Brooding Graphomane

Still sitting on fence about whether collecting, sorting and theorizing about cultural artifacts serves any practical purpose. Now attuned, you notice every humble bike you once filtered out. They call anyone with an insane writing compulsion a graphomane. Computers have expanded outlets for poets and public's chance for rants by a quantum advance. Journalism died. Media became infotainment. Social media promotes hipster hegemony. You can assume this means most of what you read merely deflects criticism, incites mayhem, provokes replacement, or spins fables, unless you stumble into some backwater where brooding deliberation over decades seeks beauty in reality.

B&C deserves a snappy anthem. Listed many songs that nicely align, but to select only one would show bias. So wrote own that quotes names you might know or ought to.

Bicycling Culture by Labann

Sport or transportational:

Labann wrote tomes on this
conveyance you pedal.

Vulture for cycling culture:

On something less vulgar,
could've avoided ulcer.

Fervor, fear beget regret.
Yet so does parking

your butt on a soffette.

Buy wheels at a bike swap,
junk dealer [1], trendy shop,
or yard sale next door stop.

Can ride it if you like [2],
though many bust or rust [3]
when no longer a tyke.

Chorus:
Go outside. Ride, ride, ride.

Play the fool. Just decide
to swallow your damn pride.

Learnt really hard lessons [4].
Dodged some stones in the road [5],
during cycling sessions.

Ever look left, right, left
across, not let yourself
of living be bereft.

Pass losers, motorcrashes [6],
balderdash on diaper rashes.
Steer clear of bigot clashes.

Activist Morrisette heed.
Dan Behrman, Illich read.
Bike’s all you’ll ever need.

Wake white [7] or yellow [8] zeal.
What will you reveal
pursuing an ideal?

Chorus:
Go outside. Ride, ride, ride.

Ignore jibes and sneers snide.
No pet? Be your own guide [9].

Don’t forget to mention [10]
how Pierre Michaux’s bike
was world’s best invention.

Choose a freedom machine [11].
You will get glad and lean,
but it won’t keep you clean.

Never get there? Went far
on fixed wheel with crossbar [12],
faster than driving car.

Tied my bike to a post [13],
shamed to fret. Still almost
got stole' by some foul ghost.

Depressed you say? Why not
be on a flow today?
Pedal your blues away [14].

Chorus:
Go outside. Ride, ride, ride.

Neither be pushed aside,
nor let rights be denied.

Ride bike slowly [15], sans dread,
wherever you like, Grateful
Dead songs in your head.

Beasts and botanicals,
spandex mamils, fat bottomed [16] wamils,
such amusing mammals.

You, me, and the devil
make two [17]. Not merely revel,
peddle on the level.

Bicycle built for fools [18],
forget about it [19]. Tools
can’t touch me, beyond rules.

A’cycling through village [20]
’s legal right, no breakage.
Driving’s just a privilege.

Chorus:
Go outside. Ride, ride, ride.

Safer than your next stride;
motoring’s suicide.

Snippet Sources:
1 Paul McCartney, Wings, “Junk” (1970)
2 Syd Barrett, “Bike” (1967)
3 Tom Waits, “Broken Bicycles” (1982)
4 Melody Gardot, “Some Lessons” (2008)
5 Mary Chapin Carpenter, “Stones in the Road” (1994)
6 Björk, Sugarcubes, “Motorcrash” (1988)
7 Tomorrow, “My White Bicycle” (1968)
8 Tracy Jane Comer, “Yellow Bike” (2006)
9 Red Hot Chili Peppers, “Bicycle Song” (2002)
10 Be Your Own Pet, “You Are My Bicycle” (2006)
11 Matthew Price, “Freedom Machine” (2009)
12 Wild Billy Childish, “Medway Wheelers” (2005)
13 Woody Guthrie, “Dance a Little Longer” (1946)
14 R Crumb, “Pedal Your Blues Away” (1978)
15 Trey Anastacio, “Let Me Lie” (2006)
16 Freddie Mercury, Queen, “Fat Bottomed Girls” (1978)
17 Scissor Sisters, “Bicycling with the Devil” (2004)
18 Jimi Hendrix, “My Friend” (1968)
19 Kevin Bacon, “Got Damn Bicycle” (2008)
20 John Lennon, “New York City” (1972)

Chanson Neuvaine

A bike can be your best friend, extension of soul, or prie dieu kneeler on which to supplicate blessings. Novenas consist of prayers repeated, often sung for nine days or more, usually toward favorable happenings. All songs beseech attention, not necessarily divine intervention, yet forever exhort some spiritual connection. Can't forget that catchy tunes now owe a whole lot to Gospel Plow long before and sacred hymns of yore. Never look back. Pedal onward.

Angus and Julia Stone, Main Street, Angus and Julia Stone, self, 2014. “My bones are aching for yours. You rode me on your bicycle down Main Street… Held me as though I'd never leave. You rode me on your bicycle down Main Street.”

Ariana Grande featuring Nicki Manaj, Side to Side, Dangerous Woman, Republic Records, 2016. “This the new style with the fresh type of flow: Wrist icicle, ride d*ck bicycle. Come true, yo, get you this type of blow. If you wanna menage, I got a tricycle.”

Ben Weaver, Split Ends, Mirepoix and Smoke, Bloodshot Records, 2010. An environmental sensitive and Minneapolis native, Ben tours between engagements by bicycle and writes poems and songs inspired by his journeys. While most lyrics don’t specify bicycles, riding intensely informs his reflections. Fellow Bloodshot artist and Chicago wrench tech Al Scorch credits local bike advocates for launching his music career, and similarly bike commutes to gigs, though unlikely to live up to surname while lugging gear.

Blonde Redhead (Amedeo and Simone Pace) wrote score of The Commentator, a new Brendt Barbur documentary that trails Paris Roubaix race coverage by legendary announcer Jørgen Leth set for debut this month.

Darryl Worley, Nothin To Lose [c&w], Here and Now, 903 Music, 2006. “Gasoline prices are higher than ever. They line up to buy 'cause they hate going slow. Someday I might learn to ride a bicycle, but I ain’t got no place to go… I used to spend all my time making money, much in the fashion of my dear old dad. He could have taught me to ride a bicycle. Now I bet he wishes he had.”

Fetty Wap, Go Hard Boyz [hop hop], single, self, 2016. “Bikes up, guns down… bought a Banshee [brand name bicycle]... Riding all day, and all night… We believe in bicycles, don’t believe in helmets… Bam! Bam!”

Fossils, Bicycle Chor [“Bicycle Thief”, Indian], Fossils 2, self, 2004. Founders of the Bengali underground rock scene, Fossils derived named from feeling crushed by early disapproval.

K’coneil, Bicycle, Love/Lust, Gedion Soldiers Entertainment, 2016.

(Adrianna) Krikl & (Viviane) Be, Bicycle, Odds & Ends, self, 2016. “I hop on my bicycle and ride, anywhere… Cruising downhill nice and slow, ‘cause I don’t got nowhere I need to go, spinning wheels… All I want to do is have some fun. I like to ride my bicycle… Grab your 10-speed, because it’s about to get hot.”

Monkey Majik, Bicycle, Time, Avex Entertainment, 2008. "Don’t wanna fall on my head. Don’t wanna botch up my chain… The whole notion of balance and gravity, my chin wasn’t up. Where was I headin’? I’m closin’ in on a fire hydrant, disaster’s waitin’. Ain’t goin’ far, I get up, I get up, don’t give up. I reassemble it all. I found out, you’ll do it if you wanna do it.”

Nahid Afrin, Loraalir Uraajaan [Assamese-Indian pop], Chor (The Bicycle) soundtrack, Terakota Records, 2015. Tune scores trailer for a new film in Assamese language about innocence of children who share a bicycle until it's stolen.

Stoffer & Maskinen, Vi to Er Smeltet Sammen ["The two of us have melted into one", Danish], Stoffer & Maskinen, A:larm Music, 2008. Anchors soundtrack of 2014 feature film Copenhagen in which an adult bicyclist visiting city meets an adorable teen waitress [still image above]. While a peripheral mention for being in a bike movie, its lyrics speak directly to wheel obsession in a sort of Flann O’Brien, Third Policeman way. “We are melted into one. We can no longer separate… You are my pulse, heavily throbbing, that makes my blood circulate with every beat of every second. You'll follow the rhythm of my heart around. You are the centre of gravity of my thoughts, my lightness when I feel heavy. And, if I float for no reason, you'll pound the rhythm of my heart around… all alone and without a day, cause we will never go back.”

