Novel Novocaine

Leonardo DiCaprio and Michael Bay are developing a movie about Rwanda’s Cycling Team, on whom Labann reported in 2013. Sure, must be time for a big budget blockbuster on competitive cycling, considering how much it’s been in the news, often for the wrong reasons. International pelaton lives in a narcissist bubble; even traffic is shut down so they can serve selves. Not to forget deprived youth who collectively do far more pedaling, Dope (2015, Rick Famuyiwa, dir.) is a post hip-hop comedy arriving at theaters this Summer (limited release on Juneteenth) in which black teens on BMX bikes roaming Inglewood, CA come of age; garnered acclaim at Cannes and Sundance. Last year’s allegorical fantasy The Giver (Philip Noyce, dir.) is set in a future supposedly without emotion or pain, though everyone is given a bicycle, chief form of transportation, on their 9th birthday and relegated to a slave role on their 18th. Retirement is no issue; once you’re used up you’re tidily sent elsewhere, as are infants who don’t measure up. You’d have to take drugs daily to be so compliant to rules and impervious to bicycling’s many discomforts. One pill a day will make you small.

In all cases based on what’s actually happening in today's society, actors with imaginary names will stand in for actual persons, who are always the real stories. Novels and screenplays magically indemnify authors and producers against liability when narratives make some antagonists upon whom they are based look bad. On occasions, authorities have been known to locate sources and prosecute if a movie raises public’s hackles. Directors and novelists receive awards and rewards for doing so. Documentarians and journalists generally get suits filed against them by lawyers in suits, because it’s all about disseminating spin, maintaining appearances, and never portraying truth. Ask filmmaker Michael Moore, called a creep for making almost undeniable observations. That’s how illogic can win, by renouncing the messenger when you can’t refute the message.

Novels aren’t always new. Neither are movies. Many are written to formulas: Hacks plug in different names and places and, voilà, escapism. Some psychologists criticize them for their linear rigidity and rhetorical manipulation of readers. Yet some argue that fiction describes reality better than nonfiction, because too few who diarize, journalize, or pen memoirs stick to unvarnished facts, rather color observations with bias or hyperbole, as do fisherman who exaggerate size of catches, and politicians who manufacture legacies for themselves. It’s clear that all writing ultimately derives from actual experiences embellished less or more by imagination. Nevertheless, spend 75% of time concentrating on nonfiction books per se, maybe in the hope of discovering something both factual and useful. Not one convinces anyone of its reality, but each may raise questions worth asking.

Books represent arbitrary conventions, blogs, one-sided opinions. Nothing really occurs in life as described, because words don’t exactly equal lives, which tend to drag along boringly until punctuated by crises. Only events get described to telescope narrative time or readers skip ahead. Absorb stories even faster from films; saw tens of thousands over 5 decades. Logic remains the biggest victim of tall tales. Society always urged reading and writing for money, so obliged. Researching and writing over 500 books instilled a deep dissatisfaction with almost everything except honest essentials. Sorry if that makes Labann hard to get along with, but you can always escape into psychotropic bliss should entertainment not fill your craving abyss.

Kid Charlemagne

Too much riffing and skewing on same topics - automotive carnage, bad behavior, economic injustice, perdition of privilege, perils of pollution, wars over resources - paints an intimidating image, not at all like nostalgic vignettes of beloved racists Currier & Ives. Was trying to focus on crucial realities rather than waste time on piddling trivialities. Must acknowledge a problem before formulating solutions, but pleasant words do mollify and suffer fools to get by. Vast majority goes harmlessly about its duties. Evil only exists because grating emperors, mob bosses, and smug rulers, who never progressed past infantile itches, intentionally will it, while sheep obliviously obey. Wouldn’t happen if never enabled. Crybaby and motherly instincts at play? So who’s responsible? Never one culprit, guilt enough to go around, but ought not blame victims. Society expects those they reward to be grateful and share with needy, but who enforces, monitors and prosecutes? When will billions of souls act collaboratively and address collectively their first priority: Being happy together? Murder perpetuates imperialism, rewards terrorism, and solves nothing.

Everyone defines “satisfied” differently. A chicken in your pot once sufficed. Now hardly a helicopter, penthouse, and 60 sex fantasies make any dent in your insatiable sickness. Across the spectrum of fulfillment, perversion and seduction, freedom from fear and pain cannot be achieved. Why allow a few to distance themselves from suffering and worry at the expense of everyone else? That’s truly masochistic. When necessities turn into commodities, they inflame anxieties. No one can survive without access to important information, arable land, breathable air, electricity, education, fuel utility, livestock slaughter, medical care, potable water, preserves canned, sheltered apartment, transportation, and waste management. Such desiderata should be free. Anything beyond you’d earn yourself, unless for freely distributing them you need a state subsidy. As long as everything runs on money, inequities remain, because a small minority will always be more adept at piling coins higher, as if that was ever a commonsensical aim.

A system of equal credits per day per person that can be exchanged, given, lost when expired, or saved until needed would eliminate printed currencies, resource shortages, and unequal salaries. Gamblers and gluttons might have to go without once squandered, though who can’t survive until midnight renews allotments? Yet what incentive would there be to starting a business, taking on some back breaking or mind numbing chore, or volunteering to defend? Backbiters would scream this amounts to abominable government interference, and they might be right. But who exactly does current system favor? Gorgers, hoarders, warmongers, whoremongers? Moderate appetites benefit both self and society. You can have it all, just not all at once. Freezing fortunes ultimately helps no one. When cash flows steadily, everyone celebrates, eats well, enjoys a resort ever so often, and goes home happily.

Socialism is a utopian notion that can’t prevail on its own. It already exists alongside capitalism, communes, democracies, dictatorships, monarchies, and tribes run by shamans and warlords. Situationally dependent, all seem to be required somewhere. No point introducing anything progressive; the higher the level of organization, the quicker it collapses. Probably need a simpler form that can be applied worldwide. Clearly, self control is simplest, though never proven effective except among the enlightened. If you don't exercise your mind, you might fall for the insidious Cult of Conservatism that breeds fear, cultivates division, and disseminates lies over airwaves and through institutions. Media moguls augment their own assets, so you already know where they stand, never with rearguard Roland at Roncevaux or you in a worldwide recession of their making. You don't have to be a millionaire to believe everyone wants whatever you possess, though those who have a lot will fall farther. Freedom implies you have nothing left to lose except your life. Don’t steal candy from a baby, take from someone who won't miss it.

“Some things will never change. Son you were mistaken. You are obsolete... Get along, Kid Charlemagne... Clean this mess up else we'll all end up in jail... Is there gas in the car?” Cool undervalued jazz, Becker & Fagen rebelled against capitalist disco. “From their boats of iron, they looked upon the promised land, where surely life was sweet. On the rising tide to New York City did they ride into the street? See the glory of the Royal Scam.” Steely Dan, The Royal Scam, ABC Studios, 1976.

Kurt Cobain

According to Cross’ biography, when still a child Cobain would ride a bike around the small yard behind his Aberdeen house. As a 14th birthday gift, his uncle let him pick between a bicycle and secondhand guitar. Maybe choosing wheels would have changed his destiny, dead at 27 from drug abuse, fame pressures, and suicide gunshot. Pedaling dispels nervous energy more positively than huffing and vandalizing. Happy until his parents’ divorce, he’d soon be on Ritalin to cope at school. In Nirvana’s song Sliver (Rolling Stone rated it group’s 3rd best) from Incesticide, 1992, Kurt’s lyrics speak to those times, “Grandma, take me home. She said, ‘Well, don't you start your crying. Go outside and ride your bike.’ That's what I did. I killed my toe. Grandma, take me home!” Grandparents apparently heightened child’s anxiety: incest suggested by album title? Suffering from ADHD, probably he’d rather be home poking holes in and stenciling Led Zeppelin on his bedroom walls. "I wanted to be a stunt man, [Evel] Knieval was a big influence on that. I’d jump on my bikes, and I took all my bedding and pillows out of our house, and put it on the deck, and got up on the roof, and would jump off."

