Picky Balletomane

Bicycle Day’s 80th Anniversary Poster depicts late cosmic and prolific guitar picker Jerry “Captain Trips” Garcia who had a dominant compositional hand in over 100 albums and 450 songs by The Grateful Dead alone. B&C lists a dozen songs that celebrate April 19th, 1943, the day biochemist Albert Hoffman first dosed himself with LSD and rode home by bicycle gingerly.

Recording a song and releasing to world for free can be a cheap ticket, lawn dart, long shot, or low road to upstart infamy. Pandering to base instincts and hormonal urges will always attract indiscriminate consumers, whereas only a balletomane or critic can appreciate choreography and compositions presented from deep thought, diligent practice, and drop dead talent. Consequently, more chunks of coal exist than multi-caret diamonds, while outputs of consequence get buried beneath payloads of nonsense.

You get to vote which is which among another 5 dozen newly identified tunes directly related to bicycling, most recently released. Surprises how few of them reference e-bikes, which have grown in popularity over last 2 decades, and how many unique titles continue to emerge, as if composers and musical groups had no clue 3,000 others already covered similar emotions and experiences. Would have posted this before Tax Day had not examples kept appearing; probably ought to keep monitoring sources. How many click tracks and glitch beats are needed to capture a clacking chain, dancing derailleur, or whirring wheel?

Alexey Marti, Bicycle [jazz], Travesia, self, 2017

Animal Portraits, Bicycle, Young Mothers EP, 374731 Records DK, 2018

Arno Schubert, Bicycle [hip-hop], single, RNO Records, 2020

BLERTA (Geoff Murphy), Bicycle Song, The Return Trip [soundtrack], EMI Music, 2004; begun in 1970 as Bruno Lawrence Electric Revelation and Traveling Apparition, and compiled in 1976, these humorous short stories and songs chronicle group’s tour of New Zealand.

Calypso Rose, The Bicycle [Trinidad folk], Calypso Rose, Ra, 1968

Contact Lens, Bicycle, Silos, 699663 Records DK, 2020

David Gibb, Rusty Bicycle, Pedal Onwards, Little Seeds Music, 2022; “Rusty bicycle, left out in the rain... grease those gears, oil that chain, else you’re not going to get to ride that bike again.”

Demian Feriy, Bicycle [eam], I, self, 2012

DJ Mahoutsukai feat. Hana Mari, Saki Ibuki, Anzu Kojima & Shino Kuroki, By Bicycle [techno], By Bicycle Ep, simasima, 2023

Dom Whiting, Drum and Bass on the Bike, DJ event videos since 2021

Elias Caldwell, Bicycle [synth], Iridescent, [self], 2023

Eliot Park, Bicycle, Just Be, self, 2018; “Birthday present, oh, what a dream! Shiny red with a sparkly seat. and I can go about a-hundred-and-three on my B-I-C-Y-C-L-E. Saturday, oh, what a day! Rolling down the road through the sun and the shade, no training wheels, no siree... I’m the king of the road on my bicycle, bicycle. Yippee ki-yay, and away we go.”

Ezra Fike, Bicycle, Alphabet Pie, self, 2017

Gerald Taucher. E-bike [Austrian], Zwischen Domois & Heit, self, 2022

Giancarlo Scalzi, Bicycle, Missing Pieces of Scoundrel Rocco, Dimetric Sounds, 2013

Gidiboyy, Bicycle, Gidiboyy Lomo 2, 3666843 Records DK, 2022

HÅN & Killowen, Bicycle [alternative], projections on a human screen, self, 2021

Harlem Yu, Bicycle, The Moonlight That Can’t Be Turned Off, Mandopop, 2013

Indian Summer Jars, feat. Sarah Fiore, Ragbrai, Heart Rock, self, 2014

Janet Blair, Bicycle, Over Under, self, 2020; “Life’s no game of chicken, that bird just doesn’t fly. Love is seeing ours not mine. It’s kinda like the pedals on my child’s bicycle. The pedals lock beneath your feet, you try to make them go. To move the bike along, one of those pedals must come low, snd start the forward cycle: confess, repent, grow.”

John Colleoni, Bicycle (Rev Tribal) [Italian techno], Retrosynthwave, Italian Way Music, 2022

JooJoo, Bicycle Day [acid dark techno], Darkprog Mixtape, self, 2022

Joy Lewis, Bicycle, single, Gabbiani Records, 2021

Keezy, Bicycle [hip-hop], single, self, 2018

Lea Miller, Jr, Bicycle [piano instrumental], In Tenda Nel Bosco [In a Tent in the Woods], Sunshine Music Records, 2021

Lions of the Interstate, Bicycle, Hug Point + Death / Love, self, 2019

Liquor Bike, various titles [post-punk], Neon Hoop Ride, Grass Records, 1994
Liquor Bike, Pavements And Sidewalks, Lowborne, Merkin Records, 1993
A “liquor bike” according to urban slang is any conveyance one uses after losing license to operate a motor vehicle.

