cyclists with backpacks, baskets and panniers have been doing this for centuries. Biggest problem is all bicycling supplies produced on other side of planet arrive by fossil fuel means, so just increase carbon footprint unless they curtail motored miles by half or more. Moms making an exceptional trip doesn’t save planet, but it might be a start toward going daily for fresh air and bread.

Taking it to ultimate is Pedal (Scott Hardesty, dir., 2017) about video diarist Hera van Willick who lived the dream of life by bike entirely borderless and mobile. She spent a decade traveling through 43 different countries calling wherever she was home. Since COVID outbreak, US citizens aren’t permitted to enter 33 other nations, not that they were ever welcome in many anyway. You never know when a dream suddenly gets indefinitely suspended.

Clever YouTube video covers lyrics of Queen’s Bicycle Race by collecting movie clips related to each crazy phrase, many bicycling scenes previously described, others unrelated to bikes, and some never mentioned, e.g., Malèna (Giuseppe Tornatore, dir., 2000), who’s every boy’s sex harassment and every woman’s jealous gossip in 1941 Sicily. The last cited was Coen Brothers big budget flop Suburbicon (George Clooney, dir., 2017). Gardiner Lodge (Matt Damon), beset by gangsters, races away from a fire bombing on a kid’s bike. Loosely based on an 1957 instance of racial integration of all white Levittown, PA, it shows supposedly decent folks behaving badly throughout. Only Damon’s son Nicky (Noah Jupe) survives mayhem.

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.

Trek Profane

In Bob Mionske's article in Bicycling Magazine, innocent cyclists get tazed, unjustly accused by a road/roid raging constable, then vindicated in court after an unnecessary ordeal.

First off, incident occurred in political swing state Ohio, where absurd, even unholy events can happen, do, and dopes like Double-You get reelected. That's almost enough to explain it all. But Mionske forgets to mention prima facie evidence: You don't need a license to ride a bike, thus traffic codes never apply. Sure, you ought to be courteous always, but rude isn't yet illegal. According to the United States Constitution, nobody can technically restrict your right to self propel along any public thoroughfare. Yet they routinely do so on highways and interstates, ostensibly for safety's sake. Often there's no way across rivers except for highway bridges; how are you supposed to ride or walk to your destination? Cyclists forfeit convenience and time so motorists can speed along; any notion they ever impede traffic ludicrously opposes logic. Poor road design impedes all users alike. If you can't drive faster, it's your DOT's fault or God's will.

The Patriot Act allows officers to detain and question anyone, but surely sanity behooves them to target trucks and vans within which criminals and terrorists can hide contraband and loot, rather than cyclists, who anyone with the least intelligence can assess as innocuous at a glance and dismiss forthwith. In practice, enforcers instead take the easy route. Why not arrest some unthreatening crank for no reason, rather than pull over an armed driver in a huge tractor and search its 45 foot trailer for dangerous cargo after getting a judge to sign a warrant? Laws favor criminals and foster victims. In a complex world, control freaks want to revert to medieval standards of morality and obligations for everyone but themselves. Such tactics turn back the calendar on hard earned freedoms. Who says time travel is impossible?

English psychedelic rock band Hawkwind had a minor hit in 1972 with "Sliver Machine". Lyrics by Brock/Calvert were inspired by an Alfred Jarry (1873-1907) 'pataphorical essay "How To Construct a Time Machine", a device which resembled a bicycle frame of antimagnetic ebony brazed with copper. Song instead referred to own new silver colored steel racing bike.

This planet's 1 billion bikes are ubiquitous space-time machines, traits they share with pop tunes, but do they become invisible to relentless duration when riders freeze in a track stand or twirl around a velodrome? Temporal means both profane and timely. Trek might connote an odyssey or pilgrimage. Bicycling feels visceral and worldly yet often effects attitudes profoundly and spiritually. Bikes have gyroscopic elements, obviously extend lives and time in which trips occur, and thus warp reality in subtle ways as does electromagnetism, friction and gravity, each of which you'll directly experience on every ride. Cycling is sensual, motoring obscene. For short spells cyclists find themselves in innocent times, while motorists repeatedly seek to violate manmade and natural laws with impunity.