HBO’s new biopic Montage of Heck (2015, dir. Brett Morgen) comes (as you are) after two decades of “27 forever” in a culture obsessed with “dead voices of their own generation”, much like Hendrix, Joplin, and Morrison. Cobain, enduring bully shame, despair for prospects, and family rejection bouncing from home to home, never finished high school or reckoned on fame, just wanted to earn a cool $3 million to buy drugs and escape drudgery. Sadly, cycling crazed Seattle is close to Canadian border, beyond which ibogaine can legally be used to treat heroin addiction. Sadder still, drugs he detested but used anyway flow without interdiction over same border to area addicts. Teen anger punctuated his diary, poetry and songs, an impressive canon given less than a decade of adult production. Barriers and inabilities frustrate. When kids don’t try things for themselves because parents don’t care enough or get overprotective, their resultant incompetence undermines can-do attitudes. Nevertheless, he was notorious for do-it-yourself, damn the training, yet questioned “ethics involved with independence”. His journal makes a manifesto, “Punk is musical freedom. It’s saying, doing and playing what you want. In Webster’s terms, ‘nirvana’ means freedom from pain, suffering and the external world, and that’s pretty close to my definition of Punk Rock. Art is sacred... right to express is vital. Anyone can be artistic.” He provided a downtrodden world with another embattled but incorruptible artist with whom to relate.

Can only speculate about the implications of educational disenchantment. The late Alan Watts asked, “Doesn’t it really astonish you that you are this fantastically complex thing, and you’re doing all this, and you don’t have any education in how to do it?” Instincts derive from genetic code of nature, skills rely on society’s nurture, but stunning genius explodes onto scene from seemingly nowhere, then just as suddenly self destructs, thus depriving fans once again. Or is it that audiences only discover what they were looking for, and elevate at intervals one practitioner over others out of a need to impose order in chaos? Public wants what it wants when it wants. Consequently, entire generations get skipped and wonderful out-of-sync art goes unnoticed, though it might someday stick, so merits whatever effort and pain it took to produce.

Group’s bassist Krist Novoselic tweeted about practicing Nirvana songs prior to last’s year Hall of Fame induction, “It's like riding a bike... Nothing like finding that groove again.” Trio’s drummer Dave Grohl, who survived to form award winning band Foo Fighters (2015 Brit for evocatively monikered Sonic Highways, and multiple Grammies), admits he mountain bikes 5 days a week. Their song, Let It Die? seems a question addressed to his former frontman.

First Breed, Bike Life (Kurt Cobain Mix) [NYC hip-hop], Shawshank Redemption (compilation with other artists), 2013, mentions the disturbed icon while musing about cycling.

Throne of Rattan Cane

Wicker bike by brasil- eiros artist Jarbas Lopes shown at Arizona State University

A conversation with a bike acquaintance concluded, “Withstand sand.” So well covered last month, was tempted rather to reply, “Mind the moguls.” Labann surely does. A double entendre, could mean pavement humps or privileged punks. Frost heaves left a lot of skill challenging, tire slashing runs, similar to what skiers stumble over in Aspen. Mogul Empire declined because of popular reaction to same corruption that describes corporations and government today: Disgust for depravity in high places, excessive luxury, and exploitation of peasants; failures of conservatism; revolt against religious rule; social independence. Rattan unravels under bloated 1% gluttons. Monarchs insist their right to rule is divine and succession to throne, so much the topic of recent British press, secured by birth. Atheists disagree; secular commerce ignores royalty. Nothing more than a tourist attraction, the Crown Jewels have lost any ruling sway or trendsetting cache.

Though Paris strives to be Europe’s bicycling capital, you might be impressed by an official report from London’s Road Safety Observatory. It makes an important distinction: "Cyclists opting for assertion want infrastructure that helps to establish their right to be on the road and that clarifies how the road is to be shared; and, cyclists opting for avoidance want infrastructure that gives them more opportunities to avoid traffic." If anything, it demonstrates riders aren’t a homogenous group, don’t necessarily concur, and probably require both.

Just as pelaton devotees who call bikes racing equipment do not epitomize all cyclists, "avoiders" don't represent majority, either. America’s Federal Code of Regulations and state laws grant pedestrians first rights to shared pavement, followed by cyclists, commercial operators of taxis and trucks, and lastly private car drivers. In a conspiracy of greed the amoral and illegal reversal of this order was choreographed by automakers, Big Oil, and their lobbyists, who for decades urged parents to deny children their bikes. Sure, why not curb sustainable alternatives and ensure everyone the right die at speed and take out others? As Hunter S. Thompson observed in Kingdom of Fear (2003), “We have become a Nazi monster in the eyes of the whole world, a nation of bullies and bastards who would rather kill than live peacefully. We are not just Whores for power and oil, but killer whores with hate and fear in our hearts. We are human scum, and that is how history will judge us. No redeeming social value. Just whores. Get out of our way, or we'll kill you.” Capitalists declared war on low consuming, slow moving cyclists; they're not supposed to fight back? Freedom Day, the 150th Juneteenth, may only be a month away (June 19th), but reforms should begin today.

What’s unbearable is having to repeat songs of fire and ice for the umpteenth time. Bicyclists shouldn’t have to put up with bridge bans; lack of lanes into and racks at airport, bus and train terminals; loss of shoulders at intersections, where many cycling accidents occur; rotaries that require instant acceleration. It's bad enough bikes are banned from >25% of roads (interstates, limited access highways), discrimination that favors motorists. Like all of roadnet, bikenet must be continuous to offer a real alternative, preserve pavement, relieve gridlock, and stop pollution. Why not bar motorists from some streets to create corridors through cities that segregate cyclists from noxious odors, traffic worries, and unhealthy fumes? Yet saving shoulders on streets makes them safer for everyone. Cars can pull over in emergencies. Bike riders can ease over to let cars pass. Shoulderless, 2-lane, undivided roads account for majority of accidents of all types. Federal law says streets need to be complete, or provide, at least, a nearby parallel route for vulnerable users; if a bikeway, it must be lit, patrolled and swept. States that don’t comply either forfeit federal funding or pay fines; legislators don't care because it's your taxes they squander.

What you begin to trust then let in ultimately defines you. Sly pundits advise you to dismiss negative spokesmen; beware their treachery. When status quo gets ugly, one ought to say so loudly, not schmooze gentry and smooth over transgressions with pleasantry. As soon as anyone imposes senseless rules, patriots circumvent them. Most, though well intentioned, are inapplicable or unenforceable, or just cannot be abided. As John Barlow wrote and many have adopted as a mantra, "We'll go right through the book and break each and every law." How else can boundaries be tested? It's a marvel anyone still believes that dicta serve any purpose other than domination by insane ideologues, who’d curtail your rights to expand their own, or those less intelligent or talented. Clearly, some can’t handle freedom, but isn’t that for them to decide after frequently exercising? Whoever doesn’t assume responsibilities inherent in liberties lives to regret consequences: disrespect, homelessness, illness, poverty, probable death, punishment enough. A society that allows a few to rise only to be let down repeatedly has every right to complain and remedy the problems that power invites. Instead people persecute a harmless crank… too easy to kick a dog, too hard to depose a king.

“Jobular” Vein

Do your part, fulfill some destiny, get a job, and satisfy society. Asking the impossible? By what criteria do you claim success? How do you determine this miracle has occurred? Important conditions must be met. Have walked on water, though it was frozen at the time, and stood on Brook loath to serve. Farmers routinely turn bean into bounty, dirt into dollars, mush into wine, and seed into loaves that feed multitudes. What can wordsmiths do to compare with completing such life sustaining equations?

Writing isn’t a job, it’s an avocation. The universe chooses those who do. If you question whether it's for you, you'll never compete with millions of others already wordsmithing for fee or free. You need no permission even when forbidden by decree. Just open a vein to bleed onto page after page. Can’t expect pay, yet must earn the right and like to write about the bike fight. Unless you’ve completed centuries or multi-day tours, have ridden as profession, recreation and transportation, mastered bicycle handling and wrenching, and sustained injuries, what more can you offer that hasn’t already been said? Labann surveys bicycling counterculture because it’s ongoing and underreported, though has to carefully select news to not repeat yours.



With 135 million titles lying unread in The Library of Congress, why would anyone want to add to this dust collection? The best distributed book in history has been The Holy Bible, all you need to get by among puritanical westerners, though Book of Mormon, Quran and Red Book of Mao vie for devotion. Writing sermons is still writing. In fact, clerics and preachers have an interested audience, more than most writers, who struggle to attract their own tribe. About 75% of writing involves mainly unsuccessful marketing, so you’ll spend 10 years creating a masterpiece that won't circulate before you're dead, mimicking evangelists, therefore wasting time better spent earning. Writing without a signed book deal is about as good an opportunity as winning a lottery. Doesn't deter gamblers or wannabe novelists, though you'd do well to doubt their sanity.