Wax, Two Wheels [hip hop], single, Island Def Jam Music, 2011. “I'm just riding through the valley on my bicycle, just pedalin’, pedalin’, pedalin’, pedalin’, pedalin' along… I’m gonna sing, oh yeah, oh-my-my, ‘I don't give a f*ck about a DUI.' You can take away my license, but you can't take away my pride. I'm a keep drinking until the day I die. Two wheels is the way I ride.”

Y.N.RichKids, My Bike, single, 2013. A gang of Minneapolis ragazzi recorded this def hip hop jam. "Ok, I'm back on my bike. I don't need a car; these two wheels gon' take me far… I'm ridin' around real slow, and 'u' already know that I'm fresh to death on my bicycle. And you should 'prolly' know, that I can do it with no hands. I'm the man.”

Update: As is always, no sooner than a list is released, other entries magically appear. Carlos Vives and Shakira, La Bicicleta [Columbian in Spanish], single, 2016. [Shakira] "Your way is not complicated on a bicycle that takes you everywhere… Take me, take me on your bicycle. Hear me, Carlos, take me on your bicycle. I want to travel around together…” In official video, both Columbian superstars ride dangerously against traffic and neither wears a helmet. Doesn't much matter after Shakira shakes.

Tour Submontane

Before Tour de France commences along coasts and pursues alps, couldn’t resist a quick look through Bike Snob’s latest book, The Ultimate Bicycle Owner’s Manual (Black Dog & Leventhal Publishing, May, 2016, 240 pp.). Unlike earlier offerings, author Eben Weiss has honed and toned his humor for an insightful exposé of condoned aspects of contemporary bikedom with practical ink for urban boredom. Not one to dodge a dare, he dives right into controversy and expects your conditioned outrage. He does, however, provide concise answers to the nagging questions of fear and inconvenience that deter two thirds of nation who don’t ride, though he’d make a better stand up comedian with whom you’d want to someday share a beer and steer toward sincere.

Ultimate it’s not, instead an abridged compendium of hundreds of books covering identical subjects in greater depth. Resembles an Edwin Abbot x-y spin in flatland that crests no peaks and possesses no z in spaceland. Can hardly find any point with which to get nose out of joint. Bold and captivating chapters concern the future and your rights as a bicyclist. “The automobile did its best to figuratively and literally kill the bicycle. It failed.” B&C has been reporting details of B-icycling C-ulture for decades over thousands of pages and still honking uphill. Worrisome on immediate horizon are self-driving cars, which might impose onus for road safety back onto bicyclists. Worry, however, wastes imagination. Those who assess motoring’s costs seldom mention mining tons of among planet's rarest metals, palladium and platinum, for catalytic converters. Filthy Big Oil rightly bears brunt of global disgust, but surely aren’t the only bad actors enabling automotive lust.

Disagree about swapping front tire onto back out of sheer impracticality. Two remounts? Tiresome. Besides, always replace used tubes with new; tire levers abrade whatever they touch. Front tires can take on sidewall cuts and splits from unseen potholes and stones, from which your quick reflexes protect rear, so wear can be different but no less traumatic. You could carefully inspect, lay aside, and once you have a pair, mount onto your wheelset spare, nice to have on hand when at doormat ready for combat and inconveniently find a flat.

Almost any advice you glean therein will be tainted with bicycling’s ambivalent dilemma: Why be vulnerable or endure suffering when so many transportation temptations surround? Because it’s a common misconception that cars, SUVs and trucks are easier and safer. Earning price of ticket takes far longer than just biking wherever you want to go. Owning a private passenger vehicle is more expensive than taking a buss or taxi. Waiting for rides and walking it necessitates waste time. Speed compounds risk. Bicycling’s average pace of 13 mph makes ideal progress as it mitigates danger. Bikes take you from dawn to destination, harbor to home, portal to portal. Its two undeniable downsides are how fragile you become on a long run and unpleasant landscapes through which you must pass without access to bridges, highways or rail corridors. Sticks you in the thick of it. Cycling otherwise resembles most forms of mobility, practically a land kayak or terrain plane unless you think you're nobility. Everyone, either directly or indirectly, benefits from bike use: children gaining confidence on safe routes to schools, motorists bypassing additional traffic snarl, parents who stay fit for their families, poor who can’t afford private vehicles, rescue squads clear to respond, and those thereby saved.

Technical ingenuity has economic, environmental, political and social consequences. Automotive and transportive account for 50% of private businesses, belch pollutants and toxins, cause cancer and cardiovascular disease, consume nonrenewable resources, despoil land and sea, and doom humanity to dystopia. You can recycle most of a bicycle's materials, either rebuild to renew or recover for raw. Its only effects are positive: cleaner air, fewer potholes, improved health, less congestion, more interaction, unless you consider as threats clearer thinking, collaborative equality, and critical analysis. A paradigm shift is inevitable. During transition, people who can will choose bikes, while suckers who can’t or won’t will pay skyrocketing prices, since obsolete technologies must maintain profits to provide alternatives and stay on top while consumers migrate elsewhere. Already happening, battery, hybrid, and hydrogen fuel vehicles are made available only at unnecessarily prohibitive cost, thereby forcing traditional purchases and leaving options open.

Alienation and isolation are what pioneers find when they successfully break new ground. Demand for innovation remains much less than conventional mediocrity. This explains why so many authors pander to ignorance and repeat popular opinions, seldom probe lofty visions or seek unique stances. Interaction occurs below; mountaineers stand alone. Every review elevates authors selected and sentences those overlooked to obscurity. How-to's act as gateways to personal awareness; no one size suits all, especially when a bicyclist measures self. Enough. Back to the century old contest between brilliant breakaways and knotted belligerents.

Leopard’s Bane

In Season 4 (2014), Episode 4, And the Old Bike Yarn, of sitcom Two Broke Girls, Caroline adopts an abandoned bike half woven over by a homeless knitter and plans to use it to deliver cupcakes they’ll bake. Max reveals in shame she doesn’t know how to ride one. An attempt to teach her ends in a crotch injury, which she ices with cold cans of diner soda, as the rest of RICE - Rest, Compression and Elevation - wouldn’t be practical. Premise provides gags full of sexual innuendo, which seems this show’s main purpose. Sex turns the average participant from tool to fool; picture a vulgar medieval jester, and you’ll get the level of intelligence to which sitcom panders, imbecile monarchs and mindless minion.

Ah, summer, high season for touring, when every distance seems nearer, and you take on more than you can handle. Never know how much you’ll suffer even if you’ve done it all before. Bike&Chain mentions pain on every tenth page but never resolves how to cure beyond a hot shower or soak, then long nap in loose wrap with legs elevated, safe recommendations that smother litigations. “Pain and pleasure are equally interesting, for some inseparable.” Suffering pays, but that fact offers little comfort. Turin Brakes conversely called bicycle a “pain killer” in summer rain, but they meant a mood boost not pharmaceutical remedy.

Painters pour pain onto canvas as complaint. Protests go nowhere. If you complain, responses of those who might hear include, in order of likelihood, annoyance, avoidance, bemusement among the blameworthy, kindly advice you can’t apply, race to capitalize, and, rare though superlative, suggestions that actually work validated by vast experience. Bicyclists mostly bawl about bonks, butts, calves, feet, knees, thighs and wrists. How bike is adjusted and equipped effects all. Chamois balm, padded shorts and well worn leather saddles eliminate or lessen posterior discomfort. Bar tape, gloves, and multiple hand positions assist either wrist. Weight loss also helps, since dragging around excess elevates distress, and wool socks deter abrasion.

You’ll undergo fewer aches and pains if you hydrate before, during and following, whether plain water, special sports drinks, or water suspended powders. Nutrient rich diet and sensible exercise regime will gradually harden bone and flesh and increase endurance. Digestion stores glycogen and lipids that legs use as fuel, but water lubricates muscles and metabolizes both. Sneaky sugars don’t last and exacerbate diabetes. Importantly, avoid exceeding your physical limitations, or risk complications. Cocaine during or opioids after defeat any health benefits. No prescription beats prevention. “Pain, after all, can be short circuited by ketamine, mental discipline or morphine drip, but only ethics, nonviolence, and safety awareness work to prevent suffering.” That is to say, don’t engage in road rage, and stay out of harm’s way.

Muscle spasms may be spam bicyclists can’t simply delete. It’s said that potassium insufficiency causes, why many cyclists eat apples and bananas. Arnica montana (aka leopard’s or wolf’s bane) diluted in a gel is one topical remedy that works nearly instantly for a charleyhorse, deep bruise, or severe cramp. Not for internal consumption or where skin is broken, since it’s a poisonous herbal, you must heed adverse reactions or health contraindications and use sparingly. Other liniments don’t work as effectively or quickly. Daub menthol HEET liquid on tender site but likewise don’t get it into eyes or on fingers. Bengay or Icy Hot are for arthritis or discomfort, not spasms. All, however, reputedly reduce inflammation that induces pain, as do aspirin, acetaminophen, and NSAIDs, though use of any can potentially be fatal to some.

