Blog Momentané

Rhymes can be inadvertent (lame) or intentional (earnest), but, in either case, ought to be avoided with a vengeance. Prose riddled with rhymes may have required extraordinary achievement but questionable judgment. Littering with catch phrases doesn't execute literary excellence. Hip-hop and rap artists only appreciate how lyrics sound, not what they expound. Far from permanent, blogs and books intended as legacies arrive and depart far below starry firmament.

For 6 decades charged climbs, parsed pavement, pushed pedals, and sweated profusely, while thinking about the government. Doubled miles on a now antique refurbished De Rosa, from around 125,000 to 250,000, and wore out a few 10-speeds. Frequently engaged in advocacy deeds with multiple results on ground. When bones rattled over root buckle on bike paths, reverted to roadways 4 times wider, because they usually present unbroken ways through, but had to dodge a slew of dopey drivers. Have begrudged dangerous underpasses and lingered on overpasses looking down upon them with disgust and shivers. Called upon suburban borders and woods beyond, but country distances beget unsafe speeds. Since bicyclists negligibly impact environment and traffic, they’re entitled to rage against every automotive doofus whose operating rudeness causes carcinogenic stress. But worst of all is being edged aside and falling behind some couch potato on a brand new e-bike, moped, or Segway. How can you atone for gluttony and sloth that way‽ Bicycling probes vitality and proves you’re not dead already.

August to October in New England should be primetime for pedicycling, but 95°F heat and 95% humidity have been conspiring against. Although locally expect one per year, experiencing 4th heat wave; some meteorologists think they ought to be named to caution public to their dangers. Meanwhile, one hurricane after another hurries along horizon. A recent 17” record rainfall caused death and destruction, and Tennessee cries on. But everything about bicycles is water resistant: apparel, carbon fiber, finished metals, rubber, skin, even some smartphones. You don't need a weather man to know which way the winds blow. Air conditioning makes reading books and viewing films tolerable when going for a spin seems dubitable. Films, an amalgam of all art forms, may be terminal entertainment only surpassed by really doing. Why mull over reasons for saying no? Will soon be shoveling snow and wondering when next able to go.

Serious randonneur Daniel “Travelin’ Dude” Troia spent 16 years crisscrossing continent by bike on a freegan quest to connect culturally. During last 5 he documented his wanderings, resulting in a trio of thoroughly relevant films: The Road Less Traveled (2015), Two Wheels to Freedom (2017), and We Are All in This Together (2020). “I decided to set off on a cross-country bicycle journey with the hope of gaining a better understanding of the human connection during these divisive times. I didn't bring any food or money with me, because I thought that would create a unique way of interacting with the people that I came in contact with. By my hidden camera glasses show the REAL, candid interactions that I had with people that I met along the way... drone to capture landscapes... Gopro, to make the viewer feel like they were biking across the country with me.... There is much more that brings us together than what separates us!” Must have been rewarding meetings to warrant abiding deserts and mountains, dumpster diving and loneliness, rain and snow, getting there. Completely eclipses WQED’s 1-hour travelogue The Great Ride (Paul Ruggieri, dir., 2019) that covers 325 miles of C&O Canal Towpath and Great Allegheny Passage (GAP) from Washington, D.C. to Pittsburgh, PA through eyes of group/individual hosts, who don’t seem to mind that much of it isn’t marked, maintained, paved, or properly lit.

Dreamland (Miles Joris-Peyrafitte, dir., 2019) portrays dirt poor dustbowl dreamer Eugene Evans (Finn Cole) looking for a way out of a rural Texas town where he shoplifts crime magazines with his buddy Joe Garza (Stephen Dinh). When they hear there’s a reward for the capture of Allison Wells (Margot Robbie), they set out on bikes as a small mounted posse to search. Turns out, she’s holed up and wounded in Evans family’s barn. She offers to double reward if Eugene helps her escape to Mexico. Using his bike in creative ways, he learns truth about her accomplice, yet steals resources they need to go on lam, which is what happens when government fails to respond to dire needs of desperate citizens.

Superfluous mockumentary J. R. "Bob" Dobbs and the Church of the SubGenius (Sandy K. Boone, dir., 2020) depicts how you may ride a bicycle to attend slacker revivals, which ridicule enormously profitable evangelical betrayals. Raises a question: Why support a society that lauds whoever fits some arbitrary definition of genius and laughs away ordinary but substantial contributions from those less gifted? So-called geniuses do create and innovate, but what’s crucial to survival gets done by rote parroting and routine practicing. Ayn Rand objectivism aimed at encouraging supermen left regular workers dangling. Cults of perfection reap ruin, but you probably belong to one.