Borne out by historical records and media news, last economic recession directly resulted from conservative austerity measures. Dubya’s dopey domestic policy of tax cuts for the affluent put millions of workers on the dole, for which states have been unable to raise revenues. Declaring government doesn’t make jobs condemned millions of people to poverty. He lied. Government does make jobs. In fact, federal agencies constitute the nation’s largest employer. States also account for 20% of local jobs, more than any single private company. Only small businesses taken collectively rival government for job creation. Where else will a Wolverine Mario [shown] temporarily rack your ride? Corporate welfare winds up as class warfare, taxes collected from middle class redirected to the rich. Better to hire public servants since cuts in corporate surveillance cause many a consumer calamity.

Was managing editor of a newswire, but that dried up. Then published a book and started a blog. Skilled wordsmiths compete with unschooled commentary tapping hot topics on social media. News, per se, is passé. People only ever followed it to inform decisions. Trend has been for immediate televised coverage that isn't necessarily up to journalistic standards. Talking heads pump a story until viewer share diminishes. Followup with facts has been supplanted with sensationalized infotainment. As far as printed stories, some publishers are reviving local reporting for smaller targeted audiences, so they can sell classified ads to neighborhood merchants rather than national brands who focus on television commercials. This requires local spokespeople who know the turf, but all shares of small pies will always be crumbs.

Job offers over a career arc represent a bell curve. You'll struggle in 20’s through Catch 22, no experience off which to springboard. By 35 you will get most offers; choose wisely. After 45, plan on becoming an entrepreneur since few will hire you. Not even fast food joints bite if you've had any business experience; you're a threat to teenage hiring managers. From 55 to 65 you supposedly manage amassed fortune, survive stints in a contingent workforce, or take whatever comes in. After 65 you might learn a craft, glue or sew, and sell at a mall show, while waiting for retirement checks government might bestow. Thirtysomethings would rather claw the eyes out of rivals than make do with this malthusian inevitability. Heaven help whoever isn’t fit after grinding adversaries and sniggering at cycling, since whatever he or she amassed won’t cover 6 months of medical bills. Or you could ride your bike to a state mandated meeting meant to improve your employability.

“To hell with unemployment: I think it’s a fine thing. I like sleeping all day and having nothing to do but read, write and sleep whenever I feel tired... In short, I think it’s a fine situation for a man to be in: provided, of course, that he has enough money to eat and pay the rent. I don’t... and therefore I must work: but what the hell? Is it something to cry and pray for forgiveness about? Is it some sort of heinous shame, some great soul-sucking agony for which universal pity is the only cure?... eviction is second only to hunger as the dirtiest word in the dictionary.”—Hunter Thompson, late and unrepentant slacker, 1958

Child Restrain

Blog logic requires regular posts to maintain interest, though this never worked here. Still survey issues and write essays, but spending every available hour riding or working to recover from worst winter in recent memory. Crocuses and robins don’t lie, say next generation has arrived. Bike paths provide a way to regain the stamina you need for running roads.

Zipping down a long decline had to brake hard to avoid a toddler walking a tiny bike at a 90° angle to path. Likewise, parents stood sideways astride their own taking up rest of pavement. No harm, no real foul, simply said, “No problem,” to their, “So sorry,” and resumed scorching. While nice every so often to forget traffic, recognize bike paths are bunny slopes and dog walks. When a friend bragged of his urchin taking to 2 wheels like a duck to water, shot back, “Whoa! Set limits.” Tykes don’t know any better than to ride trikes under trucks. Adults must supervise children until they’re ready to go solo or tragedies ensue.

Independent of age, all users of roadnet must know basic traffic code, personal safety protocols, and who to contact for help. Bikes need to be maintained. Pays to check carefully and clean before heading out, or you might wind up unsafely without or worse when far from nest. Trek recalled all bicycles with both front disc brakes and quick release hubs made from 2000 through 2015, which affects almost a million units sold in North America. Lever might jam in disc causing a sudden stop and endangering riders. Facial injuries, fractured wrist, and paralysis have resulted. For details go to www.trekbikes.com and click on "Safety & Recalls" at bottom of page. Who can say how many other makes might be similarly defective? Most are definitely not designed for wet weather. Global warming guarantees rainy days. You can wear a wetsuit but won’t keep bearings and chains from seizing with rust, or frames, handlebars and saddles collapsing from damage or rot.

Despite perceived perils, managed to bike over 100,000 miles alongside truckers with fewer close calls or mishaps than during 500,000 miles driven in about the same amount of hours. While motoring appears 5 times faster, always says that cycling is 20 times safer, walking 8 times, both more practical when trips are short. All cyclist and pedestrian deaths in recorded history do not equal what motorists sustain every year. Yet news neglects to mention this while hammering cycling for comparatively minuscule menace.

Cyclists continually encounter road rage of impatient motorists. Children’s book Ben Rides On depicts the inhumanity of bullies being transformed into bike repair and personal redemption. Ordinarily, Labann steers clear of juvenile literature littered with lessons intended to scare. But cartoonist Matt Davies does an excellent job describing situations to which anyone can relate.

“Any fool will load his bike so much that he can’t see; he rides on sidewalks, so what happens? A catastrophe! ...I play safe for you and me, ‘cuz I’m no fool. Show off is a stupid thing... He thinks it’s fun but what a sorry ending to his show.” – Cliff Edwards and the [Disney] Mouseketeers, 1956

In A Sand Grain

With snowless road shoulders still sandy, yesterday’s ride found 6” clear inside lines. That usually means motorists are violating lanes, though some could just be blowback by passing vehicles. It’ll be months before DPW removes, which saves a lot of time cleaning bikes and primping chains. Wondered what they’ll do with all this tainted detritus. Some looks reusable. Have paid serious money for 75 pound bags; only need to scrape and store for next freeze. Saw several flawless shoals nobody might mind seeing someone sweeping. Also found silver coins lost in snowbanks now receding.

William Blake famously wrote: “To see a World in a Grain of Sand...” The most insignificant things can cause pause for investigations into universal connections. A grain of sand in your shoe may physically irritate. Capitulations to conservative thought irritate learned sensibilities. These whores make a corrupt buck opposing alternatives to today's monetary policy that favors oligarchs. Money is a crucial tool that's wasted on dolts. Corporations only pay 1.9% of GDP in taxes, though some argue that personal taxes have risen to offset. It’s just another wrinkle in that trickle down scheme, a policy failure disproven repeatedly since Reagan begat it in 1980’s. BODs and CEOs never pay their fair share, so middle class earners bear all revenue burden. Bribed legislators exploit suckers with each bill addendum.

Often wonder what to believe. Ludwig Wittgenstein’s On Certainty uses “rider” as an addition or postscript:
607. “A judge might even say, ‘That is the truth - so far as a human being can know it.’ But what would this rider [“Zusatz” = addition] achieve?

624. "’Can you be mistaken about this color's being called green in English? ...‘No’. If I were to say, ‘Yes, for there is always the possibility of delusion,’ that would mean nothing at all. For is that rider [“Nachsatz” = postscript] something unknown to the other? And how is it known to me?”


A comparatively precise language, German for “bicycle rider” is “radfahrer”. Ignorantly trying to mimic Ludwig, Americans demote “a bicycle rider” to an afterthought. Riders are as green as unappreciated leaves, invisible, nothing at all, possibly a delusion, something to ignore or sweep aside, and unknown to stateside traffic planners, though valued by Brits [in this recent official report worth reading] and other Europeans. To Labann it's just a recurrent irritant. For those who say bicycling isn’t as safe as driving, it may be true in specific instances when bicyclists are given no quarter, though overall false, in all 20 times safer considering roads are empty 90% of the time and speeds averaging 12 mph aren’t likely to result in harm unless run over by motorists where shoulders don’t permit cycling.

Terrill Mast, Bike Ride [eam], Bike Ride, self, 2014, was inspired by a dangerous late night spin by bike, which resulted in a fractured arm and a renewed zest for life. “I can never let this be the end. I will do what I can to keep this always on a bike ride outside... I can not tell what is real, check the pulse and I feel... Alive!” Multi-artistic Mast also produced a bike sculpture.