Long rides so increase body heat that all you want to do is cool off. Sweat evaporating from skin is what nature provides as a restorative, further reason for fluid intake. Professional athletes set bedroom thermostats at 65°F and take ice baths. Yet direct chill may trigger vicious contractions, so be careful how you position yourself relative to air conditioner and cool breezes. Sleeping is the best cure, since your autonomic system directs hypothalamus to automatically shed 1 or 2 degrees. Good advice and loose moisture wicking garments ease adversities, possibly persuade riders to attempt full and half centuries, though somewhat gaudy and sweaty skinsuits suffice for shorter jaunts.

You aren’t born with an instructional manual on how a human body operates, only instincts urging curiosity and moderation and senses from which to learn. The only arbiter of whether you are having fun or preparing to compete in next Grand Tour event is you. In peak shape once assumed a challenge comparable to most difficult Tour de France stage. Didn’t regret it, but won't retry. Nevertheless, not letting any teen on a mountain bike pass uncontested, even when nearing end of a hot 50 miler. Dug deep, overtook, and pulled far ahead, while he vanished in rear view mirror. Competing too easily tempts, but maintaining race cadence for prolonged periods maximizes chances for injury and pain.

Aim Reattain

On information overload, nobody today wants to sort through facts, though one must find what’s worthwhile hidden beneath ordinary hype, or get someone else to do it. A Cycle Trades of America 1940 ad proclaimed, “A bicycle is a boy’s birthright,” but motoring scammed most of them out of it during subsequent decades. You’re reduced to armchair cycling when roads no longer support car-less self propelling. Actor Will Smith warned Hollywood hype machine they can no longer cheat audiences into watching bad movies, but if you buy ticket you ought to take the ride, and USA remains sadly gullible as proven, not repudiated, by social media. Besides, who’s to deem any movie bad? Measure isn’t its budget, guilty of both flops and hits despite investments, but how story resonates, which could mean revisiting what’s familiar or taking viewers where they’ve never before been.

Aim depends on what direction you wish to reattain. Bliss can only be achieved by ignoring media totally from onset, too late after decades of education and exposure. Instead of paragraphs or scenes, motionless images may suffice, but, if you explore further, they suggest a plethora of backstories and explanations, and thereby offer empathy in suffering but no solace in silence. As in other art forms, a painting or photograph may incidentally or mainly depict ubiquitous bicycles as an aspect or attraction. Bicycle Fine Art is a New York showcase that offers emerging art but none related to bicycles.

This year, Jules de Balincourt referenced dystopia, exodus and globalization when he studied bicycling in 2 original oil paintings, “As Far As We Could Go West” [shown here] and “Cycledelic Wanderers” [now being shown at Joyride Art Exhibition in Brooklyn]. Both represent reality within abstract landscapes, sort of a mashup of fact and imagination, which has become a popular motif. Nonrepresentational art, unlike representational, perceives what is inwardly observable, not outwardly, thus expands universe of what can be experienced. Landscapes can be less exciting than twisted memories, what you ultimately retain whether factual or fantastic.

Fine Art America lists 10,000 objects labeled bike art including 4,100 paintings, though many relate only to motorcycles or reprints of old masters. Notable original examples among them? Andrew Macara has a handful of oil paintings capturing 20th Century summer light. Arlon Rosenoff attacks bikes of all types with a palette knife for 10 impasto treatments. During the last decade award winning oil painter Colleen Proppé has portrayed several relevant San Francisco scenes. Linda Apple loves lines and shadows in hyperrealist oils. On 28 canvases, Peregrine Roskilly enthused over World Naked Bike Rides held every June to protest Big Oil domination. Ryan Radke has at least 4 postmodern cityscapes patrolled by bicycle, reminiscent of George Stein’s Belle Époque impressionist images of Champs Elysses, which naturally featured bicyclists amidst traffic a century earlier.

Marilyn Dunlap represents Paris romance in a pâtissier's dozen of acrylics. Phyllis Andrews amuses with 26 humorous, meaningful and tidy acrylics on board and canvas. Hers contrast with Carrie Nixon’s, who had [at Procycle 2009] a dynamic, large format acrylic and charcoal on handmade paper [shown left] meant to explore control and lack thereof while cycling fast in winter.

Oregonian Jenny Armitage has at least 15 watercolors of bicycles and bicyclists in European cities, though she depicts 3 times as many musical instruments, which do possess similar lines and shapes. Australian Shirley Peters recently celebrated Tour de France pelaton in a series of 35 watercolors.

Antonio Grambone produced several evocative photographs with urban themes. Sports photographer Bob Christopher snapped 55 action shots and racer portraits. Odd Jeppesen’s contemporary collection tightly focuses on dismembered components in every season.

Moral Moraine

If personal morals fall by the wayside - like a glacial moraine of powdered rock and rolled boulders that bicyclists, geologists, and property owners are prone to ponder - what hope is there for an ethical society? Communities abandon homeless and hungry, religious congregations scatter, motorists run down the vulnerable, and scribblers who promote greed succeed. Virtue used to be its own reward. Morals are self defined. Ethics allow individuals to follow own codes of conduct, not merely submit to self exploitation, stone wall isolation, and unexamined convention. Neither can you force yours on others, only suggest that activism, altruism, intelligence and tolerance are in their own interests. Today’s leaders and successful followers work overtime as examples of what not to do, so you have your work cut out for you. Your only audience spends all its time avoiding harm by blindly toiling in a sandy ant farm.

Worry that kindness might lead to overpopulation. Earth can hardly support 7.4 billion humans, while life expectancy creeps ever closer to 80 years on average. Then remember that insatiable simpletons have more insupportable children than intelligent sophisticates. Education could be a key. Cartesian perspicacity and consequent sagacity lead directly to ZPG. Affairs between homosexuals or with postmenopausal crones produce none. The elderly eat less yet require services, so an aging population represents more opportunities than threats. Vegan food can be grown in hydroponic soilless gardens indoors built safely atop toxic brownfields, thereby quadrupling yields and recapturing forsaken space through government grants. But instead of adopting local, consumers are bullied by policy into buying imported. Transportation generates more jobs than any other sector, but wastes dwindling resources faster than rest combined. With states not proactively addressing groundwater contamination and reservoir strain, a lack of potable water still looms as hugest threat to humanity, though legal mandates to produce at point of use make too much sense.

Chances to earn exist, but you must expect less and manufacture them yourself. Innovative entrepreneurs diversify and thereby strengthen economy. Can’t rely on existing companies, corporations and mills anymore; most are run by multinational conglomerates recording record profits despite foreign threats by exploiting least paid workforces. Because debt-strapped millennials still living with parents produce art and books for free, only a few remarkable professionals have a chance to earn anymore. Quality deteriorates when phenomenal exponents get ground down and give up. It’s no wonder engineering declined and slavery returned. It’s almost too easy to oppress masses when producers ask for nothing and can’t be bothered with marketing. When policies create economic depression, those in deep valleys of despair abide bondage for food and shelter, or grab whatever they can from the craven and weak.

In terms of insect fear films, greedy people and needy sheeple resemble THEM! Giant ants would ruin your picnic. Between self serving reactionaries and starving anarchic revolutionaries, most would elude the latter, favor the former, yet find vast majority resides in the middle fulfilling mankind’s demands. Capitalist icon Adam Smith himself agreed that the rich “spurn the most basic standards of moral conduct”, because their esteem derives not from good deeds but jealousy of those less fortunate. Angry moderates seem to have no say until they speak en masse. Anger and hate are easily comprehended, evoked and exploited. Machiavellian leaders thereby deflect wrath from themselves and pit the poor against the middle.

Nursed on conservative Kool-aid since birth, Cameron Huddleston offers advice on how to get rich. It comes down to change your attitude, don’t hate money, pull yourself up by the bootstraps. All you have to do to join ranks of 1% is make a half million a year! Easy, peasy! “Make efforts to improve your finances because your don’t want to get kicked out of your social group.” But money amassers have no friends, only feckless disciples and vicious rivals who’d rejoice if they fail. Having money or owning property entail becoming a target for every scammer and schemer on planet. Can’t Fox News come up with anything less repulsively self serving? Who buys propaganda and self help books loaded with such malthusian drivel? LaMonte Fowler dispels every myth they use to connive and inveigle. As a nation USA remains world’s bigger producer surpassed only by a combined European GDP. If you likewise included Canada and Mexico, North America would easy surpass economy of every other continent. So? Gave Americans a chance to be the most generous nation on the planet.