Lonnie Park, Bicycle Day [juvenile], My Earth Songs, self, 2020; meant to encourage children to ride ecologically to school in support of UNICEF, so not an LSD reference.

Macbeth, Bicycles [Italian metal in English], Vanitas, Art Music Group, 2002; “Service is suspended, Service shall resume. Service running late again... Cities got new friends that the cities really cared. The looks are trifle shifty, and they’re not about to change. ‘Cos no one likes what they are not, and slowly we're strange, and everyone's buying bicycles. Not the bus, bicycles; Not the train, bicycles.”

Margo Lauritzen, Bicycle [indie alternative], She’s a Scientist, self, 2020; “A bicycle is very nice and you should try it once or twice. A bicycle is very cool; if it breaks you can fix it with bike tools. A bicycle is very clean, it keeps our trees and gardens green. A bicycle is very neat, see them gliding down the street! Bicycle, Bicycle, Bicycle!”

Markus Nikolaus, Bicycle Day [psychedelia], The Acid Kids, Porzellan Bar, 2021; influences include riding a bicycle under LSD during COVID lockdown in downtown Berlin. “But baby, we can be as good as new. Take some acid, take some truth. Take my heart, it’s all for you. Let’s take it back. Going with the bike all day, Bicycle Day; let’s take it back.”

Marwin Fetwig, Bicycle [eam], Secrets, UBM Records, 2022

Masaya Yanagi, Bicycle [jazz], single, self, 2021

Michael Cassady & Paul Rust, RAGBRAI, Don’t Stop or We’ll Die, self, 2022

Midichlorian, Bicycle Day 2023 [synth & spoken word], The Slow Ride, self, 2023

Mr. MoJo, Bicycle Day [dubstep], Bicycle Day Mix 2022, self, 2022

Nancy Kopman, Bicycle [juvenile], The Seasons, self, 2013

Oneul, Do exercise! (Bicycle) [instrumental], Cosy Piano Music, self, 2021

Oolong, Bicycle Day [explicit punk], Edema Ruh split EP, self, 2022; “Finally, biking. Hoping for better things, I won’t even say it... Feel like there’s something with the beat in the air; I’ll follow.”

OV, Otomo Bikes [techno], Figs Compilation, Future Times, 2019

Pavel Dobeš, Bicykle [Czech], K svatku, Parlophone, 2001; “My baby has a bi-bicycle and rides like the wind... She has a bi-bicycle and I have a bi-bicycle. We both ride like the wind.”

Pedro Coudsi, Bicycle [eam], Bicycle, Dreamhop Music, 2022

pijama land, Bicycle, Léopard, Sonder House, 2023

Refeeld, Bicycle [English jazz instrumental], Sunny Weekend, self, 2021

Revival Now!, I Ride My Bike in the Rain, At the First Revelationiest Project, Arkam Records, 2016

Robert Pletzer, E-Bike Song - KitzBühel [Austrian folk], video single, self, 2018

Self Made Man, Bicycle [Swedish], Lust Garden, Heartwork Records, 1990

Soleil Rouge, Bicycle [synth], Evolving, 2022

Sukisha. Bicycle [J-pop in Japanese], Beside Your Bedside, self, 2019

Swanky, Bicycle Day [synth], 1943, self, 2023

The Falderals, Bicycle [folk], Love Everything, self, 2019

The Gray Goo, Bicycle Day [psychedelic doom funk], 1943, self, 2022; single track bicyclists from Montana open their debut album with 10 minutes of heavy vibe a bit reminiscent of Mogwai, Hunted by a Freak.

The Penelopes, Bicycle [synth], SpaceBoy [soundtrack], Pour Le Monde, 2021

The Singing Lizard, Bicycle [juvenile], Make Believe, AlphaBeat Records, 2014

Timothy Eerie, Bicycle, Ritual, Nomad Eel Records, 2019

Tom San Filippo, Bicycle Day, single, self, 2023; “The genie's out of the bottle; explain I cannot till my words and my mind stop to soar. Reality shattered, and from here, ever after, perception has opened her doors. Dear Mrs Hoffman, there’s been a problem…”

Trachta (Francis Trachta), Bicycle, Differences, self, 2012

Trophy Jump, Bicycle [Croatian in English], Haphazard, Horn & Hoof Records, 2019; “Dominik once said that he would beat a bike thief dead; that’s the only person that he would murder. Must be really sad to lose your two-wheeled friend to a guy that's definitely not worth her. What kind of person you must be to steal some stranger's property, especially if you steal a bicycle, then you must be the worst dude in the world.”