Reich Mortmain

Googled “bicycle” 4 years ago and got 83 million results, including Wallace Putnam's imaginative expression [shown]. Today it’s 247 million, nearly 3 times as many. Doesn’t this convince you of its popularity as a transportation alternative? In contrast, googled “car” and got 3.5 billion. Automotive is the 4th Reich. Fortunes are made dealing licenses to lunkheads, ignoring horrendous death toll, preserving privileges of those who abuse them, and squeezing sustainable options off roads. Sick capitalism consumes lives. Near misses, proportional to amount of traffic and lack of shoulders, though fun to gripe about are hardly worth mentioning and probably scare already timid cyclists.

Can you make any sense of conflicting statements in blogs and news? Everything they present has an agenda or backstory you can’t sort out. Wouldn't it be nice if people just said what they actually meant devoid of opinion? Since 99% of it is either deliberate lies or uniformed absurdities, why bother reading at all? You’re still liable for all your decisions - how to spend, what to do, or who to vote for - after seeking whatever evidence you can find, thinking about things with which you don’t agree, and worrying about unknowns. Nation’s policies and society’s rights revolve upon your resolve.

America is neither a democracy nor republic, but an oligarchy. When Moonie conservative broadsheet Washington Times broke this story a year ago, few paid attention, just as Labann’s like assertion over a decade ago. But prestigious professors published academic proof, then story was repeated in BBC, therefore, can you ignore? Nothing has changed much in 4 decades, though the level of propaganda has snowballed. “Rich getting richer” is the root cause of all ills, not just “money” as said since antiquity, since any stagnant mortmain, property owned in perpetuity, impedes cash flow and spreads panic. Currency serves as a uniform tool of exchange when trading goats would prove digitally impossible and extremely inconvenient. Meanwhile, schools close and remain off tax rolls, more costs the middle class must absorb.

Far from debunking economist Robert Reich, Tim Worstall tries to forestall inevitable revolution, the foremost fear of every Forbes reader. Maybe masses should accept an oligarchy assessment, since it’s an unstable form of government bound to collapse on its own. Historically, only constitutional democracies have legs. Humanity must find another way or things will definitely devolve. Vast divergences between have and have not mostly demotivate, whereas narrow gaps cultivate hope and provide incentive.

Many competent folks gave up seeking productive roles and trying to contribute to society, instead muddle along on entitlements, like social security, unemployment and welfare. Rather encourage entrepreneurs to develop industries that meet basic needs well into future, though policies crush such chances for success. For retirees and those who can’t afford the withering costs of car ownership, bicycles decently serve transportation needs. Bicyclists clog up less road space during commute hours, except when they decide to do so in critical mass protests aimed at asking, “Why were we forsaken?” not just on roads but throughout community. Is it any wonder they are tempted to disobey traffic codes?

“Oh, wheel of fortune, I'm hoping somehow if you ever smile on me, please let it be now.”— Kay Starr, Wheel of Fortune (#1 hit in 1952, not about bicycles)

Cranking Alkane

Paraffin, an alkane hydrocarbon, has all sorts of uses. Besides lubricating bicycle chains, it’s an important ingredient in candles to brighten nights without electricity and crayons to express yourself creatively, as well as coming into its own as an organic phase change material (PCM) that stores excess energy. Besides its antibiotic and insulative properties, paraffin could multiply the efficiency of heat pumps, hot water heaters, and solar arrays. Someday all residential building codes will include passive energy collectors, since fossil fuels are finite, parrafin can be synthesized, and sun will always be the primary source of energy.

In 1931 compulsive inventor Thomas Edison said, “We should be using Nature's inexhaustible sources of energy: sun, wind and tide... I'd put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don't have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that.” Good stewards would also explore fusion reactors and other sustainable technologies Edison never imagined. Meanwhile individuals could preserve dwindling oil reserves by bicycling wherever they can, thus extend humanity’s chances to innovate. But is anyone working on alternatives? Does government even promote them? Lately they’re funding research into the brain, not a moment too soon given how poorly it’s usually applied by Congress.

At tax time filers get a glimpse into the lame deductions they allow home owners for reducing resource depletion. A few hundred is hardly incentive for installing a high efficiency water boiler or heater. You only get one chance to save taxes in your lifetime for converting to cleaner fuel or insulating your home, though half of Americans move every 5 years according to the US Census Bureau. This lukewarm support for energy conservation comes as a result of Big Oil bending Congress to its will. Under enlightened governments, energy policy is considered too important to be left to private enterprise. In the United States, however, corporate manipulation and federal deregulation rule. Consequently, basic utilities of cable, electric, gas, gasoline, heating fuel, and phone often cost collectively as much as income and property taxes which you falsely believe you’re paying to keep those other costs low. Bizarrely, most taxpayers and voters are well aware, yet continue to tolerate, since revolting against would require organizing, something averted by conquer-by-dividing rhetoric routinely spewed by conservative media, who “bypass skeptical reporters and wage an around-the-clock, partisan assault on public opinion... cleverly camouflaging political propaganda as independent journalism.”

Lately have been pondering Juvenal’s rara avis, metaphor of black swans, and Taleb’s Silent Risk. Have yet to think it all through, maybe never will. Ideas and inventions can become game changers, unpredicted events that upset best laid plans worse than a slipped disc. For example, new e-commerce sites provide myriad services without equipping vehicular fleets or stocking any shelves, though quality may suffer and randomness likely mount. Emerging uses for something as basic as paraffin suggests that humans haven’t fully comprehended all that nature provides, have squandered all sorts of opportunities, and ought to reevaluate benefits of old methods, like bicycling. Even a blog that attempts to demystify complexities could become a beautiful swan (Saint-Saens played on a bicycle pump) grown from an ugly duckling (The Bicycle Thief Bob Forrest). Bikes do make life better (light mural at Pershing Square, Los Angeles in 2011), if only to sort issues by priorities to avoid waste, ensure future, and secure rights.

Key Biscayne

Don’t remember which of the recently discovered bicycling songs had the whimsical lyrics, “Hail to the metatarsal, doesn’t need fuel from a fossil... We could all beat obesity by throwing away that car key,” but therein lies a lot of truth. According to World Health Organization, air pollution from burning fossil fuels annually/globally kills >7 million people, more than AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria combined. That doesn’t even account for cardiovascular diseases and harder to detect carcinogens directly related to petroleum use. It’s many times worse than tobacco. Oil’s scourge may be dinosaurs’ revenge, but like them will motorists also go extinct? Can’t sustain $1 trillion every decade for roadwork anyway. Don’t need more motorists on crowded roads, but at least some trips could be by bike, while planes and trains would welcome more passengers.

From car/home cabin fever [25 cubic yard snowbank in yard shown] to first thaw and furtive spins, notions arise of best rides ever. Bike blogger Aaron Teasdale enjoyed his hilly ride in Switzerland, though cycling North Vietnam must have been some rarified pleasure for him. Susan Greenwood suggested World’s Top 10 in the Guardian. More recently, Andrew Bain touted his own 12. Do your requisite training and get your passport in order. Bicycling magazine lists 50 light on details, but personally experienced bone rattling similar to #1 Flanders pavé on local New England cobble, though these granite setts are slowly disappearing. One buddy cited among his favorites tackling Tour de France stages: brutal D’alp Huez and windy Mount Ventoux. Could only counter with B&C's story of Heritage Trail Century in Northwest Massachusetts and Southeast Vermont with its 10,000 feet of climbing by countless flowery meadows and rowdy waterfalls with its 11 mile stretch of coasting before the leg back to Deerfield.

Seems self indulgent to waste fuel just to vary venues, but cyclists do grow weary of same old scenery. It’s possible to ride across entire continents, but it costs too much and takes lots of time. Managed 10,000 hours in the saddle without leaving New England. In these shaky economic times, majority has become reluctant to wage lives on sketchy trips, though simply spending cash might end recession.

What appeals right now to flabby, winter weary cyclists are reports of 90° fun and sun in Southern Florida. Chicagoan Chuck explored Rickenbacker Trail from Miami to Key Biscayne, a 5 mile palm studded sand island in the Atlantic favored by Cher and Nixon, reached by a causeway. It’s not much of a challenge with highest elevation only 5 feet above sea level and less than 20 miles of loop road, but Mangrove Cycles stands ready to rent beach bikes to visitors if they want to cruise this tropical paradise.