Who is more repulsive: a casino billionaire who built an empire on bad habits and human misery or the mindless minion with whom his mean message resonates? Monarchists, oligarchs, theocrats, tyrants, and wealth hoarders on top pitch the empty promise of conservatism nonstop. When you have nothing but a rational mind to think things through, equal distribution and liberal communion sound better. Billionaires become a barrier, make your life miserable, slow flow of resources. Amassed wealth impedes everyone else’s ability to earn, survive even. They give none away, the only reason to amass in the first place. Buffett and Gates each vowed to direct billions, some fraction of net worth, toward problems for which they can’t claim blame. Why not punish, squeeze or tax those actually responsible? Banks don’t let your deposits work for you anymore, instead make risky loans in order to wipe out investors in small businesses that inevitably fail, costing jobs and property. Worth doesn't disappear, just slips into hidden pockets. Laugh at anyone whose line is, “Give it to me and I will ensure those in need receive.” What’s wrong with meeting own needs and salting away a bit for family’s future? Worked for millennia. Oh, yeah, ego. Lording affluently over others means everyone must value owning excess as you do, the national obsession and only patriotism. Accordingly, lives are wasted, souls are bought and sold, and taxes are misappropriated. Gives award winning luster to such revolutionary hacks as Mr Robot and V. They are the mirage of, “Just hang on a bit longer, some hero is bound to arise.” You personally decide and realize the future by what you allow, consume, fund, support, and work toward.

After too many rejection letters to count, Labann labors toward the day when this zero sum game ends. Then just one will have it all, money will cease to mean anything, and playing field will again level. Banks will have long since collapsed, insurance houses closed, nonprofits ended, and Wall Street tumbled like Jericho, thus doing humanity a favor. A barter economy will prevail among survivalists. Wealth has never been an honorable goal, rather an unused tool to promote ethics. They give no prizes for being biggest borrower or having highest net worth, though all awards are skewed to those whose work made millions for the already too rich. Achieving, earning, and saving are supposed to permit individuals to seek out hardships and share as desired, not gatekeepers and third parties, who only decrease dividends, hinder turnover, and maneuver profits into own pockets. They act more like rotten parasites than trusted advisors.

Instead of admiring huge stockpiles how about redistributing them to doers, entrepreneurs, researchers, and visionaries? To assuage guilt, Federico Pistono and Rutger Bergman would give everyone alive a base stipend. Welfare? You can’t build fortunes without it. What else can you call business bailouts, farm subsidies intended to keep groceries scarce and prices high, and, worst of all, tax breaks for highest earners and one percenters? By policy, money flows everywhere except towards the dwindling middle class, because they intentionally want to cripple those who’ll fight to hang onto home and land ownerships and voter rights, though it’s said that if voting mattered it wouldn’t be allowed. SNAP and TANF enslave recipients, who have to first divest themselves of property to qualify, while benefits have fallen by 20%. Could you live on $5/day, that is, $7,300 for the typical family of four on relief? In all but 3 states that doesn’t cover shelter, never mind food, no free ride. Neither can the average $27,000 per year household with two minimum wage workers, only $10,000 above FPL, get by. Giving $500/month would not overcome poverty, the #1 health hazard and root of most crime; feds currently draw line at $11,600/year, so it would barely get you half way. But tax free and unconditional grants would stimulate economy and work out for homeless wretches.

Battle can be defined simply: Better versus worse. Decent people want everyone to succeed and survive, but not at their expense or initiative. Otherwise, problems become difficult to remedy, prisons get filled, and tax burdens escalate. Businesses are busy getting leaner by cutting their number one expense, salaries. Too many bellies vie for resources to avoid someone going hungry. Rats who run sly networks promote disparity where deprivation, famine and pestilence visit majority. How society treats constituents was never their intended content. How a caged gorilla had to be shot to protect a three-year-old child is, with debaters condemning or supporting action taken, thereby devaluating human life. Issues of substance don’t entertain masses, so news media lose focus, neglect detriments of wealth, and report nothing that affects your livelihood.

Nobody sane would disagree that gravity attracts. But act and write with gravity and you’ll attract nobody. Bicyclists weigh heft every time they pedal uphill. You’d do better to heed the ever present hum of chaos with which most people can identify. But if that’s all you can do with freedom, for which forebears died and soldiers put their life on the line every day, why invest countless lives and trillions of tax dollars on such an unsatisfactory option? If you comprehend chaos, you may find your angel amidst mayhem. You'll earn no pass for being kind, just the opposite. Decency attracts opportunists, punks, sadists, and thieves who'd cruelly use you. The more you care for others, the more heartache you'll embrace, thus growing stronger to face ever more emotional challenges, quite a bit to contemplate on your next long bike outing.

Next Hurricane

With cyclonic season officially entered, nothing weathers whirlwind days hunkered down without electronics, or otherwise lounging on beaches away from plugs, like a printed book. Several worthwhile choices include:

Brent Kitching, A Bicycle Without A Chain (iUniverse, 2016, 332 pp.). Just out, biographical novel pits chasing capitalism against cultivating a higher consciousness. Oh, my!

Buzz Ponce, A Long Ride Coming: How the Struggle of Losing a Parent Led to a Bicycle Journey Nearly 50 Years Later (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2016, 336 pp.)

Cristina Spínola Taller de Felicidad (The Workshop of Happiness, self, 2016, 87 pp.). Author describes adventures of a woman touring Latin America alone by bike.

Daniel Shea and Jeremy Withers, editors, Culture on Two Wheels: The Bicycle in Literature and Film (University of Nebraska Press, 2016, 366 pp.). Well anticipated accessible set of scholarly essays follows the 125 years of evolving symbolism that this "favored ideological steed" conjures. Shea’s own covers Ai Weiwei’s famous bicycle sculptures.

David Herlihy, Bicycle: The History (Yale University Press, 2004, 480 pp.), Previously mentioned his The Lost Cyclist. In The Guardian, Rob Penn recently gave a Eurocentric top ten of books about bikes, which included Herlihy’s History and others hitherto overlooked. How can it be that Kent Peterson’s best list on Outside Online, except for Herlihy’s, is completely different?

DK (Dorling and Kindersley), Bicycle: The Definitive Visual History (Penguin Random House, 2016, 256 pp.). With a magazine approach, celebrates commerce, designs, makers, and racers from graphic, journal and published evidence.

James Runcie, Grantchester, Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death (Bloomsbury USA, 2012, 400 pp.). In the mold of Chesterson’s character Father Brown, sleuth/vicar Sidney Chambers rides a bike around Cambridgeshire in 1950’s England while solving crimes. Made into a PBS series for Masterpiece Mystery!

Jobst Brandt, The Bicycle Wheel (Avocet, 1993, 150 pp.)

Mike Magnuson, Heft on Wheels: A Field Guide to Doing a 180 (Three Rivers Press, 2005, 252 pp.). Highlights losing weight and regaining health through self propulsion.

Travis Hugh Culley, The Immortal Class: Bike Messengers and the Cult of Human Power (Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2001, 352 pp.)

Blue Bicycle Books, a shop located in Charleston, South Carolina, hosts a creative Summer writing camp for kids to get them into good habits.

Prefer Plain

In a medium preoccupied with comic book heroes, nice to recount a smattering of films that focus on how ordinary people without superpowers interact, although in each cited case things end badly and viewers aren't nervously overexcited. No preference for Amish plainness, only considering how much mayhem is usually associated with fast or flying vehicles, which seem to cause or enable all that goes wrong in life and most films. Creeping infants weren’t born with motors or wings; it’s plain that many can’t handle them anyway. More have died on roads than fallen on battlefields, yet no memorial day is observed for accident victims.

Remember Me (Allen Coulter dir., 2010) depicts rich, spoiled protagonist Robert Pattinson (Twilight Saga), who chases love interest Emilie de Ravin, drifts around NYC leaning on a fixie with a massive chain and lock, and learns how to value every minute of life in a world where suicide terrorists abruptly end many.

German thriller Das letzte Schweigen (The Silence, Baran bo Odar dir., 2013) has two 13-year-olds on bikes being murdered 23 years apart in same wheat field.

In The Judge (David Dobkin dir., 2014), film industry’s highest earning star Robert Downey Jr plays a big city defense attorney bereaved of his mother. While back home in Indiana countryside, he revisits old habits, including rebelling against his dad the judge and riding his old Panasonic steely 10-speed no hands, which quickly results in catching a soft shoulder and tumbling headlong. Gives Iron Man new nuance.

Teen waitress Gethin Anthony controversially guides Canadian visitor Frederikke Dahl Hansen by bike through Copenhagen (Mark Raso dir., 2014) on a search for his grandfather.