Teens bike and walk to convene at a diner, where they hope to hook up and pair off in weirdly dystopian Ham on Rye (Tyler Taormina, dir., 2020). Exemplifies bicycle spice sprinkled on filmic fabric leaving a cultural stain. Can you make sense of a vicious world if you commit to a relationship and devote energies into maintaining it? Escapes duty to rest of humanity, simplifies routines, solves nothing, and taunts destiny.

Micro-budget flick The Adventures of the Adventures (J. Matthew Welker, dir., 2020) follows a family who In 2020 moved from metropolitan Los Angeles to rural Franklin, Tennessee, expecting safer streets and slower pace, though record heat and rainfall would later ensue. Adventure family’s 6-year-old prodigy Irie (Irie Welker) and 7-year-old sibling Camden (Camden Welker) discover in their own backyard a map to lost Civil War treasure, then race around on bikes to retrieve clues before villainous archaeologist Rockwell Shaw (Joshua Welker) gets his hands on it, or them. 

Vampires vs. The Bronx (Oz Rodriguez, dir., 2020) has teen bicyclist Miguel Martinez (Jaden Michael) and his minor posse fighting to save their neighborhood from gentrification when they discover an invading coven of vampires feeding on locals. Features in a cameo role Clifford “Method Man” Smith of Wu Tang Clan, who Rolling Stone called the greatest rap group of all time.

DC’s Stargirl, Season 2, Episode 3 (Lea Thompson, dir., 2021), profiles Courtney Whitmore’s (Brec Bassinger) stepbrother Mike Dugan (Trae Romano), a bullied bicycling paperboy who revives mercurial original JSA superhero Thunder Bolt. Both are comically inept, making them a dangerous pair, reminiscent of trivial villain Johnny Gasparini (Demian Slade) in Better Off Dead (Savage Steve Holland, dir., 1985).

Self-absorbed socialite widow Frances Price (Michelle Pfeiffer) retrieves borderline personality disorder son Malcolm (Lucas Hedges) from private school, mostly because she can no longer ignore him after 10 years or pay his bed and board. Facing eviction and nearly broke a decade later, she converts her frozen assets for final stacks of 100 euro notes, then jets to Paris to occupy a friend’s vacant apartment. Devoted son follows. Little wonder Malcolm’s fiancé Susan (Imogen Poots) breaks up with him. Among first things Frances does in Paris is buy Malcolm a fancy utility bike, since it’s Christmas Eve and she’s never given him a holiday present. He seems to enjoy tooling around swanky 5th Arrondissement of The City of Lights. However, as soon as euros are gone, she plans to leave without warning, thus make a proverbial French Exit (Azazel Jacobs, dir., 2021).

Sounds like a strategy for discontinuing a blog: No explanation, fanfare, regrets or tears. B&C, though personal and precious, was but a blip in Labann’s lifetime output. Always so much bicycling culture to cover, certain items only merited a mere mention or single sentence. Slackers expect someone else to delve into deep reportage, fill in blanks, while a bicycle makes an appropriate conveyance for sub-genius scholars to brave elements and bring forth what’s emerging for “a sub-literate America” led by unstable supporters of genocide. “Facebook is what replaced reading,” Bill Maher went on to say, but shouldn’t that include propaganda networks, public rallies, QAnon insurrections, rancorous tweets, seditious websites, and unscrupulous infomercials?

Busy people elect officials then expect them to manage weight of state with sense and tolerance. Enjoying arts, media, music, sports and such supports financial sectors that diversify economy. Unfortunately, politics is a major draw for amoral, narcissistic, sociopathic villains, because candidates aren't vetted for insanity or intelligence. The more anti-press and reading averse, the more popular they become among mindless louts who constitute a third of electorate. Give thanks that majority isn’t so lame brained, and one in ten does read and reflect, which applies duct tape that holds civilization together.