Take Sleigh Rein

Have almost forgotten what it’s like to ride a bike. February dumped record snow with banks taller than Labann, so for over a month streets have been almost impassable by any vehicle other than a one horse open sleigh or snowmobile. So unreal, never had to shovel off roof before, or trade shift cables for sleigh reins. March began with more of the same. As shown, windowing another chance. Only forecast that matters is when ice base won't refreeze overnight. Hunkered down and researched another collection of previously undiscovered songs and videos:

Andrew Duhon, Tandem Bike, The Moorings
Antonio Pinto, Barbie Bike, MacFarland, USA [sndtrk], Walt Disney Rec., 2015
Ben Ely’s Radio Five, Get on the Mic and Ride it Like a Bike, Transcending Reality, Valve Rec., 2008
Charlene Soraia, Bike (Live), London Sessions EP, Seesaw Records, 2008
Obsessive love of the low self esteemed: “I like the fact you tend to ride out on your bike, and come home after forging for the lonely likes of me.”
Cobson, Like a Bike Without Brakes, single, Anna Muchin, 2007
Cola, Bike Racks, single, 1998
Craig D’Andrea, Three Mile Bike Ride [guitar instr.], Getting Used to Isolation, Candy Rat Rec., 2009
Dan Bern, Bike, Macaroni Cola, self, 2007
Dot Wiggin Band, Banana Bike [juvenile], Ready! Set! Go!, self, 2013
Froggy Fresh, Stolen Bikes [hip-hop], Money Maker, self, 2012
Froggy Fresh, Stolen Bikes 2 [hip-hop], Dream Team, self, 2014
Gadjet, My Bike, Nitro Circus [sndtrk], Give 2 Get Music, 2012
"I’m saving gas money, times are fricking hard."
Heinz Kessling, On Your Bike [instr.], It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia [sndtrk], Extreme Music, 2010
Noted before that cast acted aggressively and stupidly toward bicyclists.
Hey Buster, I Like My Bike [juvenile], I Like My Bike, self, 2015
"When the cold winds blow and the streets are filled of snow, I drive a car. I know it’s not right but I won’t be cycling until the Spring." Managed only 50 miles so far in 2015, so, yeah.
Hurtbird, I Like My Bike, Nature vs. City, self, 2010
James Newton Howard, Sell the Bike [orchestral], Nightcrawler [sndtrk], Lakeshore Rec., 2014
Ambitious sociopath Lou Bloom steals a beach bike and pawns it for camera equipment. Howard scores it like a moment of inspiration.
The Lennings, Bike, Big Beige Car, self, 2007
Lex Zaleta, I Like Bike, Lex’s Laugh Tracks, self, 2007
Maarten Swaan, Broken Bike, Broke Bike, Whatabout Music, 2011
Maia Vidal, God is My Bike, God is My Bike, Crammed Discs, 2012
Hell, yeah!
McBusted, Riding on My Bike, McBusted, Island Rec., 2014
Me Against Myself, It’s Like Riding a Bike, Listen EP, 2011
Memory Waste, Ride All Night: Hipster indies hope to but snub all reasonable safety guidelines.
Michelle Featherstone, Blue Bike, Blue Bike, self, 2009
Mike Merz, Like Riding a Bike, The Odd Side of the Street, Archangel Media Empire, 1999
Mindy Gledhill, Little Red Bike, Pocketful of Poetry, self, 2013
Molly Maguire, Bike, Bike, Portico Music, 2012
The Race, Not Like Riding a Bike, The Perfect Gift, Flameshovel Rec., 2002
Reptar, Ghost Bike, Body Faucet, Vagrant Rec., 2012
Rhye, The Fall, Woman, Polydor UK, 2012
Video depicts a middle age man pining for carefree teen days and taking out his bike. Lyrics have nothing to do with cycling.
Sam Lachow, Brand New Bike [hip-hop], Brand New Bike, Dream & Produce, 2011
Sophie Clements, John Hendicott, Bicycle Samba [concrete], single, self, 2004
Soullone, Riding on My Bike, I’m Broke Like You but I Sound Like This, self, 2010
Sunny Day Rainbows, I Like Riding My Bike [juv.], Sunny Day Rainbows, self, 2012
Tangerine Dream, Dolls in the Shadow, Melrose, Private Music, 1990
Album cover and video shows trio riding bicycles. Founding member and pioneer of synthesized music Edgar Froese died on January 23rd, 2015, at age 70, and is survived by group’s lead guitarist Jerome Froese, his son. Keyboardist Paul Haslinger has long since gone solo. Group was notorious for producing over 100 classically inspired albums and surrealistic soundscapes in games like Grand Theft Auto and numerous films. They were listed in B&C’s appendix for song Three Bikes in the Sky.
Terry Mardell & The Bikestars, I Like to Ride My Bike, single, 2010

Vandyke Mane

A caricature of a revolutionary with a hair mane and vandyke beard derives from Lenin and Marx. Lately it better describes contemporary agitator and The Trews spokesman Russell Brand, who clearly sees through Fox News’ divisive dehumanization masking greedy motivation and wants the rich to pay their fair share. Media is dominated by giant conglomerates; panicked on-air celebrities with impassioned speeches mimic Hitler trying to twist opinion to fortify their untenable position. Worse, in this culture war, partisans on all sides use massacres as political capital. Must you buy into their tactics? Instead, blame boards of directors and Islamic dictators for incensed Jihad fought against bystanders, since protected instigators are unassailable. Since 1990s Labann has said the same thing as Brand but never so blatantly while trying to embrace equality, fraternity and liberty for all except those who’ve unduly taken advantage. Conservative, jihadi, libertine, nazi, rebel? All extremism is fundamentally misguided.

Unesco’s Joint Message of 3 May 2002 appeals to journalists on issues of media freedom and terrorism, “Neither be cowed by threats nor become a mere mouthpiece of patriotic sentiment or inflammatory opinion.” Like learning to ride a bicycle, you must find balance. Since 9-11, peace has been disrupted by an unresolved “war against terror” in a “pervasive atmosphere of paranoia in which press freedom and pluralism have suffered.” No uniform definition exists for the term terrorism, more describing an incurable effect than neglected root cause. Posturing and threatening hardly merit attention when majority is discontent. Hundreds of journalists have been slain by those who don’t want atrocities exposed. Promoting fear, ignorance and intolerance recruits more revolutionaries and reinforces media oppression. Seems rather deliberate, designed to garner gutless votes. “Let them kill each other,” scheme the rich, who hunker down as murder rates rise and make more guns and laws against restrictions.

Capitalism fails the majority, middle class and poor. Communism lacks personal incentives which produce competitive choices. Neither exists in pure form. All political theories have merged into a murky socialism full of personal entitlements without team commitments. Even social security, once supported by a 1:16 ratio of retiree to workers, will soon be down to 1:2, thus default and end. How long before youth reject paying into something they’ll never collect? Latest reports claim that only 1% of population holds 50% (if not more) of total wealth. You'd think 95% would be held by middle class, who grow food and make everything. Were that true, they’d be in a better position to assist the poor whom the wealthy ignore. But celebrity babblers and rabble rousers only make stinks over what majority already thinks. B&C throughout depicts how humans believe they behave well but fail. Ethics exists on a wide spectrum from justified homicide to self sacrifice.

Perhaps it is time to abandon any notion of intellectual or personal property. Basic information has lost all value with a free internet. Websites cover every aspect of life except information you can use to get ahead. No, that’s already locked down. With 135 million titles in the Library of Congress alone, and many times more articles, books and papers than that floating around, everything that can be said already has been. You’ll be put off literature after reading dozens of books saying the same thing, even quoting each other, more footnotes attributing sources than innovative content pursuing truth. While masses must be reminded repetitively to ignore empty threats, one must be woefully ignorant to believe he/she can say anything new, just what transpires. Opportunities to try are granted by a supportive society who clothes, educates, feeds, and shelters you without prejudice. Entire community owns all your ideas in return for services already rendered. You are neither obliged to serve without compensation nor supposed to hold them hostage in return.

Brand on a ride with now divorced wife, half time superstar Katy Perry.

As the epitome of capitalist spectacles, Superbowl 49 garnered television’s highest audience ever, 115 million viewers. The most despised ad shown during was a Nationwide Insurance spot that depicted a child on a tricycle, unable to catch up with boys on bicycles, who brought attention to accidental deaths among America’s youth. Car collisions account for most of them as the #1 cause of death among people under 25 years old. Distant genocide raises fewer hackles than neighbor fatalities, both of which audience causes. Nationwide wants not only to collect premiums but to reduce payouts by getting you to drive defensively and stay off streets. It's a manipulative, one-sided conversation. Those who raise important issues are seldom appreciated and usually reviled. Labann knows this better than anyone.