Wurmy Wormfield (Charles Herman-Wurmfeld) & friends, Bicycle Day [juvenile], fangtasia music, 2021

Xdinary Heroes, Bicycle [K-pop], video, JYP Entertainment, 2023

You Anin, Bicycle [techno], Inside, self, 2018

Word Spokane

Spokane, a city in Washington State in nation's Northwest, has a sense of whimsy. Someopne risked death or serious injury to install a bicycle, properly wired down, high on an abandoned concrete pier smack dab in Spokane River late last year, leaving residents to speculate as to its installation and intention. Need life be more mysterious than it is already?

Scenes of gentle folk bicycling pepper biopic Jesus Revolution (Jon Erwin & Brent McCorkle, dirs., 2023). Lonnie Frisbee (Jonathan Roumie) changes minds and inspires hope when his hippie ideals get applied in church of Pastor Greg Laurie (Kelsey Grammer). Edgar Winter Group’s Free Ride (1972) naturally fits film score: “I've come here to give you a hand, and lead you into the promised land. So, come on and take a free ride... We gotta do better, it's time to begin. You know all the answers must come from within.” Dramatizes Jesus Freak Movement that coexisted alongside Disco/Drug Inferno of early 1970’s.

Lifetime Network's original film Every Breath She Takes (Darin Scott, dir., 2023) has bicyclist Jules Baker (Tamala Jones) falling for a suave lover, Billy (Brian White). Once married, her savage husband physically and verbally abuses her, so she files for divorce. Crazy to reconcile, stalker Billy sets their home on fire and succumbs in flames. Or does he?

Vraylar Spot has a bipolar bicyclist who buys a child seat at a bike shop, gets a box of cookies at a bakery, then picks up her son from school riding throughout.

Boy scouts bike about in The Fabelmans (Steven Spielberg, dir., 2022), an autobiographical look at director's teen years. Lends personal authenticity to similar scenes in his blockbusters, like E.T. 

Upgrade.com Spot “Bike Shop: Triple Cash Back” (July, 2022), has a couple discussing merits of buying an e-bike as opposed to continuing to ride their debt donkey.

Twicycle has handlebars that its rider can crank to propel bike along with tradition leg twitches.

On Her Own (Fabienne Engel, dir., 2022) documents how Wiebke Lühmann took a month off to go bikepacking 3,500 km solo and unsupported from Hamburg, Germany to North Cape, Norway during height of summer in 2022. On one hand it looked more like winter above Arctic Circle along a gorgeous but rainy route. On other, almost no traffic meant zero human hassles while honking 120 km per 12 hour day, then hunkering against weather overnight.

Carmen (Valerie Buhagiar, dir., 2021) has title character (Natascha McElhone) evicted from church rectory, where she spent her life from teenage as a maid for her brother, a recently deceased pastor of a small Maltese church. Finally free, she embarks on a series of adventures, including learning to ride a bicycle, and surviving by irreverent and unexpected means.

In his Emmy winning documentary Paper and Glue (JR, dir., 2021) humanistic French artist JR celebrates ordinary people and chooses California’s Tehachapi Supermax Prison as another intimate space to plaster giant images on paper producing a collage of incarcerated felons and their families as members of an interconnected society.

Based on Mitali Perkins’s young adult novel, Bangladeshi drama Rickshaw Girl (Amitabh Reza Chowdhury, dir., 2021) introduces feisty teen muralist Naima (Novera Rahman). After her cyclo pedaling father gets injured, mother sends her to a big city to earn money and help family. To escape domestic servitude, she disguises herself as a boy and follows in father’s footsteps as a rickshaw operator. Naima’s creativity doesn’t quit as she still decorates rickshaw and paints murals. Will her emergence as an artist save her?

After most of humanity is wiped out, Elle Fanning happens upon a town’s sole survivor, Peter Dinklage. I Think We’re Alone Now (Reed Morano, dir., 2018) covers his obsession to bury victims and clean their homes while pocketing valuable resources, particularly batteries. She bikes around contentedly and doesn’t tell him that there are thousands of survivors still living nearby, until a couple who had enslaved her show up to reclaim her.

Parolee Chris Connelly (Jay Duplass) goes for a bike ride with Hildy Beasley (Kaitlyn Dever) after her mom Carol rejects his romantic advances in Canadian indie film Outside In (Lynn Shelton, dir., 2017).

In 1940 on day in question, April 9th (Roni Ezra, dir., 2015), mustered Danish reserve soldiers ask why they were called up, but suspect it’s because Germans were seen gathering at their border. Unit is sent south on bicycles to hold off invaders until reinforcements arrive.

Invisible Sue (Matkus Dietrich, dir., 2012) and her BMX boyfriend ride e-bikes to search for her kidnapped mom.

Stewart Parker’s Spokesong [Dublin, 1975] is about religious warfare between Catholics and Protestants that has kept this poet/playwright’s homeland, North of Ireland, a battleground for previous 5 decades. While not a musical, a chorus figure, called the Trick Cyclist, who embodies the spirit of Belfast, sings most of its songs. Action takes place in a local bike shop, which among many once solicited sales by employing stunt riders.