“I surrender to the heat by falling into its dry slow beat. I could lose myself forever aching for some peace of mind, aching for a little justice, whatever that is. Rehearsing to cut the last string. From here on it's all racing downhill in loss and anger on an ancient bicycle... like a burned out little saintbug.” The Bear Quartet, Rehearsing to Cut the Last String, Everybody Else, A West Side Fabrication, 1995

“Hey, hey, come look and see my footsteps through eternity. Riding hard and strong and free, the messenger will hold the key. I saw him. I knew him.” Jimmy Page & Robert Plant, When The World Was Young, Walking Into Clarksdale, Mercury, 1998

Face Betalain

Jaclyn Conley, In a New Field, 2020

“It was an April morning when they told us we should go. As I turned to you, you smiled at me, how could we say no? Oh, the fun to have, to live the dreams we always had. Oh, the songs to sing when we at last return again... Below the streets that steam and hiss, the devil's in his hole... The shackles of commitment fell in pieces on the ground. Oh, to ride the wind, to tread the air above the din. Oh, to laugh aloud dancing as we fought the crowds, yeah. To seek the man whose pointing hand, the giant step unfolds. With guidance from the curving path that churns up into stone... So fast the heart should beat as proud the head with heavy feet, yeah. Days went by when you and I, bathed in eternal summer's glow, as far away and distant our mutual child did grow... Wandering and wandering, what place to rest the search? I know the way, know the way...” Led Zeppelin, Achilles Last Stand, Presence, Swan Song Records, 1975, 10-minutes of epic rock with lyrics written by Robert Plant while recovering from a traffic accident, seems more bicycling relevant today than when released nearly half a century ago, before 20,000 saddle hours for Labann, who subsequently recounted nearly identical misgivings and thanksgivings. Seasoned wanderers will always say they’re "having fun" and "know the way". Won’t be included in official list, though friends know Bob [shown below] to be a bicyclist, while Jimmy Page sweats his way through his favorite song to perform live.

Around for a baker’s dozen of years since book dropped, blog carefully traced bicycling turf but never found a following. Might as well been merely momentary on a scale of cultural commentary within cycling’s dual century. Harder to get read blogging or publishing than trolling on-line, if that’s your lone ambition. No contributor in an ongoing chain ever scores final word anyway. Scholarship and wordsmithy are arduous, ephemeral, stressful, thankless, and worrisome. Unless you crave attention, crawl back into anonymity.

Whatever you personally reveal works to your disadvantage. Disappointments anger associates and regrets rile intimates. Saying nothing sounds sensible but makes entire world stupider, as if not ignorant enough already. If you don’t disclose thoughts and expose preferences, sometimes denigrate self, you seldom get to hear truths, though many prefer blissful serenity of jejune immaturity to a betalain face beet red from consummate embarrassment.

Writers try to censor what you’ll hear and see, champion personal causes, jealously guard ideas conceived and observations noted, set themselves up as arbiters of style and taste, and take no one’s needs into account but their own. Writers denigrate word craft as difficult and unprofitable to discourage those who would outcompete them and steal clients. Media exists to pepper you with inanity, thereby deter investigations into organized criminality. Ruthless spin interferes with making sense of each tragedy. You can’t change what occurred, but ought to learn from mistakes and plan accordingly. Reporters can’t find it in themselves to be comprehensive, courageous, honest, informed, persistent, unabashed, or unprejudiced, what it takes to tell the truth, which is why you so seldom hear any it’s hard to recognize. Easier to fill airtime with boldfaced lies. Do readers and viewers deserve better, and why does it matter? You have to explore your world for yourself anyway.

Never visit websites with barriers (click bait, forced cookies, or sign up), so content has little or no influence on Labann. Facts for free come from bicycling around, bulletin boards, direct email, documentary films, dotgovs, listservs, personal conversations, social media, or whatever blog such as B&C doesn’t advertise or otherwise restrict gathering data. Most people accept the same; anything easily found shapes opinion, while best intelligence gets dismissed or remains hidden. Public is unaware of extent of data analyses belonging to corporations and government alone. In general, most literature gets redacted or shredded, goes unpublished, or isn’t for public viewing.

But issues that could ruin your life bear close scrutiny. Does a pandemic that killed over 4 million and reduced life expectancy by 2 years make you avoid public? Does a blood red full moon from giant forest fires [here foreseen] causing a smoke cloud covering entire continent and climate crisis causing record temperatures worry you? Do random shootings nearby with no arrests, talk of defunding police, and unpunished vehicular homicide make you think civility is breaking down? Does any of these keep you from riding your bike? Leave home with reservations? Return wondering why?