As communist transportation, bicycle in Chinese, 腳踏車 (zixingche), literally translates as Foot Tread Car. Not only the top selling brand in anti-monarchy China, still nicknamed the Kingdom of Bicycle, the Flying Pigeon, 飞鸽 (Fei Ge), is the best selling mechanized conveyance in world history with a half billion units sold worldwide from 1950 through 2007, the last year for which figures were posted, though still in production of about 25 million per year. Lack of competition, only 3 models, and state mandate made them ubiquitous there. Its head tube badge with dove over FG rips off Raleigh’s heron over R&co that brands the utility model upon which it was directly based despite patents demanding otherwise. The first new bike Labann ever owned after learning on hand-me-downs, Raleigh built tens of thousands of bikes each year from 1888 until it closed in 2003. Dutch multinational Accell Group continues building that brand in Taiwan, though not if China had its way.

Caught between cultures, the dispossessed latch onto abandoned property and squat in anarchy. Circle A symbolizes cycling counterculture. The dole barely keeps anyone without subsistence enterprise alive, deters car ownership, and encourages rebellion, though society doesn’t owe common slobs anything and inadvertently subsidies crap art and devolution. Coke and meth stimulate purposeless subversion and supplant mutual advantages. Addicts and dealers prey upon whoever has slightly more. With whatever they can seize, snort, steal or swallow they’ve formed an entire ephemeral empire of crust, mosh, punk and rap in short vicious outbursts. The smugly comfortable care or hear little about these localized disturbances before they disappear and resurface elsewhere. Bicycle freedom inspires freedom of speech, a human right many have died to uphold. The cure is neither counseling nor medicating but gaining trust and guaranteeing justice, which everyone can support.

Given bicycling is considered outmoded and generally marginalized, it puzzles why there are so many directly related instances of art and witnesses in song. Austrian punk rockers Bicycle Terror feature their own Bicycle Terror Theme Song and recommend several bike songs from other underground groups, including:
Afternoon Gentlemen, Barthu and the Bike [grindcore], White Cider Chronicles, Bovine Rec.
Död Human, Bike Punks [Catalan crust], Död Human, Espasmo Discos, 2013
Grinch, Snow Bicycle [J-pop], Trash Break Vol. 003, Natural Hi-Tech Rec., c. 2012

A little digging beneath Död Human revealed an overlooked Eurocentric radio playlist of anarchic bike tunes, excluding ones already in blog or book, confirmed through secondary sources:

A.T.O. (Another Terrorist Organization), Bike Punx, Live at Sacarapa Lodge #86, 2004
A.T.O. (Another Terrorist Organization), Bike Punx Unite, For Terrorists in Training, 2004
Bici Hardcöre, Dis Bike Punk, [Spanish, single], 2012
Bici Hardcöre, Mi Bici H H H Letra [Murcian, single], self, 2011
Bici Hardcöre, Ni Carril Bici, Ni Òstias! [Spanish, single], self, 2011
Crucial Unit, Bikes Not Bush, Sea of Steel, Vol. 1, R.A.M.B.O. & Crucial Unit Split EP, Ed Walters Rec., 2001
Daston, Mother Bicycle With Dream [Japanese], Continuously Attack of Endless Shock EP split with Gouka, Forest Rec., 1996
Diskoiraa, Utzi Pakean Bizikleta [Spanish], nasi_goreng_adiktion, Disco Enfermos, 2012
Divide & Conquer, Bike Punx! [French in English], Split CD w/ Juggling Jugglars, Sanjam Records, 1997
Divide & Conquer, The Bike Militia, The Need To Amputate EP, Ginger Liberation/Maloka Records, 1998
Face Up To It! Stabbed In The Bike, [French, single], c. 2006
Fearless Vampire Killers, Bike [Japanese], Rally Round the F.V.K., MCR Co., 1989/1998
The Fight, Bike Song [English], Chained to Your Lies, Fat Wreck Rec., 2003
Heroes & Zeros, Bicycle [Norwegian], Wake Up Call, Mad Butcher Rec., 2011
Human Alert, Opoe Bike Part 2 [Dutch], Sex, Drugs & Anarchy, earGear, 2000
Idiot Talk, Fixie Bike, Idiot Talk EP, Build Me A Bomb Rec., 2011
In Defence, Bike Thieves Can Suck It! {Minneapolis punk], Don’t Know How to Breakdance, self, 2007
The Kl'emones, Bike Punks [Polish, single]
Mönster, (Next) Bike Song, Death Before Disorder, Sabotage, 2005
Oi's 'R' Us/Mihoen, De Fiets Van Wim [Dutch], RaAST Door, In the Wok Rec., 1998
R.A.M.B.O., Bike, Skate, Mosh, Wall of Death The System, 625 Thrashcore, 2001
Small Brown Bike, Red Light, Recollected, Old Point Light, 2013
SNFU, Drunk On A Bike, The One Voted Most Likely to Succeed, Epitaph, 1995
Tom & Boot Boys, Going By My Favorite Bicycle, Pogo 77 Record Compilation, Brutus Rec., 2004
Über, I Will Go By Bike [Spanish in English], Segon Senzill EP, Bowery Rec., 2015
Viktors Hofnarren, Vive Le Vélo [German crust], Jobbykrust, Maximum Voice Prod., 1996

Rhapsody Apophenian

People have a tendency to superimpose patterns on random phenomena, what psychologists call apophenia. Epiphany can be creative, finding faces and forms in clouds, though its opposite, apophany, forcing everything to fit into your mania, is delusional and, depending upon degree, schizophrenic. This patternicity or randommania also ties to belief in the paranormal and other Type 1 Errors: Divination, gambler’s fallacy, numerology, unscientific conclusions. Every bump in the night isn’t caused by a ghost; world is noisier during day, so routine rattlings may not be noticed until quiet intervenes. Likewise, bicycling, though prevalent for last 150 years, wasn’t always such a profound influence on culture. Last year’s April Fools post stated, “Bicycles didn’t mobilize legions of Imperium Romanum.” Then odd ideas intersect your vector and warrant reassessment.

Though its name derived from Latin means “to run again”, a palindrome bears no resemblance to a velodrome, a track where cyclists race around. Why is it not called a palinilap? Can you guess who* is referenced by, "A man, a plan, a canal, Panama"? As a sentence or word that reads the same backward and forward, must palindromes also provide radar into someone’s identity? Clearly, no. There’s nothing to them other than humanity’s proclivity for play.

Shown in facsimile, the Sator Square, made before 79 AD, is considered among the oldest known examples. Cleverly constructed, it’s in Latin, readable from 4 directions. It has been analyzed for ages and ascribed with superstitious portent. Has it any connection to bicycles? Bicycles were realized millennia later, but aren’t these anachronistic terms suggestive?

SATOR could mean author, founder, god, originator, or sower of seeds. Scholars speculate that AREPO must be a proper name, though it could describe someone who creeps along or slowly measures, reminiscent of cyclists with cyclometers, especially those riding hesitantly forth as suitors to someone other than cousins or siblings to improve the gene pool. TENET holds or masters, OPERA works, and ROTAS are wheels, though as a verb it could mean spin. Wheels to modern ears would signify bikes or cars, though chariots or wagons to ancient Romans. Auriga, the charioteer, a diamond frame constellation balanced on celestial equator, was indeed the prototypical 2-wheeler.

Commonly translated, "The sower Arepo holds wheels with effort,” makes little sense. Context long lost, could be about charioteers, as “The wheelwright purveys wheels,” or ploughmen, “Whoever plants must attend plough’s wheels,” but what would be the point? As an amulet, probably symbolizes the perpetual rotation of day and night that sows new troubles with which to deal. Or may just be foolish graffiti no more meaningful than aibohphobia (fear of palindromes) or, "I’m a lasagna hog, go hang a salami." Rather imagine it as some prescient statement, “The author, a careful measurer of everything coming, has a book for you about bicycles,” thus making it personal and relevant.

This final translation is just a fantasy one shouldn't take seriously instigated by recently announced route of 2015’s Giro d’Italia; Stage 9 will swing near where Sator Square was found, in the shadow of Vesuvius, the volcano that erupted flowing ash, land and lava over Herculaneum, thus preserving this enigma to vex modernity.

* Rough Rider President Teddy Roosevelt.

“Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality. Open your eyes, look up to the skies and see. I'm just a poor boy, I need no sympathy, because I'm easy come, easy go, little high, little low. Anyway the wind blows doesn't really matter to me.”—Queen, Bohemian Rhapsody, 1975, "A" Side to "I'm in Love with My Car"

Venir Demain

When you mention songs, you ought to note books and videos, too. Many are coming tomorrow, arrived already without fanfare, have difficulty raising any interest, and rely on blog and social media buzz.

From Vimeo are an Adam Nestadter and Chris McCoy narrative of loss and redemption from a bicycle’s viewpoint, and Tim Pierce’s Ode to the Bicycle with numerous shots of mountain biking in scenic New Zealand.

Compliments of the season, this wheelwright cranks out the Carol of the Bells. Talk about tuning your spokes for the New Year.

Dave Walker presents a video of his indie ditty Bicycle to Montreal. Seems a wistful dream on a cold Quebecois afternoon. You don't have to go to Canada to find constant deterrents. U2’s frontman Bono wonders whether he’ll ever play guitar again after a bad bicycle accident. Public takes place on the road and this role of troubadour for granted, since so many will step up to fill it. You can't live sitting still.

Additional, less interesting or recent shorts can be viewed on Vimeo through this link.

After cyclist Jamie Bianchini hit rock bottom, he decided to take a tandem tour around the world and invite strangers to be stokers. Upcoming autobiography A Bicycle Built for Two Billion chronicles his adventures.

Due for debut, a new film For the Love of Mud wallows in international cyclocross scene.

Peloton e-zine lists 10 must-read cycling book of 2014, but all concern the exclusive community of competitive racing much maligned as of late for cheating and doping. Bike&Chain completely skipped this extremist position, content to address issues encountered daily by billions of bicyclists, the vast majority.

Amazon.com lists nearly 50 new books, many not yet released. Seems most repeat previous articles and books. Award winning author Roy Wallack’s book How to Ride to 100 and Beyond (Da Capo Lifelong Books, 384 pp.), is the only title among them that promises a unique take on issues relevant to all bicyclists, particularly baby boomers. You can be assured (spoiler alert) that “how” means “never stop pedaling”. Distances may decrease with age, so frequency must be increased. If you want to be around tomorrow, ditch automobile and plan lots of short rides.

Featuring Jane

Not discovering new but noticing for the first time, this slim list of bicycling tunes must ring in New Year. Can’t say it was an exhaustive search, since blog and book already catalog so many almost any source offers only covers and duplicates. First 2 were listed in appendix, included only to link videos. For once they feature a realistic mix of boys and girls.

5ive, Bicycle Rider (instr. rock), Tortuga Rec., 2001 - similar to Mogwai
1 Speed Bike, Nixon-Reagan Circle Fighting Machine [techno], 2000
Adam Dayton Gibson (Adamsday), Bicycle Girl Theme (from The Walking Dead) [techno], Hits and Misses, self, 2010
ak47, Bi-Cycle [techno], AK47, self, 2011 - Kraftwerk mimic
Animal Nation & Sly Business, Girls on Bicycles [hip-hop], Don’t Grow Up to Be Like Us, Urbnet, 2013 - resembles Lyte Funky Ones' Summer Girls
A2J, Bicycle Ride [Christian, Asian Indian], Prove It, Go Media, 2013
Big Bang Boom, Bicycle, Because I Said So! self, 2012
Cliff Martinez, Falling Off a Bicycle Plus [idm], The Knick [sndtrk] HBO, Milan Entertainment, 2014
Frances England, Bicycle, Mind of My Own, self, 2010
Kevin Macleod, Bicycle [eam], Reunited, self, 2012
Laura Doherty, Bicycle [juvenile], In a Heartbeat, self, 2014
Liane Smith, Bicycle, Two Sides of a River, self, 2012
Jay Chou, Terdsak Janpan, "腳踏車" Bicycle [instr., Taiwanese], Secret [sndtrk], JVR Music Int’l, 2007
Joe Hertler & the Rainbow Seekers, Devil Don’t You Steal My Bicycle [neo-bluegrass], On Being, self, 2011
Major Parkinson, Bicycle! Major Parkinson, self, 2008
Red Light Cameras, Bicycle [New Mexico Indie], Red Light Cameras, self, 2011 - front woman Amanda Machon (shown above) does a concluding pedal dance during Youtube concert.

Aboard Blame Train

In B&C, “blame” gets 80 mentions, too many. Through commission, omission, or tacit permission of evil transgression, humans are plainly blameworthy, including, though unintentionally, Jesus, in whose name crusaders murdered legions and religious bigots rationalize wrongs. Prefer to remember innocent baby, sole survivor of a genocide aimed at killing him specifically. Today, police shoot unarmed civilians. Soldiers in your behalf resort to sleep depriving and water boarding prisoners. Spent too much time trying to identify who's guilty for today's rage when the real enemies are fear, greed, ignorance, lack of concern for others, and lust for power, as if anyone can really be controlled. Lives are consumed in attempts to establish rules and rectify wrongs, blood feud necklaces strung from one generation to the next, or digging dual graves for vengeance's sake. Why bother recapitulating? Resent feeling fear, so say whatever comes to mind, even if it invites trouble.

Terrorists Labann fears most drive erratically and rudely in huge surrounding vehicles. Filthy, scummy trucks carrying milk or produce turn your stomach. They beg a pair of questions, 1. “How safe is our food and water supplies?” and 2. “Why am I buying these popular brands?” Motoring accidents are the nation’s 3rd worst cause of death, 3 times gun violence or infectious diseases. Plus driving contributes to petroleum carcinogens, sedentary ways, and substance abuse, which are responsible for the top 2: cardiovascular diseases and cancers. Sad state of the roads further leads to erratic behavior by disappointed users. Countless collisions occur from swerving to avoid gaping holes; DOTs don't want to know, because that makes them culpable. Everyone wants to be downtown simultaneously. Work days are already staggered: 5:00 to 9:00 AM starts and 3:00 to 7:00 PM closes. Yet highways range from busy to bumper-to-bumper at all hours, defying logic. With alternative bike commuting up 64% nationwide, bicycling fatalities have risen 16%, though still few compared to motoring, also up 1%, almost as many as bicycling in total. Sobering input deters riding during dangerous December, when revelers and shoppers race around distractedly and drunkenly. Rode 20 miles in drizzle to mail holidays cards that brought hope to honored recipients. Nature dies every Winter Solstice after planting seeds for renewal in Spring. Acutely aware, didn’t need signs in gutter to contemplate mortality.

While facts aggravate, befuddle, and corrupt, truth drives humans straight over the edge. Writing will always be an irrational random activity that only the hopelessly deluded believe can be moderated. Epistemologists and scientists with 200+ IQs struggle with the inherent flaws in all communication and literature. The closer you study something, the further away you find yourself from it. You must become the creature or object to comprehend what influences and moves it. Only then can you comment with authority or evaluate such expressions, but often not so anyone else appreciates.

The Library of Congress holds 135 million titles. No group, nation or people will ever read them all. If writers were further funded and motivated, there might be billions. Injustice silences and turns lives into a march of getting, going, spending and sleeping. Surely no such story holds the least interest; only heroes living through extraordinary trials ever present tales one wants retold. Had an interesting eavesdrop at Zurich airport behind a bunch of reporters returning from war ravaged Middle East. Yet writers are usually bystanders who repeat false accounts of what happened, not participants in events readers need to know about. What makes any author think he/she is contributing anything that hasn't already been said? Unless you're creating a future, you’re merely repeating, spinning wheels. Amusing how hacks mimic any book that gains traction. Pulp trash makes good starters for wood burning stoves. Seinfeld quipped, "Why do people keep books like trophies after they read them?" Surely they can be passed around afterwards, so how can publishers anticipate significant sales? Society has gotten so splintered, printing on demand has become popular.


To get a book deal an author needs to gain notoriety and settle into some niche. Publishers dangle carrots for all sorts of donkeys with the hope one plods along in the direction they're headed and therefore shoulders their load. That thousands fail doesn't concern them, only that some succeed who they can exploit. You can't ever be sure how readers will react. A book may take years to produce; nobody has any idea what will sell in 5 or 10 years hence. Can't base a story on what's now popular and carve out a following among those who are looking to be taken somewhere they've never gone before. Can only hope yours resonates with readers at the end of your journey.