Yesteryear’s great black superstar Marshall “Major” Taylor began his record setting career doing exactly that while wearing a military uniform, thus the nickname, in his native city of Indianapolis, before enticed to race by a shop back east, hence also known as “The Worcester Whirlwind”.

Vehentem Mane

This title would describe Dawn of Bicycling Culture if Latin wasn’t already a dead language centuries before its invention, whether from Leonardo da Vinci’s doodles, madcap draisiennes, or Michaudines. Morning rides on empty streets amidst misgiving and mystery mean swiftwalkers are reborn daily. Origins often blur and become obscure, while meanings intended by ancients and pioneers morph into whatever those who exploit them want.

From get-go, Bike&Chain weighed freedom of self expression against responsibilities to family, friends, lovers, and society. While bicycling, maintaining balance is essential, as in all aspects of living. Leaning into extremes, though increasingly popular, leads to toppling. So toned down rhetoric and touted authenticity of personal experiences and ethics of reporting sincerely from own memory.

Background earth tones (a Gerola multimedia panel) recall what outdoors used to look like: canopied side streets, cow paths across verdant fields, dark bowers among shrubs, home gardens exuding floral fragrances, and woods along neighborhood boundaries. Michaudine is a steel object d'art representing a distant cousin's invention that began first bike boom and paved way to safety bicycles. Pile of scruffy flipbooks from 1990’s full of compiled paragraphs and sentences written in black pen during stolen moments (before existence of smartphones, upon which you can now text yourself), validated evidence of an observational and revelatory process, were the origins of Bike&Chain. Organizing, typing, fact checking, establishing conventions for self consistency, and proofing were huge chores; then came embellishing text with further insights before laying out as a published 1,000 page millennium document eight years after Y2K.

In 1933, heyday of publishing books for profit, Enemies of Promise author Cyril Connolly concluded, “Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self.” Surely there’s plenty of middle ground, such as being of service while meeting own needs in pursuit of facts to liberate self from delusions. Explains glut of self published books that gain no traction. Apathetic and lazy humans usually disregard jumble of influences over eons of existence that constitute any quote or slogan.

Mostly regret this thankless effort, though anything one does supposedly builds muscles. What else was there to do besides prostituting self for cash or submitting to slavery? Although chose a wildly expansive topic, felt bound to never oversimplify or even speak conventionally, so painted self into a panic corner. At best, spending thousands of days of one's life on a pointless quest is quixotic, if not totally deranged.

Earth Day, April 22, 2023, marks 53rd year of modern environmentalism urging you to take notice, how brown and gray have replaced blue and green. Every road now seems lined with cruddy litter, dead animals, and other organic debris; but manmade items most often seen are dead soldiers tossed indiscriminately: lager cans, libation containers, liquor nips, or the like. Biden versus bidon: One's an aged Peloton water carrier, other Italian for a beverage container. Can you do without either? Given sheer volume of drink debris, ever wonder just how drunk drivers are? Are you not what you swallow?

Peloton Pasta
Narrow Mostaccioli (tubes) and Rotelle (wheels) with Butternut Squash (chamois) Sauce: Mostaccioli mean mustaches, evoking vintage handlebars, though they’re angle cut resembling frame components, and you know what cyclists do with chamois cream. Serve with any green vegetable as a side dish (great outdoors). Totally vegetarian for Earth Day, this carte du jour feeds up to four.

Recipe Ingredients
1 cup dried Mostaccioli Pasta
1 cup dried Rotelle
1 fresh medium sized Butternut Squash
1 to 2 cups of Vegetable Broth, as needed
3 fresh Sage leaves or 1/2 tsp of dried
2 cloves of fresh Garlic
Grated vegetable cheese garnish (optional)

Directions

Wash, peel, and cube butternut squash. Peel and mince garlic with fresh sage leaves (or add dried sage). Boil both pastas as directed until al dente. Meanwhile, sauté squash until tender. Add garlic/sage; cook a few minutes more until soft, not browned. Stir in vegetable broth at half of the volume of squash; heat to a boil, reduce heat, and cook 5 minutes. Empty into a blender. Run until totally puréed. Combine cooked pastas with sauce in same pan to warm briefly before serving.

Suitable accompaniments representing Grand Tour racing venues could be asparagus (Spain), broccoli rabe (Italy), Brussel sprouts (Belgium), haricots verts (France), spinach (Netherlands), sweet peas (England), or Swiss chard (Switzerland). Pair with La Bicicletta, a cocktail of Pinot Grigio or Prosecco on ice with splashes of Campari or Grand Marnier and club soda with an orange wheel; or a rosé, sauvignon blanc, or white zinfandel wine. For a perfect desert, combine musette bag fruit rolls (fig/granola filling rolled in chopped nuts) and banana gelato with an espresso. Screams Grand Tour appurtenances.