Vanity Fair contributor Fran Lebowitz recently confessed, “People call me negative... I think I’m just realistic. I tell the truth... which is very rarely positive... I’m judgmental, something you’re not supposed to be... just means I have standards...What difference does it make? I don’t have any power. I’m not making any decisions for other people... People in politics make real decisions for you... Republicans... shameful and shameless... They care about nothing except retaining the power they have at the moment... It’s a cult. They’re saying if they can’t keep certain people from voting they can never win.” Strikes a chord with Labann, who's been saying the same since 1980.

Why is it that native soil can be thrown into utter turmoil when one election cycle goes awry? A chief executive is but one member of an entire government staffed by thousands of individuals among a third of a billion citizens, who appear to be mostly apathetic, asleep or naïve. Tolerance for televangelism frauds ushered in propaganda networks bent on billionaire oligarchy. Same traitors who imploded Twin Towers twenty years ago in 2001 still hold sway over Congress. Undue influence of a fake family pulling puppet strings is both disturbing and irrational.

Feel like asking Jon Stewart to retract his statement in 2011, “I feel like this country is stronger than any individual you can throw at it... I don’t think personally the damage they can do is so drastic and so great that we would ever be run off course by one individual... I pray that Trump runs. He puts his name on everything. I could put a new wing on my house if the fat guy runs.” Facetious gum flapping encourages fascism and folly.

Credentials, expertise, facts, and truth don’t matter anymore. Dropouts, incompetents, and morons agitate masses and wield power. Future anthropologists and historians will categorize Trumpists into three groups: Coconspirators who criminally profited, completely delusional nincompoops, and craven selfish clowns without empathy or remorse. Yes, something is terribly wrong in US governance: Slow to react to urgent needs, too busy stuffing pockets from trillions in tax revenue, and too conservative or liberal on wrong issues. Dolt 45 simply acknowledged this, justified his 30,000 documented lies as clever misinformation, so erased his crime lord legacy and gained celebrity supremacy. Only 24% of voters now affiliate with Republicans; scrambling to shore up a dying party, GOP denied free elections, filibustered, and gerrymandered to such an extent that they hang onto power by their fingernails.

Because nazis burn books, authors must foment dissent and write more. Certain empathetic documentaries and feature films renew focus on consequential issues rather than distracting dodges. What matters most in a cruel world is how humans evade existential threats, interact gently, trade fairly, treat one another respectfully, and utilize sustainably. In each film cited, bicycles factored in personal growth of protagonists.

A frank, gritty, teenage story set in inner-city Los Angeles, Model Minority (Lily Mariye, dir., 2012) won 11 awards. Kayla Tanaka (Nichole Bloom), an underprivileged Japanese American 16 year old bicylist, endangers her promising future as an artist when she becomes involved with a drug dealer. She barely manages to survive the treacherous world of criminal subculture, dysfunctional family, juvenile hall, and peer pressure, while dispelling notion that Orientals, who represent less than 6% of nation's population, make model Americans, while individuals independent of origin range from conservative to liberal, crooked to honest, and despicable to exemplary.

Filmed in 6 European countries, Bikes Tell Stories (Milan Lisica, dir., 2014) profiles six people for whom cycling is a way of life, where bravery means doing scary things and loss is only real if you allow it to be. The fact that change can motivate intertwines these stories, which promote cycling as an adventure, inspiration, method for self-awareness, rebirth of dreams, and therapy for mind and body.

After a Peace Corps stint in Ecuador, where only his landlord had a bicycle, David Schweidenback learned empathy and resolved to send America’s castoff bikes to developing towns as an economic aid. In 1991, Nicaraguan city of Rivas was the first to receive them, which transformed this war torn community into The Bicycle City (Greg Sucharew, dir., 2016) through simple mechanical implementation.

For a timely endeavor, cheer on and delve into USA’s underdog Olympic Women's Track Cycling Team. Personal Gold (Sky and Tamara Christopherson, dirs., 2016) describes how with minimal support they won silver for Team Pursuit in London 2012, first USA track medalists in 20 years. Male racers were excluded because of Armstrong’s doping scandal, while peloton still focuses not on amateur glory but big money. One bad apple always spoils entire barrel. In 2021, Jennifer Valente won gold in the Women’s Omnium, while in Women’s 400 Meter Hurdles Sydney McLaughlin set a new world record. USA won more gold, silver and bronze medals in Tokyo than any other participating nation.