Being left on wayside to die when no longer contributing to society makes you acutely aware of pensions and reserves. You'll claw your way to stay ahead. It’s why so few buy art unless convinced it'll increase in value, or freely share their good fortune. Most will never be happy in their chosen career, living through decades in quiet desperation while looking for something they’ll never find. Cannot blame how things are; without taking risks, rewards won't come. Do not regret a stolen decade to pen and publish a book and companion blog nobody reads. What else was there to do? Redouble household projects or take on extra jobs? Sleep or watch more television? Did enough of all to secure some balance, start a train of thought, and stay above board. Can you forgive yourself?

Auf Wiedersehen

In each generation volunteers step up to record observations, test hypotheses, and verify findings. Tons of tiresome details confirm obvious truths, which distill many facts. When people say they express TRUTH, they lay some religious or speculative opinions on you, not useful and verifiable notions nobody wants to consider. Only forensic investigators care about facts and then only because they get paid to. Researchers constantly revise history and science by discovering evidence and exposing lies. Government treats foresight and thrift as dangerously radical. Anyone who displays a refined sense of paradoxes will be dismissed as autistic, savant or trainspotter. Radio stations pay dunces millions to spout conservative nonsense. Words themselves possess hidden meanings. Unless easy profit or satisfied hormones are blatantly promoted, forget about holding anyone's attention.

You can join a ranting cult, or religion condemning cults, or stay skeptically solo. You not only need not agree with absolutes and ultimatums, you ought to exercise choices lest they disappear. How else can you nurture your own advancement, breakthroughs, uniqueness? Despair for humans. They don't discuss ideas. Conversations end in character assassinations and personal attacks, especially when respondents don't appreciate or grasp ideas you bring. Bullies and trolls abound on-line.

With billions of planetary inhabitants, the day of heroes and icons has passed. One of life's most perplexing and persistent problems is how to make a name for yourself. Fame resembles bacon, lots of sizzling fat under fire. Anonymity and ignominy suggest inertia, mold, obscurity or rot. But you have to guard against such metaphors that make no sense and provoke futile actions. Celebrity status carries as many hassles as rewards. It's just a way to amplify intensity and make time fly. Before you know it, you're as broke and unknown as before. Great silent film vamp Lulu, beloved by moviegoers on 2 continents, wound up as Mary Louise Brooks, a Sachs Fifth Avenue retail clerk before turning tricks. She was lucky compared to countless catastrophes suffered by others who found fleeting fame. Terrorists simply dissolve into events, like those nameless criminals who crashed into World Trade Towers. Nobody knows them or wants to. Radicals get metaphors stuck their mind and fret over them. Unabomber couldn’t quell his fear of communism though he didn’t at all grasp what it meant. Why all this rage? Thousands of discontents form the greatest threat to mankind, who’d use biological, nuclear, and other weapons of mass destruction to impose some bizarre ideal not even they comprehend. Not as though there’s nothing to fear. You can’t safeguard civilization. You can behave decently and kindly, defy evil, hope others follow your example.

Suggest everyone blow off some steam, sharpen axe, value distractions, and wonder why entertainment exists when they aren’t busy inhibiting stupidity and waste, innovating, and inventing. Can rethink BPA free water bottles that carry more, nicely fit into racks, and weigh less by sandwiching shock insulator between glass liner and titanium shell; carbon crack carrier saddle specially designed for street dealers to carry crack where cops won’t look; writing device that resembles a twirled bike with ergonomic grip around fingers. You could be imagining many a thing while riding: Bike with continuously variable transmissions, crankshafts, integral rechargeable batteries, regenerative disk brakes, seat post or steering head adjustors, and still weigh so little you’d never notice, but would you be able to remove rear wheel for flat fixes? Moreover, cyclists need somewhere to ride safely. Motorists don’t nicely share roads. Painted lanes could make street cycling more popular, though spacious shoulders decrease all accidents and provide a safety valve. Environmentalist and former Bogota mayor Enrique Peñalosa would put, “Bikeways in every single street. Bikeways are not a cute architectural detail, bikeways are a right.”

But every Halloween bicyclists disappear for season and wait for Spring to resume their struggle for equality. Arguments get renewed and repeated ad nauseam. As the final rhyming title means, “Until we meet again,” this will be the last Bike&Chain blog entry for awhile. Don’t expect any updates, replies to comments, or sage advice. Instead, get some miles in while you can.

Capital Gain

One thing Bike&Chain has never been about: Profit. Did, on occasion, accept trades for bicycling services, for example, leading newbies on twilight rides. Mostly broke even in needed parts and repairs or someone else’s books or recordings. Labann would never deluge your inbox with ads for anything (Be smart. Buy mine!), appeals for alms (This is no sales call...), cannabis vapes for e-cigs (No Tar, Pure Poison!), herbal remedies (Dubious cures without a prescription), or such plugs for unwanted spam. In fact, only ever promoted alert attention to what’s happening without weighing its benefits. That’s practically heresy in a society that rates everything on a top ten list, as if there were only 10 of anything to compare. Reveals how insular those who judge are.

Always warm to those who volunteer a confession when you share an observation. It isn’t mandatory. Conversations can be started on flimsy premises. B&C was originally intended to welcome dialogue, though fear the opposite occurred, smothered connection with obscure inquiries and zen mediation. Most people see cycling as the social darwinism of race competition, not the celebration of vitality and privilege of deceleration that it is.

Last long ride seemed continually uphill. Even its only downhill had a dozen sharp upticks. Was thinking throughout, “Is this good for me?” Brevets (50, 100, 150, 200, 300, 400, 600, or 1200 km) basically beat the bejabbers out of you. Their health improvement and mood boost come at a painful price. But what your body expends earns credits. All work supposedly garners compensation. Projects completed increase holdings. Science supports it. In thermodynamics, every system degenerates towards entropy, its state of lowest integration, without periodic inputs of energy. Pedaling builds fitness, burns fat, and buys time by improving body. Bicycling contrasts with other forms of exercise in that it’s also reliable transportation. It can be as easy or hard as you like. You can choose to climb hills or sometimes go around them. You can feel exhausted afterward or later revived. Whatever occurs, you own it. Yet it’s strange how you earn the right to ride farther by holding a job to pay for equipment and wasting ever more time through pedaling instead of motoring.

Self preservation calls for cardio workouts, daily effort, environmental awareness, food choices, intelligent approach, job performance, money savvy, safe motility, sensible risks, and social contract. You neglect any one at your peril. Increasing survival odds sounds as difficult as it is in fact. Doctors recommend, in order: 1. Quit smoking and taking drugs, though they push pharmaceuticals rather than put up with your bellyaching over trivial issues. 2. Maintain nominal body mass index through diet and exercise. 3. Listen to nutritionists, who urge you to balance carbs, lean proteins, and raw veggies. 4. Hydrate religiously. 5. Sleep same amount, same time every day. 6. Stay out of infected crowds. 7. Wash frequently. 8. Operate machinery responsibly. 9. Slow down and spend sensibly. 10. Avoid stress, though worry about achieving all 10 might increase it.

Easier to pedal than stay employed. Insanity drags down business: Bosses apply generic systems to do particular work, committees impose all sorts of rules, and coworkers dodge duties you must assume. Such arrangements collect losers and drive stalwarts away. Eventually, all you have are lunatics and pirates. Same principle applies with lawyers making statutes that maximize litigation, thus profits. This causes dual evils: 1. Good rules disappear under a pile of crazy nonsense. 2. People waste a lot of time, so important work never gets done. Battle lines are drawn by those who justify their decisions. You are stuck with tools that make producing impractical. Confusing metaphor or useful mnemonic, neither promotes understanding better than simplicity. Complexity exists because someone wants to control or grasp societies or systems with lots of components acting independently. You seldom really need to do this. It can happen without your intervention. Complexity extends employment for office drones far beyond their useful contributions. Safe to bet that the 1 in 4 insane inmates of your asylum really run it. Smarter to demystify and simplify. Too bad deck is stacked against you making a living by roaming aimlessly and spinning cranks, which at least represents personal gain rather than soul drain. Many writers have tried to sell a bike book suffuse with advice nobody wants to hear and lists of somehow related items readers don’t care about; can neither give them away nor trade experiential knowledge for energy credits.

Passed Columbus in October’s moonlit glimmer. His bronze finger confirmed direction already taken. Explorers may point the way and promise profit, but reality occurs en route. A semi-tandem-trailer whizzed by letting out a blast from his air brakes. Was on gradual climb broken by a traffic stop, but the grind doesn't stop until you cross Miller and flatten on Pleasant. Bicycling sometimes resembles exploring. Reached workplace and settled into another hectic day as if nothing had happened over 500 years ago to merit remembrance.