Commemorations and holidays bring out the best and worst of behaviors. On Halloween, 2017, psycho jihadist Sayfullo Saipov drove his rented Home Depot truck down a Hudson River bike path near former World Trade Towers, injured eleven, killed eight, smashed into a school bus, and tried to escape while grunting, “Allahu akbar!” until gut shot by New York’s finest. In January of 2023 he was convicted of his cowardly and mistaken murder of innocents, mostly tourists from Argentina and Belgium, among 28 felonies, and could be sentenced to death, a sentence appropriate for anyone driving a truck on a bike path.

On last show before 2022’s Christmas break, Tonight Show’s Jimmy Fallon, having saved his best-to-last stocking stuffer, gave everyone in audience a Sondors Smart Step ReCycled e-bike. Jealous? 

Outspoken author and songwriter Jeff Tweedy of band Wilco argues, “Year-end lists are egotistic, simplistic, and too small to capture life’s bigness.“ Furthermore, “Rhyming rain and train is pretty much the end of your career.” How well does Labann already know? Exposed on a bike in the vast outdoors, where to go is truly a worry. 

Bicyclists pursue 4 kinds of routes: 1) Loops, all roads different, that add scenery to stave off boredom; 2) Out-In on identical roads for maximum efficiency, typical of commutes or shopping runs; 3) Helical or Intertwined, where some segments repeat in opposite directions, usually because alternatives aren’t available or safe; and 4) Tours from origin to destination, sometimes over course of days to months, often involving intermodal connections with motor vehicles, planes, ships, or trains. Sometimes only choices that appear safe are alleys, parking lots, or sidewalks. Choosing to propel by pedal means having to abide road planning neglect. 

Recently witnessed a road rage incident. On a 4-lane undivided road, 6 foot shoulder peters out to 6 inches just before a side street often used by bicyclists to least inconvenience motorists. Signaled a left turn, using arm outstretched. Motorists have forgotten what signaling means, never mind arm positions: Left (out), right (up), and stop (down), supposedly for everyone's safety. Driver of an overtaking GMC stake truck broke 3 laws in a row: 1) Didn’t stop to honor left turn signal, 2) sped up to pass within inches not leaving mandatory 3 feet, and 3) stopped suddenly blocking traffic. He then got out and thrice accused cyclist erroneously: 1) Idiot for cycling (Einstein rode a bike), 2) pussy for not driving (only fearless tackle traffic two wheeled), and 3) riding in middle of the road (was literally outside travel lane). He would have added felony assault to his misdemeanors but avoided him by completing intended cross, though can’t say whether he wasn’t run over returning to his own vehicle. You might recall reading here how drivers of Chevy and GMC SUVs and trucks account for bulk of observed bad road behaviors; this anecdote is no exception.

Brings up an interesting question. Can bicyclists ever be accused of causing an accident? If so, does insurance ever cover damages? Mere presence is no excuse. Why initiate incidents and risk injuries only bicyclists would suffer, not motorists?

About the only time bicyclists don’t get right-of-way priority is on prohibited highways. Otherwise, bikes belong, can ride on right side of travel lane without impeding traffic flow, if possible, must follow all applicable traffic code, which means crossing into left lane to turn, holding for oncoming vehicles to pass, so waiting in the middle of street. How can bicyclists not impede motorists when there’s no shoulder to retreat to? Lawyers use terms like “riding sidewalks”, “running red lights”, or “unexpectedly merging” to assess bicyclists liability, though motorists never expect them, they have to cross against lights or never get a chance, and usually there’s no alternative to unfriendly stretches. 

Bicyclette Melaine

“As a kid I had a dream – I wanted to own my own bicycle. When I got the bike I must have been the happiest boy in Liverpool, maybe the world. I lived for that bike. Most kids left their bike in the backyard at night. Not me. I insisted on taking mine indoors and the first night I even kept it in my bed.” - John Lennon

Donald Gerola, Birdie Bicycle, steel sculpture, 2009

Thanksgiving honors special providence, when God goes that extra mile and intervenes to save sinners from catastrophes.Those who celebrate this holiday see it as an annual miracle when bosses give them a couple days off to figure out what Christmas recipients want, then go out and buy their gifts. During 1960’s bike boom, many preteens longed for a bicycle. For those who feed crowds and serve families, it’s an anxious interval of painstaking forbearance for buying ingredients, cleaning house, preparing feast, and putting on football for guests while wrapping up mess.

Labann takes an early spin on his bicyclette melaine, black bicycle, before festivities begin. Somebody must've raised a candle high, because pandemic ebbed and weather held, so got in a circuit on a wing and a prayer. In America, folks arrive at destinations by Wednesday night, sleep in, then wend their ways to where they were invited the following afternoon. More travel occurs nationwide on Thanksgiving eve than rest of year, but morning of holiday itself sees the least. Bicyclists who venture forth at dawn can ride on just about any road, even those typically impractical due to heavy traffic. After a couple of hours sweet smells of baking pies and roasting meats amuse bicyclists most, since motorists occupy vacuum packed rolling cans insulated from environment they despoil.