Bicicles (Kim Kelln, dir., 2017) explains why winter cycling isn't something only hardcore elites and hearty insane do in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Naysayers nevertheless, hundreds don mittens and toques, pedal off to work in bitter cold, and refuse to stop riding bicycles despite falling snow and hanging icicles. Documentary introduces four heroes on frozen commutes, and shares interviews with business organizations, city councillors, and men on the street in a metropolis where cycling has become increasingly mainstream.

Puerile Netflix premiere Aliens Ate My Homework (Sean McNamara, dir., 2018) has preteen bicycling cousins Rod Allbright (Jayden Greig) and Elspeth McMasters (Lauren McNamara) aiding Galactic Patrol’s hunt for rogue world killer Bakar, who’s disguised as classroom bully Billy Becker (Ty Consiglio).

Adam Ruins Everything, Season 3, Episode 8, Adam Ruins Murder (Jon Wolf, dir., 2019) lambastes law enforcers and legislators for lax handling of vehicular homicides after a bicyclist gets mowed down. Apart from cancer and cardiovascular diseases, both caused by automotive convenience and big oil carcinogens, driving badly while distracted, drowsy, drugged or drunk accounts for almost as many deaths and losses as bad diet and exercise deficit. Greed ignores duty to species, while wars for automotive resources threatens all life on planet.

Riding Indurain

Critics are aware of psychogeography in David Hockney’s landscape paintings but don't notice his preoccupation with bicycling. Some of this synaesthetic painter’s earliest memories were of dad painting actual bikes in bright colors. ”I worked on a farm. I cycled around here for two summers. I used to cycle up to Scarborough, Whitby, a long way actually. You get to know it, and you know it’s hilly if you’re cycling. I was always attracted to it. I always thought it had a space. One of the thrills of landscape is that it’s a spatial experience.” Any cyclist instantly relates. Escapist rural rides reveal a series of vignettes and vistas each with its unique array of internalized influences.

David Hockney, Going up Garrowby Hill, 2000... so like scenes on Grand Tour of France you wouldn’t know that its inspiration was day tripping around East Riding, Yorkshire, England, probably with a ciggie dangling from his lip.

Scenery goes unnoticed while riding in the rain or sweating through heat waves. Due to global warming and oppressive weather, Labann missed typical June and July outings. Sun finally broke through thick clouds to tempt a metric century, something better than sharing insights in solitude, but too out of shape to attempt. Should be used to being deprived after 17 months of preemptive pandemic. At least got to watch drama of Mark Cavendish first tying then nearly beating Eddie Merckx’s record of 34 stage wins, short only by a wheel’s radius on final sprint. Phil Liggett branded him a Scorcher, a term that harks way back to George Rosey’s 1897 piano march, which until recently was never recorded as written, though US Naval Academy Band did an orchestral version.

Originated in 1903 as a way to promote automotive periodical sales, Le Tour de France persists as world’s most popular sporting event attended by tens of millions and watched on television by maybe a billion, despite scandals over blood doping, mechanical cheating, and outdated pretext. One might argue that its prize is too fiercely coveted, rules too unforgiving, and stamina demands too brutal. Living general classification winners constitute the most exclusive club in global sports, fewer than even football franchise owners, especially after arbitrarily disqualifying certain winners.

To honor commitments of hundreds of TdF participants, Sophia Deboick published a timely article that studied related songs. Earliest she cites were Frédo Gardoni, The Yellow Jersey [Le maillot jaune, 1936, not even Gardoni’s first, P'tit gars du tour (Marche officielle du Tour de France 1932)], and Edward ‘Monty’ Montauby, Ah! Here They Are! also from 1936, which describes a sideline view as race leaders approach. Had she simply consulted Wikipedia, she would have found Labann’s list with Perchicot, Les Tours de France (Chanson roulante) from a decade before, 1927, and other fascinating precedents.

Before WWII jaunty accordion tunes, sometimes called bal-musettes especially when accompanied by bellows bagpipes and horse bells, captured festive air of residents and tourists on Bastille Day holiday and July vacations partying and picnicking in bucolic backwaters. Nowadays, insurrectionists storming institutions goes down badly, while xenophobes want to bury World Best competitions, particularly Olympics. Musette is also what cyclists call their feed bag; long straps enable them to snatch while riding extended stages. Before germophobia and reliability emerged, roadside groves provided fireplaces to grill lunch while making repairs or resting your flivver. By 1960 songs had become increasingly irreverent and sarcastic and tended to single out challengers and victors.