Cyclique (Frédéric Favre dir., Switzerland, 2015) watches three young adults struggle with their choices to be freewheeling bike messengers instead of exploiting selves as desk jockeys.

The Commentator (Brendt Barbur, 2015) is a recent documentary on Jorgen Leth’s 1976 Paris-Roubaix coverage and Kristof Ramon’s race photography, with a new soundtrack by NYC’s band Blonde Redhead.

In biopic Steve Jobs (Danny Boyle dir., 2015), Apple Founder Jobs (Michael Fassbender) supported by Joanna Hoffman (Kate Winslet) and Steve Wozniak (Seth Rogen) take on a vision to connect everyone electronically despite unprecedented challenges. There's no bicycling per se, mostly backstage emoting, but toward the end flashbacks depict Jobs inducing CEO John Sculley (Jeff Daniels) to desert soft drinks for digital future. Says Steve, "The most efficient animal on the planet is the condor. The most inefficient are humans. But a human with a bicycle becomes the most efficient animal... The right computer will be a bicycle for the mind." Labann, as an early computer implementer, directly based B&C upon this mindset right down to composing paragraphs like internet surfing, only using personal memories uncorroborated by exocranial research.

Not going to begin to enumerate bicycling scenes shown by Bollywood, since Abhimanyu Mishra already did for the Times of India. For example, Bombay film Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar (How Alexander Won, Mansoor Khan dir., 1992) is a Hindi version of Breaking Away with rival teens cheating and substitute hero nevertheless winning by stooping to same tactics. You can even be the hero of your own movie, according to Joe Rogan and several others, though it means little with ridiculously low standards and suits delusional egomaniacs best.

Signal Tulane

What is all this? Attempt to analyze or witness? Make sense of chaos? People expect that anyone who exhaustively studies something becomes its master. Expert? Another drip under pressure filling oceans of ignorance. Many PhDs are as dumb as doorposts, though they are presumably smarter than rabble. Genius resides in humankind collectively: buyers, doers, expediters, explorers, sellers, sweet street sweepers every spring, thinkers. Makes you wonder about education, although boundaries do expand with specialization. Some things don’t warrant profound study, or vary so much what once could be affirmed later can’t. Some are studied too little, which explains why radical right ever gains a foothold. Psychologists measure intelligence as one’s ability to adapt to changes, not knowledge amassed and readily remembered. It’s about applying not parroting, less theorizing possibilities than using hands and minds.

Lack of scrutiny fosters arrogance. This applies to everyone, including Labann, who, unlike many, does invite criticism. Yet readers don’t avail themselves of a comeback opening. Shave and a haircut…? Crickets! Does silence repudiate or validate viewpoints? Seems only the dead have cred. Have read too many books to count, so won’t ever be obligated to read yours after writing one that you didn’t read, either. Producing one’s own is a valid excuse to ignore universe, if ever a recluse remains averse, though society survives on quid pro quo, rules fostering fairness, and sensible trading awareness.

Decency can never be guaranteed. Reagan deregulated banks, financial institutions, and insurance houses, which begat huge swindles for which nobody was indicted. Wall Street traders took out policies to insure against downturns, so someone else - depositors, subsequent premium payers, and taxpayers - absorbed losses, as typical of pyramid marketing rackets. Disproportionate deals engender disasters. But Reagan was only an actor playing POTUS, a pawn for a shadow regime with an agenda of greed. They acted with impunity by diverting spotlight away from themselves and onto their puppet. To this day voters have no idea who they are, never mind how many trillions they’ve stolen, a shameless fraud that precipitated global recession. Archived history. Move on, bossy Labann. Nothing to see. Recede into dim innuendo and dusky past, but not effects, which persist and visit localities, such as New Orleans, butt of Bush’s betrayal following Hurricane Katrina, undeniably the two greatest natural catastrophes to befall America.

Bikeeasy.org accuses goons with baseball bats and paintball guns of assaulting Tulane students and other users of bike lanes on Esplanade and nearby avenues. “Our city has a long, complex history of economic inequality, racial injustice, and corrupt practices that benefit the few at the expense of the many… we believe bicycling can play a positive role in addressing… But bicycling can only play this role if we don’t leave anyone behind.” Hundreds of legal guns are stolen there annually, many being used in crimes. Last year Forbes contributor John Ebersole listed higher education issues including school climate and student safety smelling of impractical suggestions and specious questions. Rather indict corporate policies and educational systems, neither of which is willing to assume responsibility for employee training. Millions of jobs go unfulfilled because brainless managers create countless barriers to hiring. Of occupations, all 95% of them really require is an agile mind and honest enthusiasm, things most educators seem determined to eradicate. Get constant come-ons to handle international receiving/shipping urgencies designed to bilk milk money. How inclined you feel to sortie forth depends upon many concerns, none more weighty than trust in community.

Big Easy born Wynton Marsalis conjectured, “Sustained intensity equals ecstasy.” Nice try. Depends entirely upon what sensations you'll endure. Could mean tortures of serving Laodiceans, screaming sound, water boarding, or whip lashing, zero pleasure to anyone but sadomasochists and those who enjoy schadenfreude of your misery. More saddle time might make you a better person, but, rather than enlightened souls, mostly meet conservative scumbags and sanctimonious scoundrels who instead of discussing bikes prefer talking down to you. Americans readily trade conscience for convenience, something a bicyclist's groan can’t overcome alone.

Nearly through Bike Month, haven’t joined one group ride, though repeatedly tried. Even organized own; nobody showed. Few ever accept invitations from strangers sent in many forms (calendar posts, email blitzes, handbills, paid ads, pole posters), none of which work. Some are so put off by inherent message they delete or remove. Besides barely acceptable Facebook and despised Twitter, there are "meet-ups" and other social media, but it's still hard to find people who want to exchange ideas or socialize nicely, prerequisites to more involved relationships. Negativity mounts. Acquaintance, a crucial baseline for being human, precedes collaborator, friend, lover, spouse and “X”, in that order of commitment, intensity, and possibly regret on every level. For most, where they are on this continuum occupies entire life. Anything more cerebral can’t be withstood. Among those invited expected at least some whose charity rides I arrowed, sagged, or somehow assisted to have attended or declined. No longer feel inclined to reciprocate. Amassing a groundswell into a grassroots movement has never been harder in a society conditioned to being physically alone and totally vulnerable although virtually connected as never before.

Bikes, forced off roads in 1970’s, resumed belonging in 1990, when laws were enacted nationwide to include them in planning. Yet states still haven’t implemented enabling improvements. Begin to see route sign and stripes on streets, but egregious lapses may be impossible to mend. Roads nibbled landscape alongside to get ever wider, which resulted in gutters with grates, 2 lanes in each direction, and trouble for bicyclists trying to cross over. This signals disrespect for a deselected form. Activists and cranks with a passion for pedaling pointed the way and pushed through demands. Public soon forgets them due to new media and nonprofit spin. Why care anymore? What are you fighting for? Share roads with whom? Often regret working on behalf of ungrateful beneficiaries. Then cynically remind self that controversies can offer cheap entertainment.

Lower frequencies literally move slower. Obsession with them signifies an attempt to arrest input inundation and inevitable race to your grave. Insects buzz by on their one-month mission to reproduce and shortly thereafter die. Likewise motorists, whose fatalities bicyclists study at their dawdling tempo. Motoring was once believed the best way to intensify motility, but increasingly isolated drivers from landscape and earners from security. Turns out, bicycling does it better. One ought to make the most of what's granted, be it long or short. How? Make small plans and pull them off. Organize own groups. Or you could crash and learn lessons. Observations attend every awake moment, though solid ideas about them don’t easily coalesce. Yet a brain bounces around many you’ve grown up with until something occurs, a revelation, that suddenly seems significant enough to record. But has the moment irrevocably passed?

Further Chastain

Chasing leads and refining list, forever discover overlooked bike songs. Can hardly keep up. Don’t only use internet, which can be unreliable, but also find corroborations in books, CDs, magazines and other sources focused neither on bicycling culture nor songwriting craft. With a billion humans thereby propelling selves, bicycles are bound to come up routinely as a matter of fact. However, beginning to believe that ever fewer songs have escaped notice, though whoever continues to look may encounter those newly recorded, if any. Will make latest list available once it surpasses 1,900 entries, which it probably will soon.

An interesting aspect of this decade long yet not very complicated search is how difficult it has been to carry it out comprehensively. Can imagine what it must have taken to derive animal/plant taxonomies, DNA genomes, or the periodic chart of elements. Took mankind eons to master simple tools and weapons, and unique individuals to come up with such core concepts as the scientific method. Recognition merely begins journeys to understanding. One can extrapolate on just how few things have ever been fully explored to conclusion or what exciting discoveries await.