Few outside North America, and only 300 million residents, recognize this dated tradition on brink of disappearing altogether, compared to at least one billion bicyclists among planet’s eight billion inhabitants, some so enthused about their every day open air adventures as to write thousands of songs.

Alex The Astronaut (Alexandra Lynn), Ride My Bike [indie], How to Grow a Sunflower Underwater, self, 2022
 “I wanna climb so high, but I can’t find you. And I’ve been riding my bike slipping through the side streets, sweating up the hills. With these bricks what do I build? I’ll find it. I’ll keep riding.” All of Alexandra’s songs are informed by her autism diagnosis.

Bombadils, Bicycle [Canadian folk], Dear Friend, self, 2022
Luke Fraser and Sarah Frank from Halifax, Nova Scotia hark back to bluegrass. “The road’s got its ups and downs. It’ll break your heart. Slow down, or you could brake too hard. But there's a spark in my spokes spinning round, the brightest hope I've ever found. I see it in you and all the people riding through. So I'm not stopping yet. It feels too good to fly.”

Jaś Zgnilec feat ANA, Rower, single, self, 2022

Mooz Vibes, Velo Électrique [French Polynesian synth beats], single, self, 2022

BTS (Bangtan Boys) feat. RM (Kim Namjoon), Bicycle [K-pop], single, self, 2021
"Let’s ride a bike, if we’re sad... open our arms freely... Let it roll sometimes, like a bicycle wheel, I need to find something...”

Stamina MC (Linden Reeves), Bicicletta [English & Italian expletive drum & bass], single, self, 2021

Lil retar & Okti, Rower, single, Cucumber Gang Collective, 2021

Alphabeat, Back Of My Bike [Danish pop], single, Warner Music, 2019

 Cruising the Boardwalk, I Can Ride my Bike Song, single, self, 2019
 "Turn off your brain from the daily mundane that’s so crazy insane... I can ride my bike today. Be free!”

Rue (Park Hyeon Jun), Rain and Bicycle [K-pop], single, self, 2020

Maude Latour, Ride My Bike, Starsick EP, self, 2019
 “My mind's on fire, I feel the blood rush to my brain... I can't explain, so take a right at Central Park to clear my mind. And get that runner's high, high, and, baby, for the very first time I’m not afraid to die... think I found what it means to be alive. So I backpack through the universe, and I came back with no possessions except heartbreak and life's fake. And all the gods gave me one message, that you live fast and you die quicker.”

John Mineton, Rower [hip-hop], Rower,single, self, 2017

Rivival Now, I Ride My Bike in the Rain, At the First Revelationiest Project, Arkam Records, 2016

Passenger (Michael David Rosenberg), Riding to New York [folk ballad], Whispers, self, 2014
"See the doctors told me that my body won't hold me, my lungs are turning black... there ain't no turning back. They can't tell me how long I've got, maybe months but maybe not. I’m taking this bike and riding to New York... 'Cause I wanna see my grandson one last time... I wanna see my daughter, tell her all the things that I should have taught her, and I'd do it if I had to walk.”

Bicrophonic Research Institute is an anarchic organization of bicyclists who make “concrete music” tracks by riding bicycles equipped with a GPS receiver and Raspberry Pi computer on back rack and stereo speakers on handlebars. Using bespoke mapping software, they link different sounds to different places, meaning that what's played by the bike changes depending upon how fast cyclists pedal and where they go.

Established in London by Kaffe Matthews and Dave Griffiths in 2014, every year BRI collectively and conceptually undertakes several projects involving architecture, contemporary issues, cycling possibilities, finances, politics, or time, while running local workshops in sonic bike making and sharing developments online and open source. As a result independent sonic cycling hubs also exist in Berlin, Brussels, Finland, Houston, and Magdeburg.

Kaffe Matthews, Radio Cycle Highlights [excerpts from live broadcasts], podcast, self, 2002
During July of 2002 BRI's Kaffe Matthews broadcasted Radio Cycle 24/7 as an experimental podcast.

Melanie Anne Safka, Lay Down (Candles in the Rain), Lay Down (Candles in the Rain), Buddah, 1970
"We all had caught the same disease, and we all sang the songs of peace. Some came to sing, some came to pray. Some came to keep the dark away. So, raise the candles high, 'cause if you don't, we could stay black against the night (sky). Oh, oh, raise them higher again, and if you do we could stay dry against the rain." Though not about bicycling, this Woodstock anthem naîvely extols a kinder society, one in which bicyclists can enjoy peaceful alternatives.