While Deboick delightfully dissected some already listed, she directly disclosed 5 new ones, a number that forever symbolized balance, congratulations, cycling, freedom, friendship, gratitude, love, luck, perfection, and rescue:
Luis Mariano, Notre tour de France [French], Chante Le Pays Basque, La Voix De Son Maître, 1957.
Marcel Amont, il a le maillot jaune [French], aka He has the yellow jersey, il a le maillot jaune  EP, Polydor, 1960, describes race’s GC leaders through 1940, well ahead of Greg Lemond, Lance Armstrong, Miguel Indurain, or 2021’s two-peat winner Tadej Pogačar.

Jean-Louis Murat, Le champion espagnol, aka The Spanish Champion [for ace climber Federico Bahamontes], Grand lièvre, V2, 2011.
Dick Annegarn, Vélo vole [Dutch in French], Vélo Va, Tôt Ou Tard (2014).
Litku Klemetti, Tour de France [Finnish], single, Luova Records (2021).

Due to this discussion of cycling heroes lyrically lionized, expanded own song search. Incredibly and indirectly, found a full score more. Thought official list was almost comprehensive, especially among titles from previous centuries. “Complete” is a term used only by isolated idiots who ignore linguistics and locales.

André Verchuren, Vive Poulidor [for France's favorite underdog Raymond Poulidor], single, label unknown, 1968.

Guido Belcanto, Vive le Tour de France [Belgian], Een Zanger Moet Trachten Pijn Te Verzachten [compiliation, song origin year not determined], Cluster-Park, 2019, names a bunch of recent peloton riders, including Chris Froome, Marc Cavendish, and Nairo Quintana.

Fluminera, Vai Pirata [Italian, for Marco Pantani], Schiavo del Tempo EP, (label unknown), 2011. Better still, Guido Belcanto directly sang a love ballad to Marco, and Pantani joined in singing.

Marc "The Manx Missile" Cavendish got props in one music video with irrelevant tune Avenged Sevenfold, Hail to the King, Hail to the King, WMG, 2013. Marc’s ready to join famous C’s - Fausto “Il Campionissimo” Coppi and Mario “The Lion King” Cipollini - and legendary M’s - Eddy “The Cannibal” Merckx, Freddy “The Dominator” Maertens, and Francesco “The Sheriff” Moser. However, for Cavendish to catch Merckx in terms of songs, he'll have to inspire 2 dozen more.

Philippe d'Annevoy, J’aime bien Eddy Merckx, single, Weekend, circa 1972, boasts “On the four walls of my room, you can see yellow everywhere. It’s the harvest of the Tours de France that Eddy brought home.”

Touting a fellow from Flanders was Ronnie En De Pilchards, Freddy Maertens, Wereldkampioen, 7” single, Paprika Records, circa 1975, available on compilation Vlaamse Troeven Volume 209, Scorpion, 2020. While not an original song, a music video also surfaced based on Noël Couëdel’s biography Maertens le dynamiteur, 1977.

A pair appeared for Moser, who like Labann rode a De Rosa: Forza Francesco, televised live circa 1975, and Francesco Moser, both from unknown artists and sources.

Miguel Indurain, only Tour de France champion with 5 consecutive wins, active from 1986 to 1997, has no less than 3 albums/bands that share his name, and inspired several previously unnoticed songs. Spring Versus Indurain, Be My Star EP, Elephant Records, 1995, was named for a collaboration with Marc Collin of band Indurain, whose album Indurain, Barclay, 1993 doesn’t at all appear to celebrate cycling. On the other hand, eponymous album of indie band Indurain from Toulouse, France in 2012 contains 8 titles apparently inspired by Big Mig.

When they were still dating, Sheryl Crow wrote the title track of her album Wildflower, A&M, 2005, for boyfriend Lance Armstrong. Lyrics never mention cycling, but suggest spectator scenarios: “I was free until I heard the song you sang to me pulling me away from everything I knew to be with you... Every time you go, it hurts me so. I don't know why, when I know we're free, free to fly. Here we are, burning faster than the cursed star, falling back down to the Earth. I love you so it sometimes hurts. Closer still, you will find me waiting on the hill, waiting for you with my arms stretched open wide.” Easy to imagine Crow’s embrace after a TdF mountain stage that year, though in 2010 she’d rat out her “cursed star” to FBI for an immunity deal.