List compilers often act as arbiters and excluders not only because of personal bias but often simply to limit magnitude of task. People are still living their lives according to ancient codes of conduct and old wives’ tales, searching for ghosts, and wondering whether their efforts are worth such endless frustrations. No point chastising anyone for whatever road they choose to ride, because all lead to an equivalent destination.

Aidonia, Bicycle [Jamaican explicit reggae], Dance Will Never Die, Germaican Records, 2005.

Airborne Toxic Event, Gasoline [no bike ref.], video [with bicycling throughout], Airborne Toxic Event, Majordomo, 2008; through Midnight Ridazz's website, they invited Hollywood locals to join their video shoot, then handed out CDs of their eponymous first album and spoke cards.

Airborne Toxic Event, What’s in a Name, Such Hot Blood, Island Rec., 2013; “We were running through the halls of the middle school writing our names on the sides of the public pool, like two ghosts in flight on a sleepless night, we were alive… so I parked my bike outside your house. You said, 'There's nothing you could do to make me come out,' because your daddy said I was the worst one yet, it was a lie… ‘Cause I always loved the way you looked in the firing line just dancing around in some old sweater of mine.”

Al Day, The Rusted Bicycle Song, single, 1973.

Alexander L’Estrange, Cycle-babble [+ 7 other originals and 3 covers, jazz choral], Song Cycle: Vive la vélorution!, Andagio, 2014; “Whirl and click of sprocket and chain, shimmer and flash of steel, throb of pedal and saddle creak… This is the song of the wheel. A draisienne, a Lauf maschine, velocipede, and iron steed!”

Big Matt Hurter, Bicycle Bill [South Africa country], single, 1969

George Rosey, Rosey’s Scorcher, no known period recording, 1897.

Jim Chastain, Ride the RABRAI, single, Defamation Records, 2013; good example of spontaneous songs that arose during last half century of week-long challenge (Des Moines) Register’s Great Annual Ride Across Iowa. Already indexed, Pumptown’s “Bicycle” further mentions, though Steve Chastain’s virtuoso guitar solo “My Bicycle” doesn’t.

Jim Post, Bicycle Wheel, Rattlesnake, Fantasy, 1973.

John Philip Sousa’s Band, The Scorcher March, single, Berliner Gramophone, 1899.

My Flag is on Fire, White Bicycle, Europa Song, self, 2011.

Norwegian Arms, Soviet Bicycle, Wolf Like a Stray Dog, self, 2013; album recounts an extended visit to Siberia. “Oh how the wheel spins all those itty bitty bits of metal, work in a lattice and make the tiny teeth all go in circles. Soviet workers assembled you by hand, a perfect being. Now is the time to saddle up and get that feeling! No one can stop you when you’re speeding!”

Robin Moore, aka MC SpandX, produced a third Youtube bicycling video, Get Dirty, previously overlooked. Portland native Moore has morphed from comic to crusader for environmental issues.

Small Axe Band, Bike [reggae], single, Soca Music, 2010.

The Gasoline Brothers, There it goes (for Koos Moerenhout), single, self, 2009.

US Naval Academy Band, The Scorcher, Heritage of the March, Vol. 62, Robert Hoe Foundation, 2011; unsure whether this is Rosey’s Scorcher or song of another composer; if motivated, one could download the sheet music then listen to link.

Vélo Vélo, Casertelli, Vélo Vélo, self, 2008; in memory of fallen racer Fabio Casertelli, who, it’s said, probably would’ve survived his 1995 Tour de France crash had he been wearing a helmet.
Vélo Vélo, Hématocrite [jazz instr. + 5 others not mentioned here], Vélo Vélo, self, 2008.
Vélo Vélo, Rolf Sørensen, Vélo Vélo, self, 2008; for Dutch champion.
Vélo Vélo, Roubaix, Vélo Vélo, self, 2008; for Paris-Roubaix race.
Vélo Vélo, Silvio Martinello, Vélo Vélo, self, 2008; for Italian champion.

Vybz Kartel (Adidja Azim Palmer), Bicycle [Jamaican explicit reggae], Pon Di Gaza 2.0, Tad’s Record, 2010; announces his obsession with ladies riding bicycles for its sexual suggestion.

Vybz Kartel (Adidja Azim Palmer) feat. Bunji Garlin, Bicycle Ride [Jamaican explicit reggae], single, Dunwell Productions, 2016; not the same as previous title but similar in lurid content, several remixes exist.

Johnny Tremain

Boston is renowned for dumping tea into its harbor in 1773 after foreign taxation became unbearable. In 1775, likewise incensed, men and women of Providence burnt British taxed tea one night (as commemorated by plaque shown). Fictional teen Tremain and real Sons of Liberty had too much to gain to do nothing. On May 5th, 1862, outnumbered Mexicans won a fleeting victory against French overlords. So the story is retold of ordinary locals taking definitive action against imperial might. Such acts of disobedience and insurrection led inevitably to independence. States united under a constitution that served for over two centuries despite a civil war resolved upon immense carnage. In the last 50, however, Washington’s warnings about the pitfalls of a two party system have been realized. Democrats spent beyond means and Republicans held nation for ransom with cuts in both services for unfortunates and taxes for wealthy. As long as you let this dysfunctional dichotomy remain, middle class pays a tremendous cost.

Critics claim ranks of middle class have been decimated, meaning a loss of one in ten. It’s far, far worse than that. Decline has been considerably broader and precipitous. Those still well off wonder why this should be worrisome, “Let them eat cake!” Neither hysteria nor opinion, the lower to middle classes hold society together, invest in property, pay nearly all municipal and state taxes, and secure budgets for fire, military, police and school protections. Not only that, they grow food, make products, pave roads, provide all services, start most businesses, take risks, and underwrite all personal and social advancements. The poor and rich support little to none of this but tremendously benefit. You can’t have a community or country without a middle class, yet few policies exist for them to thrive. Government offshores their jobs, raises taxes, ruins neighborhoods, and runs up trillions in debts which can never be paid. This enslaves wage earners. Consequences of keeping this course are too frightful to list. What Democrats and Republicans have done makes British tea taxes look like a comparative boon… and people went to war over them back then.

However, to say America is strictly a two-party system would be woefully wrong. Other parties have always existed: Abolutionists, Black Panthers, Boston Tea, Citizens, Communists, Constitutionists, Dixiecrats, Federalists, Greens, Independents, Isolationists, Libertines, Moderates, Modern Whigs, Neo-Nazis, Populists, Pride (age, ethnic, LBGT, racial) Organizers, Progressives, Prohibitionists, Proletarians, Prouts, Socialists, Suffragists, Teabaggers, Transhumanists, and Workers to mention a few. From about 1930 to 1980 labor unions determined election results. Labor often sided with Democrats. After eliminating Hoffa and winning presidency, Reagan busted unions with extreme prejudice and sold out workers with a smirk despite promises to protect. His trickle down theory was an unmitigated disaster for entire world economy, a global ponzi scheme and zero sum game likely to invite annihilation. Billionaire bankers and their vocal minion will vehemently disagree, even blame innocents round the clock over their sly television network to divert attention from themselves.

Appeals to familiar or religious values may gather enough support for candidates to run campaigns upon but surely won’t ensure a win. Cruz cruised his onto a rocky shoal of diversified indifference. Republican Speaker Boehner bowed out because he realized that GOP had been infiltrated by Teabaggers, whose mission is to end the gravy train by which legislators grab millions for themselves. Racket isn’t close to being unraveled, but rather get out before ship sinks. Trump’s appeals to pride splintered GOP and suckered conservatives. To qualify what happened, a C-list celebrity, formerly a Democrat and practically independent, buried a bunch of local yokels belonging to bankrupt party who spent 2 decades holding Americans hostage like an Iranian Ayatollah. It was merely thumbs up within a miserable, minority party. Nation hasn't yet seen the will of angry masses of real voters, independents and those who couldn't be bothered voting in farcical primaries, who always ultimately determine who gets elected at all levels. RNC already gave up trying to win presidency and is instead focused on influencing state contests. Presidents don’t possess the power to keep promises or restore greatness singlehandedly. Congress runs country. Unless election loads House and Senate with party yes men, no policy changes will be forthcoming.

Nevertheless, short of banning you from roads altogether, they can do nothing to keep you from roaming around unrestricted on your bicycle, among your last vestiges of freedom. You might notice a plaque to remind you of actual acts on your behalf. More likely, they'll try to force many to abandon motoring and restrict it to powerful rich patrons. Despots despise diversity and diminish choices, though chiefs cease to exist without indomitable indians.

Weeding Plantain?