Midterm “Cam-plain”

“When I move my body just like this, I don't know why, but I feel like freedom... You can't stand still. This ain't no drill, more than a cheap thrill.” Jon Baptiste, Freedom, We Are, Verve Records, 2021, styling jazz on his art bike in song’s official video. Album won a Grammy.

Ancient philosopher Aristotle reckoned, “Well begun is half done.” While cycling, you’re entitled to call hills well begun “half won,” since momentum carries you part way up if you charge hard beforehand. Takes determination and effort to escape a gravity hole or scrape yourself out of depravity hell. Half a presidential term usually isn’t enough to evaluate an administration’s accomplishments or crimes.

Began communicating online during 1980’s when everyone who texted was savvy about computers so somewhat intelligibly conversant. Respondents once understood courtesy and logic. Social media reversed this situation. In 4 decades of expressing self among blogs, bulletin boards, listservs, personal email, social media, and websites, learned volumes about human behavior. Life became unpredictable when knee-jerk oppositional overwhelmed sensibly conventional.

Nothing worthwhile comes from arguing with antisemites, bullies, cat fishers, cowards, cretins, criminals, cultists, denialists, extremists, fanatics, fascists, gaslighters, ghosters, grifters, homophobes, hucksters, louts, misogynists, narcissists, nazis, nincompoops, psychos, racists, simpletons, trolls, xenophobes, or zealots. Without dumpster diving and sorting through garbage speculations proven false in previous century, intellects can’t derive factual consensus. But process can be sped up by first identifying with whom you’re dealing. Etiquette matters, but rude manners should cost bores more.

Cat fishers extort and scam money from lonely people looking for love. Cultists justify their lazy allegiance to known celebrities rather than research character merits and track records. Deplorables reduce casual convo to “get help”, “Kool-aid drunk”, “love it or leave”, or strawman fallacies, then selectively delete own comments to make yours look odd and paranoid, though a 75% majority either agreed, ignored or liked. Remaining 25% correlate to one in four people with antisocial personality disorders who psychiatric scientists say constitute every community. Gaslighters and narcissists answer by belittling and browbeating to make you doubt yourself while they shore up own insecurities. Misogynists hate women so much they’d deny their majority and rights. Trolls renounce you personally hoping you’ll inadvertently blurt evidence they can use against you.

Whole Earth Catalog cofounder Stewart Brand flippantly advised, “We are as gods, so we might as well get good at it.” Well, reality of American majority might be diametrically the opposite. Fully 12% are illiterate in any language; 15% are retired beyond caring; 18% are school kids; 25% are trumpkins who bow to their Orange Jesus, a creamsicle crime lord in 3X marshmallow golf shorts, who has been twice convicted of fraud and twice impeached by House of Representatives. He’s been continuously investigated and relentlessly opposed not because he made political enemies for promising to “drain Potomac swamp”, rather because he’s a lifelong lowlife and pond scum with brain fog from drug abuse and sadomasochism. Remaining 30% include leaders and workforce reasonably anxious about issues and policies such felons might influence.

During last 2 years nation shrugged off a major pandemic and slew of attacks from domestic terrorists, both fanatical and financial, while deficit reduction and job growth set historic records. Corporate gouging, price hikes, school shootings, and worry whether family will die or fail incite discontent. Civil liberties, creative freedoms, democratic rule, and third estate are under relentless attack by would-be tyrants. Threats to your choice, health and wellbeing ought to give you pause for thought. If you forfeit rights while seeking security, you’ll be denied both.

People who suffer vent. They blame identifiable scapegoats, imaginary conspirators, or ingratiating politicians who’ve made promises they couldn’t keep resulting in disappointments, embarrassments, or losses. Some countenance hate crimes, random insurrections, and vigilante justice, then decide to avenge without knowing who's responsible. Ideology divides, dreams unite.

Vampires suck life from all they enthrall. Egomaniacal orators and giant tome writers cause same harm: They drain you dry by canceling your presence, monopolizing your time, or pushing you aside. Just think of what good a child could do if parents were simply supportive rather than sociopathic or stupefied. As everything in nature, humans exist in time-space haunted by memories that refuse to die. Hard enough to find inspiration without blood suckers abusing, demotivating, exploiting, or heaping insults upon you.

Politics are infested with vampires, who use patriotic, religious, and security arguments that defy logic, reason and sense to pick your pockets and secure their seats. You can’t just ignore them lest everyone including you suffer mightily. Too many boomers dropped out, thereby left this mess. What kind of dunce heeds Republican agenda of corruption, division, strong-arm tactics, and transfer of trillions from workers to an oligarchy? With only 25% voter affiliation nationwide members of this minority party could never get elected without arm twisting, ballot tampering, district gerrymandering, domestic terrorizing, ego stroking, electoral fudging, fear mongering, financial attacking, price hiking, school shootings, and vote suppressing.