Jimi Blue, The King is Back, Sick Like That, Polydor, 2008, refers to Armstrong, too, who thrived upon a playlist including Jeff Buckley, Led Zeppelin, Ryan Adams, Rolling Stones, Wallflowers, and Wilco.

Future User, Mountain Lion, #SteroidsOrHeroin, AWOLNation, 2015 was prompted by Armstrong’s bad example and even samples Lance’s personal phone call to band member Tim Commerford, former Audioslave bassist, who sees outrage over PEDs as hypocritical given today’s drug culture. Chris Cornell might have added, “Take one link from this Misery Chain. Keep it to remind you... If I should fall from the top of the world to the depths below.” Big Pharma just signed a multi-billion dollar deal to avoid multiple suits over the multitude of opioid addictions to which they contributed.

Newly released, Victor Zupanc, Bicycle, Welcome to My World, self, 2021. "Fly like an eagle, thorugh time and space... the sun in my eye, I'm king of the road."

Back on Bike, Narain?

"If we don't have the right to breath and walk freely then we cannot talk of city's development. Freedom from all pollution ought to be seen as a matter of right,” said Director General Sunita Narain of New Delhi’s Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), a position she has held for 4 decades from which she earned listing among Time’s 100 Most Influential People and numerous international awards. A year before, this advocate of commuter bicycling, ecology regeneration, poverty reduction, and sustainable practices was mowed down by a motorist while pedaling to work, sustaining severe injuries. Name of Narain derives from Sanskit term nārāyaṇá, literally "eternal man”. Inundated with hesitancy and negativity, some percentage of cyclists will always become disillusioned and give up.

Despite Narain’s courageous return to cycling and persistent environmental warning, air pollution in India’s cities has now reached crisis levels. Global warming has also caused record heats and resultant droughts throughout America’s West. Can forest fires be far behind? Republican senators still only support one congressional bill calling for improving roads to burn fossil fuels faster. Their reckless greed and rigid reliance on gun and oil lobbies will doom mankind. Don't look to heroes for redemption.

Your basic humanity is denied if you can’t safely bike or walk alongside motor vehicles. Motorists have no exclusive right to roads, merely a regulated privilege; they must operate within rules, remediate pollution, and share with all other users. Since society largely overlooks this for sake of convenience and ease, those who travel sustainably get called jaywalkers, have been marginalized, often sacrificed, and sometimes shot.

Ben Passmore, Once More, With Feeling [excerpt panel], April 15th, 2021

Hypocrites who belittle decent choices and family values run NGOs that cover all sorts of lesser issues. One billion innocents have been massacred by motor vehicles since introduced. Between Juneteenth and July 4th humanity should be inspired to seek freedom from nation’s 3 biggest scourges: Cancers, car crashes, and cardiovascular diseases, all resulting from automotive and petrochemical devotion. Pandemic binge watching begat bogus shame phrase “quarantine fifteen”, though 61% of Americans do admit recent weight gain with 45% now overweight amidst twin epidemics of diabetes and obesity. Fat people should bike shamelessly, since they’d benefit most.

Ameliorative alternatives and transportation interaction will always be legitimate topics for discussion and expletives. Evidence abounds in art forms: Books, movies, poems, and songs that Labann continues to discover and highlight, not just someone’s unexamined top 10. Thousands of media examples have contributed to one of the biggest bike booms in history. Who now can call Bicycling Culture a non sequitur or oxymoron? It’s a way to address most of what ails mankind. Vive le velorution! Need B&C go on boring and cajoling readers with big words and compelling statements?

Antisocial teen bicyclist Dinky Bossetti (Winona Ryder) anxiously prepares to Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael (Jim Abrahams, dir., 1990) along with majority of Clyde, Ohio residents, who have planned a gala event. Adopted as an infant, she believes her birth parents are Denton Webb (Jeff Daniels) and title demimondaine Roxy, who as a teen abandoned a baby and town for national celebrity. Perennial Oscar nominee Thomas Newman wrote film’s score including one minute instrumental G on a Bike about school crush Gerald Howells (Thomas Wilson Brown), who also rides. Stinky Dinky expects mom to take her away, thereby finally savor acceptance. Instead she grows up after learning a cruel life lesson.