As a basic principle of ethics, people ought not be forced to feel solidarity with others. Identifying with a group ought to come naturally out of familiarity and reciprocity. Reacting to hundreds of terrorist attacks, folks have begun to chime in, “Damn mass murderers of school children. Je suis Charlie. Pity Brussels. We’ll compensate families of World Trade Towers victims. We’re not afraid.” Despite what they declare, they are definitely running scared once they so emphatically deny it. Conservatives main motivation and manufactured commodity is fear. They regularly churn out disquiet and unrest to the point of sedition. Embracing greed, they detest progress, which surely entails sharing resources and working cooperatively. They prefer obedient disciples who spend on schedule, then die before collecting retirement entitlements, except when that applies to them personally. They expect to live forever by taking no risks, which will kill everyone including themselves.

As all great apes, humans instinctively desire benign social interaction. But oneness is not at all natural. Differentiation and specialization open new markets, and, although you’ll never be sure how, provide some mechanism for species survival. To come up with advancements, someone has to think outside while working inside paradigm. Unique viewpoints matter; otherwise, flocks and herds are led to slaughter.

Terrorism spawns into two breeds: 1) Ignorant dupes who heed control freaks, 2) Losers who interpret their repeated failures as society out to get them. Both resemble weeds, disruptive and tenacious, for whom attempts to eradicate cause more harm than good. If roots remain, weed regrows, but perfect lawns are toxic nightmares. Of course, capitalism is rigged to reward a few at the expense of many, so generally any sense of unity suffers. Terrorists are only made to look like mankind’s worst enemies. Bacteria, bad lifestyles and motorists have been far worse. Yet any war on terror invites mankind’s annihilation. A reason to belong is all that’s needed to cure malaise. Being able to contribute in whatever way you can and earn a living from it is a fundamental freedom that too many are denied. It only takes one to trigger a weapon of mass destruction.

Fear cures nothing, doesn’t get majority to see things your way, rather has the opposite effect, scatters supporters and strengthens rulers. Instead of convincing, it turns others against your cause, which shrinks into a historical footnote. If they had any intelligence at all, disenfranchised individuals would gather input, learn what others need, and supply it to them. Blowing up people and property serves only murderous ego, but some madmen just want to watch world burn, so represent another paying client. As Noam Chomsky said, “Everyone’s worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there’s a really easy way: stop participating in it.” Innovators look for solutions to continuous, dangerous, injurious problems, though unsupportive public doesn’t deserve their generosity and service.

Roger Scruton: Conservative thinker or exemplary oxymoron? Conservatism represents the absence of foresight, rather, mere reaction to chaos. Unicellular life, amoebas and whatnot, demonstrate they can react to climate changes or social angst better than conservatives. Thinking implies creativity. Superior thinkers - such as Descartes, Galileo, Satre, Wittgenstein - still exist and surely impact culture, but so do lunatics allowed to arbitrate things you have all the say for yourself. By the way, Roger, any kindness is beautiful, and everything, including equality and irony, possesses beauty if you’ve learned to see it.

Average schemers profit off fears of the rich, who dimly grasp that whatever they possess can easily be taken, by writing bullshit books that bury ones worth reading. Whoever wants to can write hundreds without presenting a single novel idea by analyzing nothing and parroting what others already have. Never believed that old biblical saw, “There’s nothing new under the sun,” penned by a redneck to get you to desist from inventing stuff with which these dolts have to deal without their usual tools of deny and forestall, though they’re cannily adept at charging admission to anything that doesn’t present a threat to them, haranguing whoever listens, and holding public executions. Seems society wants to revisit Roman rules for political expediency that sacrifice the meek and weak in a media coliseum or war frontline.

Signed onto government sponsored People For Bikes, as done with other nonprofit websites, to support equality for bicyclists in road planning. When given an opportunity for them to say a kind word about Bike&Chain, they righteously declined. Their policies and rules are too good for the likes of Labann, who’ll never be heard as long as plutocracy prevails. Charities assuage donors by adducing niceties and anathematizing militants. As of this late date, expect rejection at every turn. Easy to discredit or ignore anarchists who don’t know why they’ve been deprived. However, zero interaction spells complete freedom. If nobody notices, you can continue unmolested forever in your search for truth, or, once found, nobody else needs to know.

If you must pin tails on donkeys, bicyclists can be lumped into four groups: 1) Giant deprived demographic who use bikes for transportation, 2) Loose confederation of recreationally oblivious and socially active, 3) Small nucleus of pelaton fanboys, and 4) Smattering of chronic cranks and literary scholars. The only group to which B&C primarily appeals is the latter, so its potential audience remains marginal, and such readers only want self validation, not valid criticism and withering examination. Consequently, there’s always been a sense of futility in forging forward despite fact that it’s about the right of personal motility, which directly or indirectly affects everyone, including children whose parents provide for their welfare.

Saw a cartoon: A psychiatric crow counseling a couched patient says, “Whenever I’m depressed, I bust into flight and crap on someone.” Could resonate with bloggers. Sure, ignoramuses may dump rudeness and refusals on you, but you’re not expected to react badly? Never going to conquer terror that way. Probably 90% of bike bloggers don’t care about other blogs, only their own. But “narcissist” is a label too loosely applied; just because you are not easily coerced by morons, self concerned when nobody else is, or self sufficient doesn’t mean you’re a sociopath. Often try to connect with them by leaving encouraging comments, since they too will likely trail off when nobody notices. Sad when you see their last posts were 2 or more years ago. Listed a few below to begin your own probe. But seldom respond to those who make demands, such as moderating comments or requiring subscription by email to theirs.

The Bicycle and the West
Cozy Beehive: Cross-pollinating Vélo Buzz
From Wheels to Bikes
Let's Go Ride a Bike - Fine list of other blogs
Lovely Bicycle
The Human Cyclist

If any solidarity movement might yield improvement, it would be getting bike bloggers to discuss issues and reach agreements, hard to do among planet’s most diverse lot. Most would rather cultivate inconsequential pastures infested with chickweed, dandelion and plantain than harass the dumbass or raise legal grass. When has there ever been a requirement to be relevant? Moment’s most important issues never reach news reports after conservatives neutralized investigative journalism. Now charges before a conservative congress don’t stick without independent corroboration. No doubt, bike bloggers and free thinkers who thrive on self sufficiency and witness things first hand will be next. Tyranny and want cause all terrorism. What does it imply when those who endure want submit to the tyranny of bicycling? Consider the consequences.

Dates Contain

When you'll bike matches your own personal calendar. Some riders limit it to days when temperature in degrees Fahrenheit exceeds their age in years. Nevertheless, certain days every year merit a commemorative spin, and 2016 is no exception. What you need are fewer excuses and more reasons to ride.

10 April, Paris-Roubaix. Hell of the North is considered one of bicycling's most exciting one-day races. Champions cover the 257 km over rough cobbled sections in less than 6 hours. Congratulations to latest winner, Aussie domestique Mathew Hayman, who edged out 4-time Belgian champ Tom Boonen after favorites Cancellara and Sagan crashed. UCI calendar covers many such events, but this Queen of Classics is akin to The Masters Golf Tournament announcing season of suitability for millions of riders in temperate climates of Northern Hemisphere.

15 April, Frost Free Day in United State’s Northeast region. Or you could revel in 1st day of season you can spring forth in single ply after slowly layering all winter.

19 April, Bicycle Day. Albert Hoffman dropped a dose, the first intentional LSD trip, hopped on bike, and humped home in a revelatory haze from his Swiss laboratory. No noticeable harm, he lived to 102 and passed beyond physical realm into infinity about same time Labann published B&C in 2008.

01 May, National Bike Month begins in USA.

06 May (through 29), Giro D’Italia commences. Held since 1909, first of year's 3 Grand Tour elite bike races. Nice to know while pedaling alone that pelaton elsewhere is suffering gloriously just like you.

16 May (through 20), National Bike to Work Week; always held third week of May. Staged bike trains and work events, including routes from home guidance despite legal risks.

18 May, 13th Annual Ride of Silence. Global group rides, usually commencing at 7:00 PM local time, are conducted as a memorial to bicyclists who died while riding.

20 May, National Bike to Work Day. Wage slaves get to taste their dream of freedom before hanging up cleats for another year. Worth remembering more than any other date.

30 May, League of American Wheelmen (later Bicyclists) founded in 1880 in Newport, RI. Did important work early on, but eroded into a pulpit for impotent bullies.

20 June, Solstice, begins summer in North, winter in South. Being the longest day, sunshine assists year’s longest ride.

25 June, Pierre Michaux's Birthday. Parisian inventor who prototyped first pedaled velocipede (1858) and started mass production of bicycles (1868) was born on this day in 1813. Champagne and gateau, anyone?