Overlords pay Carlson, Hannity and Murdoch millions to spew propaganda for them 24/7 nonstop. Nothing new, been going on since Nixon, then Reagan, two Bushes, then worst, Trump. Investment transferred $50 trillion from US Treasury into offshore accounts of 850 billionaires, while 30 million families sunk below poverty line. Dictators desperately desire everyone’s compliance despite own crimes, even if that destroys everything that sustains society. An old French saying, "You grow to hate those you've wronged," explains why GOP wants to strip the poor and retired of earned entitlements, including social security you’ve involuntarily paid into for an entire career. Once they gain congressional and court control, none of these issues matter anymore, because it's all about blind hate, callous domination, donor support, and trickle “up" tricks. GOP hasn't introduced any domestic or international policies since Reagan; they vote lockstep with their totalitarian goal of destroying democracy.

Must mind what John Stuart Mill said even before Edmund Burke, “Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends than that good men should look on and do nothing.” Labann warned about this decades ago. Speaking out and standing up define democracy. Ambitious bullies want to rule world, but they don’t know what to do, so leave details to whomever they think they'd like, never some unassuming public servant who’d quietly and selflessly perform, rather some charismatic snake oil salesman in their own image who'll promise whatever constituents want yet never deliver.

Certain candidate ads don’t mention party for whom they are running. These closet Republican bimbos, con artists, flip-floppers, rapists, and the totally unqualified blame Democrats for problems they created. Could be explained by brain defects (crack babies, FAS, years of substance abuse, etc.) or mental disorders (antisocial sociopathy, dementia, depression, low self esteem, mania, narcissism, etc.), not that one should ostracize or vilify those who are mentally ill. When challenged in social media, they immediately call for a sidebar lest they be exposed.

Without exaggeration, what’s at stake during this midterm campaign are citizens’ access to ballots and expectation to have votes counted; climate action with energy diversification; constitutional freedoms of self determination; continuation of earned entitlements for healthcare and retirement; correction of social and taxation injustices; and criminalization of medical care choices. Already $30 trillion in debt, nation can’t keep handing public treasury to an oligarchy.

“Systems wrecking the environment are the same harmful systems that are dividing people and causing social inequality. Patriarchy, racism – these things are very connected to extractivism and destroying the environment. I think that these fights need to be connected. Feminism, the fight for social justice, anti-racism, anti-fascism and climate justice are in many cases the same fights.” Greta Thunberg, teen activist who already knows that conservatives, dictators and fascists are an existential threat to humanity.

Bicycling commuter Labann has decided to start a carbon credit registry, and become someone from whom you can purchase carbon offsets, a $2 billion/year racket that supposedly exonerates wasteful corporations from their environmental impact. Labann’s standards go further than most by consuming 80% vegan and zero beef, maintaining a junglelike yard as a nature preserve, recycling 75% of solid wastes, shutting all but one low energy light at night, supplanting miles driven with those biked, and supporting local farms directly by riding to their stands for purchases, thereby mitigating semi-tractor trailer trips to supermarkets, winding up below 3 tons of carbon footprint per year. Analysis shows all these activities annually avoid nearly 14 tons from national average of 16 tons of household carbon dioxide emissions, yours to purchase for a price of $5/ton, or entire lot at a discount of $50/year.

“Money cannot buy happiness, but it’s more comfortable to cry in a Mercedes than on a bicycle,” supposedly said cancer victim, chain smoker, and screen actor John Wayne, who might also be deemed a mass murderer as a macho role model who promoted tobacco abuse, among the top 5 deadly habits that shorten life along with continual stress, excessive sitting, inattentive motoring, and poor diet. Patrizia Gucci upped ante by substituting a Rolls Royce.

Wayne didn’t originate saying, which has been around since Jean Jacques Rousseau in The 18th Century in various forms alongside a contradictory saying, “Money is the root of all evil.” Greediest repeatedly cite both to stifle competition so as to leave more for them to grab. Money can be another tool gathering dust, while spending can also be a deadly addiction. Too much success sucks, while poverty can kill you from hunger, violence, and whatnot. When will people learn that balance and moderation are better?

Anyway, it’s not bicyclists who are crying, since exercise boosts mood, rather motorists grieving over their precious investment into a dying paradigm while stuck in gridlock worrying about EVMs supplanting ICEs. Readers seek entertainment, not advice. Comfort, encouragement, hope, inspiration seldom attract as much as schadenfreude for the agony of others.

Self interest masks heinous sin; guilt elicits flimsy excuses. Lies put proverbial lipstick on greedy pigs. Legitimate excuses could silence you forever, but perverse pleasure can be had by sticking a pin in an inflated opinion. Losing a delusion soothes more than learning a truth. Rolling among those asleep, Labann doesn’t delve too deep, makes a point, and moves on. While you still can, take care to exercise your right to vote without fear, or don't complain about results of campaign.