Contestants in Blainsworth Bike-a-Thon pedal right into Night of the Twisters (Timothy Bond, dir., 1996). Teen protagonist Danny Hatch (Devon Sawa) tacos his front wheel on final sprint, so loses race, but wins raffle for a brand new bike. Later he’s riding to protect community against a rash of Nebraska tornados.

Seeing his bicyclist cheerleader crush Madison (Nicole Badaan) being sexually propositioned by adult redneck hunters in a pickup truck, Percy (Adam Raque) creates a diversion and ditches them on his BMX. Unfortunately, deep in woods he takes a wrong turn into an endo and winds up unconscious. When he comes to, he meets a new friend, Bigfoot (Kevin Tenney, dir., 2009). Lots of pedaling later, Percy’s bike posse saves Bigfoot from hunters. This Family Channel feature had cost only one-fiftieth of Harry and the Hendersons (William Dear, dir., 1987), which also runs counter to allegedly ferocious Sasquatch behavior and undermines any cryptozoological assessment.

Exists (Eduardo Sánchez, dir., 2014) mimics Blair Witch filmography to tell horror story of five East Texas campers. Arriving at Uncle Bob’s remote cabin, they encounter evidence they are being stalked. Besieged by Bigfoot, who destroys their car, group hunkers down while Matt (Samuel Davis) bikes to where there’s cell reception to call Bob for help. Bad mistake. Despite shelter, technology and weapons, nobody survives mayhem.

Hin und weg (aka Tour de Force, Christian Zübert, dir., 2014), has sun setting on Hannes (Florian David Fitz). At onset of his circle’s annual bike tour he reveals it will be his last. ALS diagnosis gives him 6 months of physical participation before succumbing to neuromuscular incapacity. Shocked and tearful, they embark as planned on a wild adventure in Belgium, celebrating life as never before, realizing how precious life is.

Classic narrative is replaced with hypnotic images and trance beats in Polish drama Jak calkowicie zniknac (aka How to Disappear Completely, Przemyslaw Wojcieszek, dir., 2014). Two ladies, Gerda (Agnieszka Podsiadlik) and Little Bandit (Pheline Roggan) meet in Berlin’s underground, then drift seductively by bike, on foot, and riding subway through its night-scape. As Radiohead, whence title, said, “Melody is dead; rhythm is king.” Substitute “story” and “exploits”, and you get gist of director's intention.

Musíme se sejít (aka We Need to Meet, David Král, dir., 2016), follows gross misadventures of hapless Czech cycling foursome (one with teen son in tow), played by amateur actors (standup comedians), as they tour landscape outside Prague en route to Bambus Camp that they nostalgically recall from youth, long since closed. Critics weren’t amused by this “Dumber and Dumberest” low budget road trip.

Au Nom de la Terre (aka In The Name of the Land, Edouard Bergeon, dir., 2019) is based upon director’s own upbringing. After roaming Rocky Mountain ranches and seeing world a bit, Pierre Jarjeau (Guillaume Canet) returns to buy out family business west of Paris from his cruel, unforgiving father. His young family bikes through the bucolic Mayenne landscape like so many recreational day trippers and Tour de France dreamers. But reality of living off the land today is shocking. This film exposes bank loans, conservative bullying, corporate pressures, and tax brutality for suicidal desperation they impose on agricultural lifestyles. Rural isolationists don’t realize how much they’re cherished by those who rely on their contributions. But it’s not why aging champion Mark Cavendish, having arrived at nearby Pontivy dismissed from former team but given a chance by another, sat crying after his 31st TdF stage win, second only to Eddie Merckx’s 34. On final sprint in Stage 21, he'd miss breaking record by a wheel radius.

Just out on Disney+, new Pixar animated feature Luca (Enrico Casarosa, dir., 2021), follows mermen buddies Alberto (Jack Dylan Grazer) and Luca (Jacob Tremblay) onto beach of Italian coastline (Cinque Terre), where they assume human form (as long as kept dry) and befriend Giulia (Emma Berman), who introduces them to terrestrial thrills and watches Luca race down hills on her single speed bike. Daredevil duo also rigs up an abandoned Vespa into a BMX ramp jumper. Their chance to fulfill dreams and gain acceptance comes from winning a triathlon with Luca riding bike leg. This family fare is rated G with plenty of pathos and pesto. 

Petite Madeleine

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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