02 July (through 24), Tour de France commences. Second of 3 Grand Tours, World’s oldest (1903) continually contested and most prestigious race has deeply influenced all aspects of bicycling, right down to fabrication methods and material composition.

20 August (through September 11), Vuelta a Espana. Held since 1935, third of three Grand Tours.

17 September, Cyclocross Season begins in Northern Hemisphere. Runs through autumn and winter, which occupies >60% of year somewhere around globe.

06 November, Daylight Savings ends, which affects bike commuters more than anyone. Usually break out winter gear, charge up lights, and swap wheel sets.

24 November, Thanksgiving. Excellent day to join group bike rides before huge meals and subsequent football comas. Call own “The Impossible Ride,” since always route it along roads bicyclists can't otherwise use because of relentless traffic. On this holiday morning with most businesses closed, traffic is as light as it will be all year beyond martial law or unforeseen catastrophes.

07 December, A Day of Infamy. Around this date, despite weather, generally roundtrip by bike 20 miles to a local village to get Christmas cards hand stamped with Hope. Hope conquers fear, but inconvenience remains as as the other key deterrent to cycling.

21 December, Solstice, begins summer in South, winter in North. Being the shortest day, many neglect to arrange a morning or twilight spin. On other hand, days begin to lengthen hereafter. Of course, you can go gingerly on headlights, should you choose.

25 December, Christmas Day. How many remember an introductory spin on that new contraption Santa left? This year it’s on a Sunday, day upon which club rides usually occur anyway.

Wheel Strains on the Wane?

Attempted to explain why bike songs seem on the wane in last 5 years. Obviously, many events and ideas influence creativity and culture. Across nation a bike song celebration of American podium appearances was cranking steadily until Armstrong’s rival Tyler, then teammate Hamilton, accused him of doping. Lance only admitted to it in 2013 after governing bodies had already stripped him of his championships. Everyone acts as if this allegation was a tragic revelation. Really? Humans weren’t built to spin nonstop at high cadence; only pharmaceutical technology enables such performance, no excuse not to produce new songs. For reasons as fuel hikes or shortages unrelated to racing, bike booms reoccur, and victors representing other countries gather own posse and receive musical acclaim, so an editor’s gaze must be global or list remains less than comprehensive and no resource from which to emerge cogitative.

Have always resisted anointing any bike song as best, favorite or popular. By what or whose criteria? How high a song rose on pop charts? How many times “bicycle” gets mentioned? Should Queen’s “Bicycle Race“ (Billboard #24 with 41 brazen shout outs) beat Melanie’s “Brand New Key” (Billboard #1, Cash Box #3 for entire 1972, with only 2 timid peeps about pedaling)? How, then, can they overlook Queen’s “Fat Bottomed Girls”? From early ’70’s, all have since been frequently surpassed.

Most lists you’re likely to see seem superficial results of 10 minute online searches. Imagine, someone got paid for these shameless misrepresentations. Been at this for a decade and still unsure whether light at end of tunnel is yet in sight. Only by carefully building an index, repeatedly listening, and studying backstories can you compile such a reliable list of over 1,800 titles. Meant enduring virus infected websites and handpicking physical media from reseller stalls with concomitant grossness. Anything you feel you must do is worth doing well by applying intelligence, exerting effort, and revisiting frequently. This satisfies but seldom rewards.

Which recordings do you exclude? Bias clouds choices. Old farts deride anyone over 30 who shows interest in a pop or rock hit, since many are mired in teen angst and lust, though bike songs cover everything, even open doors to adult concerns, contemporary culture, and taboo topics. How can you let gutter language be grounds for dismissal? Bicyclists spend too much time in gutters to discriminate. Decisions depend upon extent to which you’ve been exposed, how observant you’ve been, the year you became musically aware, and what not. Rankings could be given by genre, but any genre you assign would be hotly contested. Some songs are great but not as well known as they should be. Just to mention an artist or title does raise recognition a little. Some are distinctly about joys or sorrows of bicycling, as you’d expect (The Bicycles’ ”B-B-Bicycle”), and may be lyrically interesting, musically advanced, surprisingly apt, well produced, or written in this century (Sue Denim’s “Bicycle”). Others merely mention bicycling with intention focused on something else altogether (Carrie Rodrigues’ “Seven Angels on a Bicycle”). Harder to find are those that never let on they are all about the bike by skipping identifiable terms (Pretty Balanced’s “Survivor”). Lyrics alone aren’t always helpful explaining why a selection merits attention, especially if you’re unaware “scorcher” once meant a bicyclist who rides too fast around town, or the blistering wheels such a menace wields.

Instrumental or orchestral works without lyrics may still have a solid connections to bicycling culture; film scores often include them (Luis Bacalov’s “In Bicicletta” from Il Postino, or Nico Muhly’s “Cycling Holiday” from The Reader). Some merely accompany bike scenes (entire soundtrack of bike messenger film Quicksilver, and U2’s “The Sweetest Thing” in Adam Sandler movie Mr. Deeds). Hundreds of techno tunes have beats or titles that represent bicycling, several by Kraftwerk alone. Bike action in on-line videos often gets paired with music that has little or nothing to do with cycling, for example, One Day, a commercial for a bike brand (Nichole Reynolds’ “The Only Ones”).

Could list ones that aren’t, but ought to be, bike songs, notable among many: Allman Brothers’ “Midnight Rider”, Bob Marley’s “Concrete Jungle”, Fever Ray’s “Keep the Street Empty For Me”, Fiona Apple’s “Extraordinary Machine”, Grateful Dead’s “The Wheel”, Guns N' Roses’ “Welcome to the Jungle”, Jem’s “Just a Ride”, Judas Priest’s “Freewheel Burning”, Natalie Merchant’s “Carnival”, Neil Young’s “White Line”, Pete Yorn’s “Life on a Chain”, Sheryl Crow’s “Every Day is a Winding Road”, and Sting’s “Canary in a Coal Mine”. Could also generate lists in any of a dozen languages, especially Dutch, French, Italian, Japanese, and Spanish.

In the misguided belief they are performing a public service, organizations recommend totally unrelated songs to cyclists’ playlists, which only confuse issues further. Bids to be recognized must show some basis beyond “sounds good while pedaling”. Practically any music makes biking better, though while in traffic beware of wearing headphones, because frame creak and tire hiss are crucial safety cues.

List editors must draw a line, though you can bet diehard specimens slip past whatever barriers they set. It will always be fair game to recommend hymns that hold personal significance based upon wisdom of your experience. Not to downplay or imply anything, here are 40 outstanding examples, 2% of total, that will remain forever on Labann’s List. Nearly half don’t immediately suggest bicycling culture, none are ignorantly derivative or sports related, and whole lot, while indubitably geared to enthusiasts, is well worth anyone’s time.

Amy Correia, “The Bike”

Annalie (Wilson), “Lovesong for a Cyclist”

Anna Moo, “Ride on My Bike”

Be Your Own Pet, “You Are My Bicycle”

David LaMotte, “Bicycle Man”

David Rovics, “The Bicycle Song”

Eric Burton, “The Rusty Schwinn Song”

Frank Zappa, “Bicycle Concerto”

Gigolo Aunts, “Lemon Peeler”

Ginger Ninjas, “How Much“

Jewel (Kilcher) “Boy Needs a Bike”

Joal Kamps, “Bicycle Man”

John Linnell, “South Carolina”

Kristen Allen-Zito, “Pedaling My Bike”

Lars Din, “(this ain’t no) Bike Friendly Town”

Lightning Bolt, “Ride the Sky”

Lily Allen, “LDN”

Lisa Germano, “Riding My Bike”

Livingston Taylor, “Bicycle”

Marie-Lynn Hammond, “Two Wheel Tango”

Mary Chapin Carpenter, “Stones in the Road”

Matthew Price, “Freedom Machine”

Melody Gardot, “Some Lessons”

Minnie Birch, “The Bicycle Song”

múm, “Now there’s that fear again”

Nits, “Bike in Head”

Pink Floyd, “Bike”

Prayers for Atheists, “Bike Song”

R Crumb w/ Cheap Suit Serenaders, “Pedal Your Blues Away”

Red Hot Chili Peppers, “Bicycle Song”

She & Him, “Black Hole”

Sugarcubes, “Motorcrash”

System of a Down, “Innervision”

Tangerine Dream, “Three Bikes in the Sky”

The Shins, “Split Needles”

Tomorrow, “My White Bicycle”

Tom Waits, “Broken Bicycle”

Tracy Comer, “Yellow Bike”

Trey Anastasio, “Let Me Lie”

Wild Billy Childish & The Buff Medways, “Medway Wheelers”